I hope that everyone who was able to attend our East Side Bike Ride enjoyed the trip. I had a great time meeting others who were interested in this topic. Here are some photos from the trip:

Meeting in front of the 100 + year old Ford plant to discuss future plans:

Image Credit: Andy Arenson

Image Credit: Andy Arenson

Joe Smoker from NEAR joined us to help inform on housing construction and neighborhood redevelopment:

Image Credit: Andy Arenson

Image Credit: Andy Arenson

Image Credit: Andy Arenson

Image Credit: Andy Arenson

Enjoying the view from Highland Park:

Image Credit: Jim Hodapp

Thanks to Centerpoint Brewing for hosting the group at the end:

Image Credit: Andy Arenson

Thanks again to all who came to this event. I hope to do this type of gathering again in the future.

Indiana’s new policy will affect any potential transfer or incoming freshman.

Fred Glass and Indiana have sent a message that should a prospective athlete possess an official record of sexual violence, there is no place for them at Indiana University.

The policy reads as follows:

Any prospective student-athlete -- whether a transfer student, incoming freshman, or other status -- who has been convicted of or pled guilty or no contest to a felony involving sexual violence (as defined below), or has been found responsible for sexual violence by a formal institutional disciplinary action at any previous collegiate or secondary school (excluding limited discipline applied by a sports team or temporary disciplinary action during an investigation) shall not be eligible for athletically-related financial aid, practice or competition at Indiana University. Indiana University Athletics shall conduct an appropriate inquiry into every prospective student-athlete’s background consistent with the due diligence below prior to providing him/her athletically-related aid or allowing him/her to practice or compete.

The policy draws a firm, clear line: if you’re convicted of (or plead guilty / no contest to) a felony involving dating violence, domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, or sexual violence, it’s an automatic ban. The ban only covers felony-level violence, meaning any misdemeanor convictions or felony charges that are later dropped or otherwise resolved without a finding of guilt will not trigger the ban.

That said, since no one actually deals in such absolutes, the policy gives athletes with these kind of records the opportunity to become Hoosiers anyway:

Relief from this mandatory disqualification policy may only be granted by a panel consisting of the University Title IX Coordinator, University General Counsel, and University Faculty Athletics Representative after a review by it of all the pertinent facts available and a finding of compelling exceptional circumstances.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good policy to have. This blog has made their stance about how domestic / sexual violence transgressions should affect one’s candidacy to be a part of Indiana athletics in any capacity. Could the policy go further? Certainly. To me, what the policy demonstrates is a university-wide commitment to Get It Right when it comes to these kind of situations while also acknowledging that certain situations will require more nuanced approach than a blanket ban can provide, and that’s what the panel review can provide. Felony convictions for sexual violence isn’t something that’s going to come up frequently with potential players, but when it does, programs now have clear guidance from the athletic department about what to do.

Finally, the policy also makes it clear that a potential Indiana University athlete can be disqualified for a litany of other reasons, even if such a disqualification is not automatic. The policy goes as far as to say that athletes with “demonstrated unacceptable conduct” should be disqualified

In addition to the mandatory disqualification of prospective student-athletes with records of sexual violence as set forth in this policy, prospective student-athletes may and should be disqualified for other demonstrated unacceptable misconduct. Specifically, consistent with the Student Conduct Policy, IU Athletics will carefully consider whether to recruit any prospective student-athletes with any serious and/or repetitive criminal, school discipline, or other misconduct issues. Also consistent with that policy, the sport administrator for the pertinent sport must approve the recruitment of any prospective student-athlete with any serious and/or repetitive criminal, school discipline, or other misconduct issues.

In sum: Indiana is not going to ignore off-the-field/court/pitch/track/pool conduct in its evaluation of a prospective athlete and, in certain cases, their conduct will be the beginning and end of that evaluation.

A useful tool to have on hand while tasting, the wine flavor wheel is a visual glossary of wine terms organized by origin.

