The Zinquisition

No hang time issues this year

2010-10-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

No one will remember this harvest for the great weather, or the fantastic harvest conditions.Frankly, I don't know anyone in the wine industry who'll miss seeing this year when its gone. The wet weather we're starting to get right now will put the brakes on all but a few of the hardiest reds that were already close to picking. Everything else that could be picked should have been picked and in

It's the Equinox, by Jove!

2010-09-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

Well, today's a big day: Jupiter was in opposition yesterday and Uranus is in opposition today, then Jupiter moves into conjunction with Uranus today, then the Equinox occurs, then we have the full Harvest Moon in the sky (which frankly was spectacular in the near-full state this morning setting pale yellow-orange on the western hills of the Russian River valley....)! Good lord! Where do we begin

An ill bit of rain

2010-09-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

0.4" inches of rain fell here yesterday - which really isn't that much - but nothing good can come of it. It isn't uncommon to get a few showers starting in August and September (maybe one per month), and generally those are very weak with perhaps a half inch of rain total for the period Aug~Oct. This year has been very cool and the threat of molds & botrytis have been on the horizon for months

More layoffs for Sonoma County winery powerhouse?

2010-06-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

There are several rumors circulating (with some very well informed parties providing me with confirming info just last evening) that there are more layoffs in the works for at least one major Sonoma County winery....Ready to guess which?one which has already had a few large rounds of layoffs in the past 18 months... and has scaled back (mothballed & consolidated) a few of its properties recently.

Biodynamics is a Hoax!

2010-06-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

Stu Smith of Smith-Madrone Vineyards & Winery in Napa has launched his own blog - dedicated to the exposure of Biodynamics as a hoax! Biodynamics is a Hoax From his June 1 post:"Welcome to “Biodynamics is a Hoax.” I created this blog to offer an alternative view to Biodynamics and to engage the Biodynamic community in debate over the merits and efficacy of Biodynamic farming. I challenge any

If cows invented Biodynamics

2010-05-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

So I was having a conversation the other day with a new acquaintance, and the subject of conversation (wine, what else do I ever talk about?) turned to biodynamic community, and how this person felt that it was so perfectly non-interventionist! That got me to thinking: when is it NOT intervention to kill and sacrifice an animal in the hopes of having a better harvest? And all that they

Lilac Theives and other Weirdness in Wine Country

2010-02-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

GAYE LEBARON has her own set of recollections when she hears about the stimulus money that was supposedly set for use on the Napa Wine Train, and about how 20 years ago a group of Sonoma vintners hijacked the train (and later a bus full of tourists) and forced them to drink Sonoma County wines instead. But that's not the story I heard last week which reminded me of past weirdness here in wine

2010 won't be a smooth start...

2010-01-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

2009 was a really rough year for the wine industry. While early indicators show that wine sales will be up (in volume and dollars) over 2009, the sales generated per case fell for nearly every domestic winery and imports suffered from trying to maintain already sensitive price points (thanks to the weak dollar). Every winery owner or sales manager that I talk to tells a similar story:

A week of rain and high humidity

2009-10-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

Last week's storm has brought much needed rain at the expense of the remainder of the 2009 grape crop. Mind you the rain itself -all 5 1/2" of it- was not the worst part of the storm that moved through......the worst part has been a week of high humidity, and bunch rot compounding the problem.Most growers and wineries pushed hard through the previous weekend to get as much of the crop in as

5.25" of rain so far with this storm

2009-10-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

...and its not over yet, thought here are only intermittent showers. Maybe another 1/4"~1/2" will fall before the skies break open to glorious sunshine...Inside today, getting caught up on weigh tags and general cellar work order tracking. It's not the end of the month yet, but may as well get working on the drudgery of the job. I'm not going out into any vineyards for a while.U2's "All I Want is

Rain, rain...go away....

