Page 8 - Jupiter Spotlight - February '21

Page 8, Jupiter Spotlight
Choosing The Right Wine

For Your Perfect Or Imperfect Valentine!

By Laura Berrio, If you want to plan a sunset picnic on the beach, you need a demi-sec so the sweetness complements the chocolate.
Freelance Writer/Blogger wine that travels well or opt for a bottle of champagne! If you If this is not your first Valentine’s Day and you need to step
There is so much pressure are planning on cooking, then the wine choice needs to pair with it up a notch … pick a vintage from a special year (first date,
on couples to pick the perfect the featured entrée. If you are channeling your inner Julia Childs wedding anniversary, birthday, etc.).
gift for that special someone and preparing Beef Bourguignon, a full bodied, deep red wine A couple of mid-priced favorites of mine would be a 2016
on Valentine’s Day. Planning would be my first choice. Valentines come in many shades of Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon or a Taittinger Champagne.
a special evening and picking crimson … uncork the perfect red to complement your special Although a little pricey, if you want that very special bottle, 2007
that perfect bottle of wine cupid celebration. Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne and the 2002
can seem daunting on this If all of this seems overwhelming, try starting simple. Plan Michael Magnien will not disappoint!
holiday of “love.” a dessert date! A beautiful bottle of rosé (hot category in wine Just remember to stay true to your tastes
Let’s make picking a currently) or champagne pair nicely with chocolates. The lighter and stick with what you know. Follow
perfect wine an easy part of the chocolate, the lighter the wine and the darker the chocolate, your heart and sip with the one you love!
the planning. Once you decide on what you are going to do the darker, more full bodied the wine. If your love’s favorite is ~ Cheers
and where you are going to do it, the wine choice is narrowed in the middle with buttery, Belgian milk chocolates or white ~ Keep the conversation going and the
down. A picnic outside vs. a formal dinner call for a very chocolate, a sweet wine such as a muscat pairs nicely. If you wine flowing!
different wine. decide to forego the wine and have champagne, select a sec or Follow the Vine at: www.VineVibeUncorked.com
Northern Notes

Water Facts And Trivia newborn baby, for example, is 78 percent water and adults It is important to keep it clean and be mindful of what goes
are 55 to 60 percent water. The human brain is comprised of into it. Water is part of a deeply interconnected system. What
By Katie Roundtree, about 75 percent water. Interestingly enough, a tree is also we pour on the ground ends up in our water, and what we
Finance Director, comprised of about 75 percent water. spew into the sky ends up in our water. Life on earth simply
Northern Palm Beach Usually when solids form, atoms get closer together to cannot exist without water. Whether or not it can exist on
County Improvement form something denser. This is why most solids sink in water. other planets without water, is a topic for another time.
District But solid water, or ice, is actually less dense. It expands by Sources: www.epa.gov and www.climatekids.nasa.gov.
“We forget that the water about 9 percent, which is unusual. The water molecules form NPDES tip: Planting a rain garden with native plants
cycle and the life cycle rings when water freezes. All that space makes ice less dense somewhere around your home helps lock rain water in the
are one.” – Jacques Yves and explains why it floats. This is good because ice floating ground, reducing the flow of pollutants and poisons into the
Cousteau on top of a body of water lets the rest of it stay liquid. If ice drains. Using organic fertilizers and pesticides in your garden
Water is such a simple sank, whole oceans could freeze solid! further protects and brings health to your yard and all the
element, made up of one As you can see, water is essential to life here on earth. species living there.
oxygen and two hydrogen
molecules, but so essential to
life. A person can live a month without food, but only about a
week without water. However, water is essential to all life, not
just human life. Here are some interesting facts about water.
There are about 332,500,000 cubic miles of water on earth.
That’s about the same amount of water as there was when
the earth was formed! The water from your faucet could
contain molecules that dinosaurs drank or walked through!
The rocky material that formed earth contained some water.
But that probably doesn’t account for all the water we see
today. Comets are mostly water/ice. It’s possible that comets
made regular water deliveries to earth. It would take a lot of
comets to fill the ocean, but comets could well have made a
big contribution.
Water covers 70.9 percent of the planet’s surface and is
recycled constantly by way of the water cycle. The water
cycle is the continuous movement of water within the earth
and atmosphere. It is a complex system that includes many
different processes. Liquid water evaporates into water vapor,
condenses to form clouds, and precipitates back to earth in the
form of rain and snow. Water in different phases moves through
the atmosphere (transportation). Liquid water flows across
land (runoff), into the ground (infiltration and percolation),
and through the ground (groundwater). Groundwater moves
into plants (plant uptake) and evaporates from plants into the
atmosphere (transpiration). On a global basis, evaporation
approximately equals precipitation. There is more water in
the atmosphere than in all of our rivers combined. If all of the
water vapor in our planet’s atmosphere fell as water at once
and spread out evenly, it would only cover the globe with
about an inch of water.
Nearly 97 percent of the world’s water is salty, therefore
undrinkable. 2.5 percent of the earth’s fresh water is
unavailable: locked up in glaciers, polar ice caps, atmosphere,
and soil; highly polluted; or lies too far under the earth’s
surface to be extracted at an affordable cost. That leaves
just .5 percent for all of humanity’s needs – its agricultural,
residential, manufacturing, community, and personal needs.
Water regulates the earth’s temperature. It also regulates the
temperature of the human body, carries nutrients and oxygen to
cells, cushions joints, protects organs and tissues, and removes
wastes. The human body is comprised of mostly water. A