The lack of visual information in a glass of wine is a fundamental challenge in comprehending flavor.

Tasting different flavors in wine can be a bit tricky. One of the biggest reasons for this is because wines aren’t a visual experience. Let me explain. When we learn what oranges tastes like, we associate the flavor of an orange with what an orange citrus fruit looks like. We create a mental picture of an orange’s features, which help dictate our memory of its flavor and embed it into our minds. This works for all kinds of tastes and textures, and since wine has very few visual cues, it’s more difficult to create a strong memory of how it tastes.

Introducing The Wine Flavor Chart

The purpose of this chart is to help you quickly identify different aromas in wine with a color-coded flavor wheel. While we’re not the first to use a dendrogram (hierarchical tree diagram) for finding aromas in wine, you’ll find this particular chart to be both detailed and useful – especially if you’re a student of wine.

Basic Steps

1. Smell the wine (try closing your eyes)
2. Try to identify at least 3 different aromas using the flavor chart
3. See where the aromas came from (grape, yeast, or aging)

Wine aromas are moderately complex. It’s possible to detect several hundred aroma compounds in a single glass of wine. To make things more interesting, different aroma compounds can interact with other aromas to create new, more complex aromas. Fortunately, our noses are relatively good at distinguishing flavors in wine. All it takes is practice!

Where Do Wine Flavors Come From?

• Primary Flavors: Grape derived aromas include fruit, flower, and herb aromas.
• Secondary Flavors: Fermentation aromas smell like cream, bread, mushroom, or butter.
• Tertiary Flavors: Aromas that develop with aging and oxidation include vanilla, nuttiness, coffee, and tobacco.

One of the best techniques to try – especially if you’re a visual thinker – is to close your eyes while sniffing your glass. This removes any visual stimuli and gives your brain a chance to associate the smell with a different mental image, be it lemon zest, a pot of hot cherry syrup, or a lawnmower full of fresh-cut grass. There are no boundaries to the practice of identifying exactly what the aroma brings to mind. There are so many strange stereoisomers found in wine, you should never feel weird saying what you smell!

Once you have a relatively good idea of what you’re sniffing, look to see if its included on the flavor chart. If it fits one of the flavors (or is close to it), you can see how the aroma was created (grape, yeast or aging).

Using Impact Compounds To Blind Taste

The backside of the flavor chart includes over a dozen impact compounds in wine.

Blind tasting is a process of identifying what variety(ies), vintage, and region a wine is without knowing any details about it. One of the primary ways sommeliers and other skilled tasters do this is through identifying impact compounds.

An impact compound is an aroma compound that is commonly associated with a limited selection of wines or a specific winemaking process. For example, a wine aged in new oak barrels, will always have some presence of the compound called Whiskey Lactone, which smells sweet and slightly resinous like coconut, dill, and vanilla cola.

9-Inch Diameter Flavor Chart

Get a wine flavor chart shipped to your door. Made in Seattle, WA, USA.
 

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Wine Folly - Learn about wine.

Tasting wine engages more of our brain than any other human behaviour, according to the findings of a leading neuroscientist in the US.

From the first sight of the wine bottle to manipulating the wine in your mouth and then swallowing it, there is a ‘tremendous range of sensory, motor and central brain systems involved in a wine tasting’, says Yale neuroscientist Gordon Shepherd.

Taken all together, these processes involve more brain activity than listening to music or solving a complicated maths problem, he argues in his book, Neuroenology: How the Brain Creates the Taste of Wine.

The book explores all of the many complicated neural processes involved in tasting and appreciating wine, including the visual assessment of the bottle and the wine in the glass, and the interplay between the liquid, oxygen and saliva in the mouth – involving complex movements of jaw, tongue, diaphragm and throat.

Molecules in the wine stimulate thousands of taste and odour receptors, according to a report on Shepherd’s book on the NPR website, ‘sending a flavour signal to the brain that triggers massive cognitive computation involving pattern recognition, memory, value judgement, emotion and pleasure’.