2009-10-13T07:26:00.000-07:00

A little over an inch by the time I got up this morning. September was a charm - 12 days had high temps in the 90's (two days it hit 100+) and 18 days with fog, avg hi was 85°, avg low was 48°, with sunny afternoons making for perfect ripening conditions. I'm one of the lucky ones - I got my last fruit in the cellar early afternoon on Saturday. (I should qualify that, I brought in the last of

Mystic Rhythms

2009-10-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

"...The more we think we know about The greater the unknown We suspend our disbelief, And we are not alone... We sometimes catch a window, A glimpse of whats beyond Was it just imagination Stringing us along? More things than are dreamed about, Unseen and unexplained We suspend our disbelief, And we are entertained..." RUSH, Mystic Rhythms 1985 What, didn't anything front-page-worthy happen on

More trouble on the horizon

2009-09-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

There are many indicators that the recovery for the wine industry is NOT on the doorstep right now for some of the larger wineries. Normally, this time of year sees frantic bottling as wineries across the state try to get tanks emptied for use in the coming harvest. Not so this year....Several larger wineries have suspended bottling of their wines off and on over the past 8 months. This is due to

"Inglenooking" revisited...

2009-08-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

I have been doing far too much traveling for brand promotion and sales these past few months. Sales are finally starting to creep upwards again though, so hopefully the recession is on the way out. Anyway, I was looking through a list of "Top Wines form Argentina" while on a flight back to California, and was somewhat amused to see Inglenook as the #3 brand (Chablis, same wine is in the #13 spot

The body's not even cold yet

2009-06-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that City Winery is already trying to make money off of the death of Michael Jackson. To wit, I have the latest email from them (7:46 PM last night - a scant 5~6 hours after MJ's passing):Granted they want to do this tonight, and they feel they have to work fast at it...but really, do we have to do this?I suggest we rename the event "City Winery's Tasteless Tasting", and the

France "dysfunctional"

2009-06-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Well, IT'S ABOUT TIME! Top wine industry insiders have labeled France (and Bordeaux in particular) as "dysfunctional".I've been saying that for years....maybe they don't read the Zinquisition? Highlights from the Vinexpo conference via Decanter.com:'Bordeaux should be selling everything,'says Tony Spawton, an associate professor for wine marketing at University of South Australia.This is

What's going on at Foster's Wine Estates?

2009-06-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

I hear rumors flying about layoffs at Foster's Wine Estates...Two I can confirm, but the number & locations of the others are still amorphous...some reports are saying there may have been many more, but until I can get my sources to confirm where and when they are happening I don't have concrete info to pass along. I will update as soon as I can....It is interesting to note that Foster's was

Copia: an idea too large for the canvas

2009-06-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

“Our mission is fairly simple: we are essentially leading an effort to reopen Copia for the benefit of the community and preserve as many of Mondavi’s goals as we can, but in [a] sustainable way,” said John Salmon, a member of the Coalition to Preserve Copia, created about four months after the December bankruptcy announcement. [link to article here]So in this context I take it "sustainable" is

Nobody "makes" Wine Anymore

2009-06-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed how nobody "makes" anything anymore?Take a look at the picture of Heinz Ketchup, and pay particular attention to the "Grown Not Made*" slogan below the tomato:Compare these two statements: "Wine is made in the vineyard" "Ketchup is grown, not made"Say, where in either of those statements is there room for the person who takes the ripe fruit and processes it into the

In Tweetum Lucrum?

2009-06-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

I had the misfortune recently of having to sit through a few presentations on how wineries can use social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. to further their own marketing ends. Maybe it was the sheer lack of data in the presentations, but frankly I don’t buy it and my read from the other attendees suggested that they felt the same way. I just don’t think that wineries will

News from the trenches

2009-05-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks of traveling to visit several key account markets (Sonoma County, San Diego, Phoenix), I have compiled some notes regarding what actual servers in restaurants have been experiencing. Note that none of this is scientific data or taken from scanner data reported by retail stores, rather from first-hand reports of day-to-day observations by servers.Overall, the concerns of the

Add another voice to the lists!

2009-04-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Three Cheers for Steve Test, who joins the list of acclaimed winemakers to publicly renounce witchcraft, superstition, and other unproven practices on this site!I'll reprint his comment here, as it bears repetition well:"Stuart Smith recently wrote a great letter to the editor (of the Chronicle?) responding to the Dolan-Benziger school of non-stop BD promotion, practiced with nothing but

Distilling a 'Why Biodynamic" conversation

2009-04-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I did go to the "Why Biodynamic?" conversation at the Sonoma County Day School last Friday eve. Mrs Johnson and I both went, and though the proceeds were to benefit the Sonoma County Wine Library, I'm glad we each saved $5 by buying our tickets beforehand.I'll post some highlights in a moment, but I must say I was disappointed the Q&A section was so short that it only allowed for 3

an EARTH DAY present from Randall Graham

2009-04-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

From Eric Asimov's The Pour (New York Times):...[f]or Mr. Grahm, that means owning a vineyard, embracing biodynamic viticulture and farming without irrigation, as the best Old World vineyards are farmed. “Dry farming is absolutely crucial,” he said. “It’s more important than anything — biodynamics, schmiodynamics.”And... “I actively resorted to all manner of marketing tricks,” [Randall Graham]

A voice of Reason in these dark times...

2009-04-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

Huzzah! for Stuart Smith of Smith-Madrone Winery! I just got through reading his letter to the editors of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, somewhat taking them to task for the nonsensical video of Mike Benziger on the PD site touting his Biodynamic philosophy. I've clipped the letter he wrote here, as well as provide the link for the PD letters for Fri April 17th...The best lines have to be..."...

A word about the economy

2009-04-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

"Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue." - Francis Bacon"A penny saved is a penny earned." - Benjamin Franklin Ok, so this is more about saving money than the economy in general. Actually, I'm still dumbfounded that it's taken an economic crisis of this magnitude to really put the brakes on sales of top end tier wines. Were we as a society really all that

Californian sweet wine: a continued debate

2009-04-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation this past weekend with a few guests about the popularity of sweet white wines, and heard comments about how California is responsible for the sad world-wide trend towards producing "sweet" (off-dry) white wines. Californian chardonnay in particular was vilified...I should lay a little background for this topic before I go into it.Most people in the industry consider a wine "

A good show (dinner not included)...

2009-04-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

I found this on the web while looking up a few points for this post:"You do not 'believe' in science. Science is not a BELIEF SYSTEM. Science is a method of inquiry. If you do not know what deduction and induction are you need to LOOK THEM UP. Don't try to burn Galileo, you villianous Heathen!" - Angry Pontiff All the same, put this on your calendar: Friday April 24th, 7 PM @ the

Another weekend of frost protection

2009-04-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Saturday and Sunday morning's temperatures both dropped below freezing, causing me to get up at 2:30 Sat morn, and 3:30 AM yesterday. The problem with this time of year is the vulnerability of the young shoots to frost damage. Last year, I had the sad fate of having to use much of my irrigation pond water for frost protection. Since our rainfall was so short, I really didn't have that much water

Do you need a winemaker for wines under $2?

2009-04-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

Well......do you?Is it really all that important to shell out hard earned cash for a "Certified Master of Wine" [CMoW] to produce wines at the $1.99 price point? TESCO is doing just this, though the winemaker will be in charge of wines in the range of $2~$40/btl.But really, I mean how many people would return a wine that was $1.99 if they found it a bit "off" or "different" from a previous

Another worthless item to buy for your winery

2009-04-02T05:04:00.000-07:00

Much has been made of "dynamization" of water by Rudolph Steiner and his biodynamic followers. The theory is that water as we see it today is disorganized and somehow "unnatural", needing to be corrected by applying dynamism (forcing a vortex to occur in the water by mixing it rapidly in one direction, then reversing the flow by stirring in the opposite direction)At the site below you'll see yet

No cold stabilization on red wines

2009-04-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article this morning by Dan Berger and I thought it was a little vague on the point of cold stabilizing red wines. (The article is carried by the Press Demo from Creators Syndicate, so I don't have a link to post...) What Dan reports is that on a recent trip to the Paso Robles area to taste wines from Justin Winery, the winemaker there (Fred Holloway) stated "I don't cold

the Dregs Report 2009....

2009-04-01T05:25:00.000-07:00

OK....it's April Fool's Day. But you have to give a shout out to the wit, sweat and inspiration that went into this fake headline page! The Dregs Report 2009 I love the visual of California separating from the Union to become its own "Wine Nation" as the headline states...drifting off towards Hawaii wouldn't be half bad, now would it? Also, there's this gem of Governor Palin pimping for the

Go David!