Unlike a maths problem – which requires a limited amount of brain activity – assessing wine engages multiple sensory systems, including seeing, smelling and tasting.

Shepherd’s findings come after a study was reported last September in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal, arguing that Master Sommeliers require so much mental agility to make the grade that the sensory part of their brains becomes physically thicker.

Master Sommeliers have thicker brains – study

Researchers compared Somms to 'normal' people...

The post Tasting wine stimulates your brain more than maths, says neuroscientist appeared first on Decanter.

Whether it’s a party of friends, clients or even a date — the wine presentation ritual can be a nerve-wracking point in the meal. As the waiter approaches with your chosen bottle, the table chatter dies away and all wait in anticipation for your verdict. Learn how to handle it with the poise and assurance of an expert, with tips Decanter columnist Andrew Jefford, chief restaurant critic Fiona Beckett and wine writer and sommelier Emily O'Hare.

The wine presentation ritual

‘The blame is on the restaurant for serving you the wrong wine, but on you too for confirming it to be the right wine.’

Once you’ve navigated the wine list and chosen the perfect bottle, one final challenge awaits — the wine presentation ritual. Why are you being shown the bottle label? Should you sniff the cork? And what are you looking for in that all-important first taste? See below for our step-by-step guide.

The bottle arrives…

It might sound obvious, but many people don’t look properly at the bottle’s label — even when the waiter puts it right under their noses. If you don’t check the producer, style and vintage you run the risk of forking out for a different, possibly inferior, wine.

‘When it is presented to you, check the wine is the correct wine. Different vintages may have different prices, and you could get quite a fright when the bill arrives after you’ve gotten through four bottles,’ advises Emily O’Hare, former head sommelier and wine buyer at London’s River Café.

‘The blame is on the restaurant for serving you the wrong wine, but on you too for confirming it to be the right wine.’

A word of warning…

‘If you chose a nice vintage,’ said Andrew Jefford, Decanter.com weekly columnist and DWWA Regional Chair for France, ‘but the restaurant finds they’ve run out, it can be common for them to try to fob you off with the following year without telling you.’

If served correctly, the waiter or sommelier should keep the bottle facing you throughout the presentation and opening of the wine, to give you plenty of chance to get a good look. They may offer you the cork for inspection, see if it appears too sodden, or equally too dry and crumbly. Sniffing the cork is an option, but it’s generally thought not much can be detected from doing so.

• Common wine ‘flaws’ and wine faults – a guide

The first taste

If you are the host, the waiter will pour a little of the wine into your glass for you to taste. Look at the appearance of the wine against a white background, like the tablecloth. Inspect the colour of the wine, and check there is nothing suspect floating in it (sediment is to be expected in some styles).

Swirl the glass a few times to aerate the wine and release its aromas, this is most smoothly done by keeping the glass on the table. Then swiftly bring the glass to your nose, and concentrate on the wine’s fragrance — you may have to repeat this a few times as your perception of the different scents fatigues quickly. Then take a small sip and roll it around your mouth, focusing on anything that seems at all unexpected or unpleasant.

Remember: This is the point at which you should raise any concerns with the sommelier — not once your guests have wincingly drunk half a glass of faulty wine.

‘The wine is offered for tasting so you can check it’s not corked but some people’s sensitivity to cork taint is greater than others,’ said Decanter’s chief restaurant wine critic Fiona Beckett.

‘If you think it’s smelling musty, mouldy or simply unaccountably flat — ask for it to be replaced. Insist politely but firmly if the restaurant says “it’s supposed to be like that”.’

• How to complain about your wine — and get the right result

Final golden rule

The solemnity of this routine can be off-putting, but keep in mind that the wine is usually the most expensive part of the meal — so it’s important to give it ample time and attention, to make sure you’re drinking what you’re paying for.