2009-03-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned David Coffaro's winery in Dry Creek before ([what it takes to produce a $100 bottle of wine], [vintner in it for more than money]) becuase I like his candor when it comes to the already-too-pretentious wine industry. I'm posting his letter to the editors of the Press Democrat (Santa Rosa) regarding the "Madcap Millenials" article by Peg Melnick last weekend [link to his letter here

California still on top where it counts

2009-03-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

This in today from the Napa Valley Register's Jack Heeger:"The famed 1976 Paris Tasting wasn't a fluke.California wines came out ahead in the 2009 Westchester Wine School tasting in Rye Brook, N.Y., too. The 2009 tasting wasn't quite as decisive nor will it be as famous as the one in Paris, and the 25 judges weren't all wine professionals, although they were described as wine afcionados. But when

Right choice to approve Jackson's new winery

2009-03-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors just approved Jess Jackson's newest winery, Pelton House on Hwy 128 in Knight's Valley. Now Knights Valley is a beautiful place, but there's been a bad case of NIMBY-ism there for the past several years. (For those unacquainted with the term, NIMBY = Not In My BackYard...)I think they made the right decision for several reasons, some of which I'll get to

Take your bagette and shove it!

2009-03-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

Why? Why do this to yourselves when your market is already hurting? The French (and the EU) are poised to try again to restrict use of even more place names, processes and other sheer nonsense in the name of Intellectual and Geographic Property. (The EU proposal describes these as "PGI" [Protected Geographic Indication] and "PDO" [Protected Designation of Origin]...see this link for more though

"Madcap" millenials...? Long Live Queen Victoria!

2009-03-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

On Saturday last (3/21/09), Peg Melnick of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat wrote an article which was featured high on the front page, just below the name of the paper (dear God - it must be important!) which seemed to imply that many of the recent tourists & wine aficionados were put-off by the large number of miscreant youths who partied through the wineries with apparent abandon. To the credit

Another Nuance to the Specator's Black Eye

2008-08-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

What I find most interesting about this week's Wine Spectator Restaurant Award debacle is not that WS was duped or their very defensive response. No, the most interesting part to me is the outright shadenfraude most people seemed to react with upon hearing the news. Its been known for a while that the WS Restaurant Awards are not only a huge source of revenue for the magazine (4,500 applicants

Robert Mondavi

2008-05-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

There have been many fine tributes to Bob already, I'll only share a page of quotes from him. There are some gems here:http://www.robertmondaviwinery.com/flash/docs/A-Quotable%20RGM%202008.pdfand share a quote of my own from my Grandmother:"If you can't say anything nice, say nothing"and dedicate it to Julia Flynn Siler who, on learning of Bob's passing, had this touching gem:"The family had

Anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake

2008-04-18T05:39:00.000-07:00

Here we are 102 years after the 1906 San Andreas earthquake which shattered San Francisco.I hear some of you saying..."so what does that have to do with wine?"Plenty!But first- attached are a few stereo-optic photos taken right after the 1906 earthquake: notice how everything is pretty much gone (fires consumed most of the wood the quake spared), how the people are living in the streets, and how

Beware rising wine prices

2008-04-08T05:27:00.000-07:00

I can't imagine anyone still buying super unleaded these days, much less imagine someone buying 38 gallons of it at the same time.......but here it is: the $159 purchase!Maybe some kid in his new 4x4 thought he'd get a better burn with that higher octane stuff...Sure as hell wasn't me, as the only things I've ever driven with a 40 gal tank are tractors and vineyard trucks. But that leads me into

March: out like a lion

2008-04-01T05:35:00.000-07:00

And here just a few weeks ago I'd jinxed the season by mentioning that it didn't feel like we were likely to get a frost this season.And then the weather report came out on Saturday night suggesting that we might drop well below freezing on Sunday night...And so we did....the frost alarm here went off just after midnight. Not that it woke me up. Frankly, when I know it's coming I can't really

75th Anniversary of Prohibition's REPEAL !

2008-03-21T06:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday 3/22/08 is the Septuagesiquintennial (75th) anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition!And I'll bump my post from 2005's anniversary for the occasion:"Don't let this happen to you!"Every year I take a few moments to reflect on where we are now, thanks to all the hard work and sacrifice of those Americans who had to weather the crappy social experiment that was prohibition...After all the

Savor Sonoma, cheers & jeers

2008-03-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the Savor Sonoma wine tasting event, and after inviting several friends to this barrel tasting event for the umpteenth time, I thought it'd be a good post if I had everybody gather all their impressions at each winery and put it all together. Here's a run-down of what the group found to be the best (& worst) of the weekend.....tasting staff and volunteers were all very

the Myth of Price: Sex and Wine

2008-03-12T00:13:00.000-07:00

Eliot Spitzer, the soon-to-be-EX Governor of New York, provides an excellent reminder of the fallacy of "high price equals quality"...A recent article on MSN provides the story, one which even Freud knew to be true and which still bombards us everyday via marketers who wish to present their product as superior: Charge more for it! (click on the photo for the link)Where he spent $1,500 and upwards

March...a time for vigilance

2008-03-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess now there's no arguing that Spring is here.With daytime temps hitting the mid 70's, and lows in the high 30's, the trees and flowers have started blooming across the countryside. The air is thick with the smell of all the flowers, and even those dormant old vines are starting to look as if they may bust forth from their winter sleep very soon. Insects have reawakened, and have begun

Amazon joins wine shipping debate

2008-03-06T05:06:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com is joining the interstate wine shipping debate...and in a huge way!By looking to ship wine via internet sales, they are joining the ranks of other relatively smaller retailers (e.g., Wine.com) which are already doing this. But while the folks at Amazon aren't divulging their long-term motives, it's easy to extrapolate their move as one to become the largest online wine retailer - and

Grab a fork, pop a cork!

2008-03-01T09:03:00.000-08:00

You've got to give credit where & when it's due - and today the winner is....[drumroll...]...Costplus!This wine series is created by someone else for Costplus, obviously, since they don't have their own winery operation, and custom labeled for the shelves. These shown are all California origin, but who knows, maybe they'll expand it to include foreign wines as well. I'm not sure yet who it is who

The Noble Fluid: time & place

2008-02-29T05:41:00.000-08:00

I spent a few well earned weeks on a trip to Italy in the past month. Mostly it was for pleasure, but I did manage to get some wine tours and meetings with vintners into my schedule.Primarily I was in Rome for the wedding of a harvest intern who came over to work with us for two consecutive harvests. Vittorio was extremely talented, and when I got the invite to see him & Annalise get hitched in

Happy B-Day, Rudy Steiner!

2008-02-25T20:52:00.001-08:00

An historic day!The 147th Birthday of Rudolf Steiner!Born Feb 25th, 1861, we can see from the following astrology chart that he was destined for greatness right out of the womb....Note how the "inter-connected-osity" of his planetary alignment provided a superior complex polygonic network of communication pathways -an über-functionality, if you will- allowing him to commune with Nature and

Sensitive crystalization of Wine

2008-01-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

It's a new year, and intelligent people will continue to find differences of opinion between themselves as they have throughout history.In fact, even though we find ourselves another year away from our superstition ridden past, it's not uncommon to find otherwise reasonable people who might still hold onto "quaint, old fashioned" ideas - like astrology actually being accurate, etc.But to find

Biodynamic wine guidelines

2007-12-21T05:01:00.000-08:00

BD (biodynamic) wines are better for you and don’t have any "nasty additives", right? What’s the difference between "BD wine" and "Wine made from BD grapes"? Can someone "spike" his BD wine with common "organic" wine? From the DEMETER website come these delightful documents to help us all understand what they're attempting! First, since I’ve parodied this topic many times before, I feel it

Brett-barrel revisit

2007-12-17T21:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a bit since I posted, and for good reason. With the nights being as cold as they have been, it was perfect weather to shut down the vines, and therefore a perfect time to get out and prune all the vines before the start of the wet weather. Having just finished with that -actually I got lucky and finished on Sunday morning, as the rain was just starting- I can now relax (just a little)

Biggest bottle - ever!

2007-12-04T20:05:00.000-08:00

FLASH !!"Biggest Bottle of Wine ever produced in Australia Exported to USA."New York - Biggest bottle ever to leave the Southern Hemisphere filled with Aussie Shiraz, results in immediate wine shortage on the Australian continent. Aussie producers herald the idea as a new way to use up excess supply of Alice Springs Sparkling Grenache, or other non-market performing blends to help keep the bulk

New barrels unlikely source of Brett

2007-11-23T07:13:00.001-08:00

From an article on Decanter.com, we have a theory that new oak barrels are the source of Brett infections in wineries...that "infected wood" has been harvested, and that... “[Consultant winemaker Matt] Thomson believes that the incidence of brettanomyces has increased in recent years. 'I think it's a relatively new thing in many Old and New World regions,' he said, adding that he thinks the