Written by Laura Seal for Decanter.com

More restaurant wine guides

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Returning a faulty wine in a restaurant

Recently, my wife and I set out across London to try an Italian restaurant which had always received favourable reviews.…

The post In the restaurant: The wine tasting ritual — how to handle it like an expert appeared first on Decanter.

The former Hoosier coach has won the SWAC title four times in five seasons and already has a third NCAA Tournament bid locked up ahead of tonight’s title game.

There’s perhaps no man better on the planet that understands how Tom Crean feels at the moment than Mike Davis.

Davis has been seen the highest of highs and lowest of lows — much like Crean has in Bloomington. Crean won two Big Ten titles in four seasons. Davis took the Hoosiers closer to a title than any coach in the last 30 years has in Bloomington. Both understand intimately how quickly things turn in Monroe County when the Hoosiers don’t make the NCAA Tournament. The parallels are obvious.

But with Crean’s future in doubt in Bloomington, Davis has quietly built a mid-major power in the SWAC -- and might be positioning himself for another high-major job if he’d be interested.

After a win in last night’s SWAC semifinals over Grambling, Davis’ top-seeded Texas Southern Tigers clinched their third NCAA Tournament bid in the last four seasons. (Alcorn State, their opponent in today’s championship game, is ineligible for the postseason because of lagging APR scores.) The Tigers bid caps off yet another dominant championship campaign for Davis’ team in the SWAC. His teams have won the four of the last five regular season titles, good for a 76-14 (!!) record in conference play for Davis at the school. In the lone season Davis’ Tigers failed to win the regular season crown, they finished 2nd and won the conference tournament.

What Davis has done is even more impressive when you consider where Texas Southern was when he took over -- and what he’s able to do on a hamstrung SWAC budget. When Davis took over in 2013, TSU had won exactly one regular season title and had been to the NCAA Tournament exactly once each since 1995. The financial picture was dire, too. In order to fund the program and the rest of the athletic department, TSU’s been one of the biggest benefactors of “buy games” from high-major programs in recent years. Consider this season: Davis & Texas Southern opened the season with 16 straight road games playing at places like Louisville, Baylor, Arizona, Cincinnati, LSU, and TCU. That’s a hard sell to players. Still, Davis has built a power. Just this season, TSU is 18-2 since the calendar turned to 2017 and the gauntlet of schedule lightened up.

That’s the resume of a coach deserving of a shot at a higher level job once again. But at 56 years old and with his son Antoine set to graduate high school in 2018, would he even want to make a move? Back in 2014, Davis sat down with me for over an hour to chat about the comfort he’s found in Houston -- and all that he’s learned from his time at Indiana.

I ask him if he'll finish his career in Houston.

"If they'll have me. I want to watch my son play. But definitely want to coach more than four more years. And I want Mike, Jr. to be a coach one day. So if I could coach for another 15 years that would be great for me. But I'm at a really good place where I understand the process now, and that's the most important thing."

Davis, forever tied to turmoil at Indiana, has found peace away from the spotlight in Houston.

"Not everybody belongs somewhere, but you can belong somewhere and I'm where I belong."

Mike Davis is a damn good coach. And if you’re looking for someone to pull for in the NCAA Tournament with Indiana at home, the Texas Southern Tigers are a strong option.

There are numerous ways to measure success in college basketball. And there’s no perfect equation to produce a list of the nation’s best programs. But few would argue that NCAA tournament and conference success, in that order, are the two most important ...

The post Measuring Indiana’s NCAA tournament, Big Ten success since the 2011-2012 season appeared first on Inside the Hall | Indiana Hoosiers Basketball News, Recruiting and Analysis.

Serving wine is a fine art: different glasses for different wines, what to put with cheese and to decant or not to decant. Do you think you know the answers? Test your wine serving knowledge with our quiz and never put a foot wrong at a dinner party again.

The Decanter.com serving wine quiz: See below to test your knowledge.

• See all Decanter wine quizzes

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