Wine country in November

2007-11-21T05:23:00.001-08:00

This is why I live here...No matter where I've been, I just can't seem to get these images out of my mind, and always get drawn back to Northern California....And to be fair, there ARE plenty of beautiful places in the states and in the world with plenty of local color, but this place is just the supreme magnet in that sense for me.As always, I'll be giving thanks tomorrow for a wonderful family

Trophy hunting season opens: rumor mill

2007-11-13T04:45:00.000-08:00

With Beam sold off, acquisitions are now (again) the hot topic of conversation...(In reality, they're always a hot topic, just usually invisible to those outside the industry.)Rumors have persisted for the past few months that higher-end producers in Sonoma and Napa counties are eyeing deals that would have been heresy just a few years ago.Apparently, the high prices paid for Screaming Eagle,

Heating and cooling your wine

2007-11-12T06:01:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks have seen rather low temps at night, which have slowed my ML fermentations down quite a bit. Harvest is when my energy usage is at its peak, most of it going into cooling during the early part of harvest, which then turns to a need for heating at the end of harvest. A winery’s heating and cooling is generally the lion’s share of the total energy usage of any winery.

BioD and Ghosts

2007-11-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

I know....Halloween is over.But I came across this just today...a report on CNN by AP/IPSOS: Ghost poll finds that 1/3 of the population believes in ghosts...Weird, but that's roughly the same percentage of the respondents in the recent Demeter poll who believed that seeing "biodynamic" on a wine label conferred some higher level of quality than a wine without that branding. The revealing part of

Got barrels? Halloween project email...

2007-11-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

I get quite a few emails...well, OK, I get a few sporadic emails - most of which involve Ministers of Finance of small despotic African governments with large sums of money...But every once in a while I get something pretty cool. Like the following one from Jon, who had an old barrel on hand, a sawsall, and some time.... Ok! That's pretty cool, and I'm gonna bestow the first ever Zinquisition

Ahh! Those good ol' days...

2007-10-24T05:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, time yet again for a reminder that Grandma & Granddad didn't have it as easy as we imagine they did. (if you're ever in doubt, re-read the book Rascal by Sterling North, and think about the influenza ridden hospital wards back in the 1910's...)We're light years ahead of where viticulture and winemaking were a century ago, and our technology has brought us better tasting and more stable wines

Viansa: talk is cheap, but the winery's gonna cost ya'

2007-10-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

"VIANSA Sells for Double Net Worth"..."Marketing Genius gets Owners Out of Bankruptcy"..."LOOPHOLE Saves Family Winery"...Great headlines, eh? From the local paper?No...just a pipe dream that Jon Sebastiani and his mother Vicki are still envisioning for Viansa as it struggles out of its failed relationship with Global 360.More news from Rich Cartiere's Wine Market Report about Viansa states that

Youth, without youth? Whatever.....

2007-10-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

Francis Ford Coppola has a new film out!His first in 10 years!!!It's called "Youth without youth", which almost sounds as if it were back-label phraseology for a wine with too much tart acid after 10 years of aging. So, what's it about? I dunno...but the reactions from the press are lukewarm at best...And that's got ol' Frankie on the defensive.From the quote under the picture in the Press

NAPA Cab & AVA's

2007-10-18T05:06:00.000-07:00

Alan Goldfarb penned an interesting article this past Monday about winemakers & vitculturists sitting down in Napa to see if they could pinpoint some “real regional diversity” within (and between) the AVA’s there. And much like the same exercise recently performed with the Carneros region, reveal that perhaps much of the industry hype about the differences may be overblown. This, of course, is

Earthworms used to predict earthquakes

2007-10-17T04:45:00.000-07:00

This is a great article that really illustrates why we need to ask more questions before jumping to conclusions when presented with new & novel things happening in our vineyards:"...Wu, who bought the vineyard 40 years ago, said he has never seen so many earthworms in his vineyard before and estimated there were 200 to 300 kilograms of them. Seeing the large numbers of earthworms Wu feared that a

Good article on winemaking

2007-10-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

Harvest has been pretty busy, but I'm almost through it now...With only one block of late ripening Cab Sauv left to go, all I need is some dry weather to firm up the vineyard.......well, that and not too much moisture in the next few days (forecast is for some more rain & showers - and this on top of the ~2.5" we've had so far this month!) would keep the sugars from dropping anymore than they

Welcome to October...with light rain......

2007-10-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

It was just over a week ago & we had a cool day & some precipitation...not really enough to do any harm, but not really welcomed either as the temps dropped a bit for a few days.Now we've had a week of cool but clear weather, only to wake up to another morning of light drizzle...Again, this particular event won't be the moment the harvest is made or broken, but it is most definitely not the

Damned cool weather!...and some rain...

2007-09-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

Well, this is sure putting a damper on my harvest.... With the hot weather we were having at the start of September I was sure I'd be done picking this week, or maybe next week at the latest. But these past two weeks have been on the cool side (politely stated), and the rain yesterday & today isn't helping ripen my grapes...though it really isn't hurting them at the moment either. High temps on

AVA's: can't see the forest for the trees?

2007-09-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

Fermentations had a lovely post last week on AVA's and what Tom thinks should be done to further hinder wine sales (and keep himself employed) in California's wine industry.Gawd knows I luv ya, Tom Wark...but I think you need to seriously re-think what you're proposing, and stop smoking the whatever-it-is that brought this point of view on.The biggest problem I see with his post is that he's

Debunking viticulture

2007-08-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

This is something more people need to read about: Busting Vineyard Myths :Researchers find some practices may be based on folkloreThe first quote we see is from Michael Anderson of UCD, to wit:"I'm frustrated by viticultural practices based on folklore instead of research."Amen, Brother!It doesn't get much more concise & precise than that...Could it be that after all these years, the public at

Wake up call: red moon rising

2007-08-28T04:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm up at 3:45 this morning, and there's no fog... Dim up in the sky hangs the eclipsed moon, dark red and orange...I'm wide awake, so I start to wonder what our dear old friend Rudolph Steiner and his creation -Anthroposophy (and "biodynamics")- had to say about eclipses, particularly lunar eclipses. Certainly, it must've been something sublime and insightful, no? Does it portend a decline in

BTG: By the glass wine prices

2007-08-23T05:18:00.000-07:00

It was six AM...why was I thinking about wine prices by the glass?I usually wake up every morning with the clock radio set to the local station with the Bob and Sheri show, a decent morning show - albeit one from the left coast - and occasionally I'm rewarded with some topic which hits home about wine.By the way, not only is it just nice to hear nationally syndicated radio programs discussing

Why the TTB freeze is good

2007-08-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

Many industry bloggers have noted the TTB freeze on granting new AVA's within AVA's (they've actually suspended the whole process for the moment), and some have cast it as a reaction to moves by "money" from existing producers in the proposed Calistoga AVA who would be adversely affected by the granting of that petition...and that not withstanding as a possibility, I think of the freeze

Mapping your vineyard

2007-08-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

Just the other day I'd posted about having NASA and Vestra help map your vineyard site...Well, that got me thinking about the vineyard I'd brought up as an example, and I'd thought that I should expand upon that...(A WARNING ABOUT ETIQUETTE:DO NOT wander around into people's vineyards without advanced permission to do so! As someone with vineyards, I can tell you that there's no better way to

Warbirds flying overhead

2007-08-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

I was reminded yesterday morning of the upcoming "Wings over Wine Country" air show @ the Charles M. Schulz airport in Sonoma County (put on by the Pacific Coast Air Museum, August 18 & 19th this year)......specifically, I was alerted to this fact when at about quarter to 9 AM, I was buzzed - no, "strafed" is a better word - by a military jet while out in a vineyard near Olivet RD...Actually, I

Warming video from KQED

2007-08-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd pass this link to KQED's Quest website where they have a nice video segment on global warming and how it may affect the Napa and Sonoma counties winegrape production...(or click on pic to follow)Of course this raises the question "how does a winemaker pick what varietal to plant in the first place?"...which is a fairly complex subject...In the past it was part experience, part voodoo

Red wine from Umbria

2007-08-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

I had a nice Italian red table wine from Umbria this weekend, which was remarkable on a few points that recently have been hot topics...It was fully "food friendly" in that it had a very nice level of acid still in it, which allowed it stand up to a rich dinner (salad w/ balsamic vinegar dressing, meat & potatoes), while at the same time had plenty of ripe flavors to please the palate......and it

A close-up of the "Gallic Syndrome"...

2007-07-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

I posted on it a while back, warning of what I think are signs that point to a similar situation to take place here in California - most notably in Napa...though it could strike anywhere when a few top end wineries get astronomical prices and prestige while the vast majority of very good producers see a shrinking market price, perhaps even lessened market presence due to imports which offer more

Harvest started in central valley?

2007-07-31T21:41:00.000-07:00

Word from one of my informants is that the '07 harvest has started in the lower portion of the Central Valley...which would make it the second earliest in the past decade - only behind the huge harvest of 1997...

Boonesdonny #3

2007-07-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

Where we see the kids a bit down over the fact that nobody's flocking to their doorstep to shell out money for nothing... But they've got an angle: they just need a Hotshot Sales & Marketing team!!!

EU subsidies...and reform thereof...

2007-07-25T00:09:00.000-07:00

I've got to hand it to the social commentary of Berke Breathed's Bloom County back in the late 80's...still as acerbic and hypocritical as it was then.( I believe the cartoon was penned when the massive Farm-Aid concerts were being put on all over the country...of course there's a subsequent panel where Opus accounts for all his expenditures and realizes he's spent $37.75 million dollars to

EU: crises in the making

2007-07-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading a good post for the past few days by Alder over at Vinography about the EU and the continuing struggle they are going through to try to modernize their OIV winemaking regulations…and it got me to thinking…how many of us even know what it is they’re trying to do? I’ve posted on the topic several times in the past, both about how they’re trying to get people off of the “crisis

Rain this morning...no harm done

2007-07-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

A light rain has been falling for the past two hours, but there's no danger to the vines and crop right now. We are well past flowering and set of the clusters in every varietal, and this will be a short weather system passing through. I had heard from friends yesterday evening that it was already raining in Eureka and Arcata, and that the system was dropping down through Mendocino County on its

Boonesdonny continues...

2007-07-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Another frame in the epic story of a boy in search of money from the gullible...What a fun way to parody & satire BioD!I should've thought of this years ago!!Stay tuned for more fun in the coming weeks...

About BioD...

2007-07-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

Can't find wine? Try looking...

2007-07-06T08:09:00.000-07:00

“…most of the world’s red wines have grown fatter, softer and ought to now be referred to as the couch potatoes of the wine world.” Dan Berger 6/29/2007 Repeatedly over the last few years wine writers have railed against the “high alcohol fruit bombs”…a term which could use a bit better definition… Last Friday, Dan Berger penned an article on “Red Wine and Fish”, where he revisits some

Good ol' days wine pairing

2007-06-29T00:10:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about holidays and family reunions is that you get all the generations around and talk about how great things were when you were younger, and the wine industry wasn't nearly as complex as it is today...(sigh)...Of course, you start by mentioning how gas was less than 60¢ a gallon (btw, there was no unleaded, nor catalytic converters), Global Warming wasn't a topic - the

Heaven or Hell?

2007-06-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

Ok...I'm not sure where I am...I'm definitely disoriented...So Richard Cartiere's Wine Market Report comes out today...and...and......BEST CALIFORNIA CHARDONNAY at the California State Fair went to.......Bronco's Charles Shaw (aka "2-buck-Chuck") Chardonnay!Certainly the current wine punditry would have called it "impossible", but you can safely bet your fattest paycheck that Fred Franzia will be

vintage 60's wine pairing

2007-06-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

This table and glossary from the 1963 classic "Favorite Recipes of California Winemakers" which is apparently still available at Ebay and Barnes & Noble...The following pic has what was then the most current info on wine pairing suggestions - note the portion that I've highlighted in green;"*Most people prefer the combinations shown in the right-hand column. But the "correct" wine is the one YOU

I Hate Wine and Food Pairing

2007-06-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

As I sat at the Father's Day dinner table, enjoying my barbequed ribs with a side of sauce for even more smoky-BBQ flavor, I noticed that I was drinking Vinho Verde. Why, you may ask, would I make such a bizarre pairing? Simple, I reply - I don't care. I was finishing a bottle of VV that Mrs. Vini and I had opened earlier in the evening and it wasn't gone yet. Thus, I drank it and it was good.Did

Vine mealy bug: a serious threat

2007-06-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

So undoubtedly you local types caught the Press Democrat's story about the Vine Mealy Bug threat to the wine industry. [link here for those that didn't]Nasty little creatures!Not sure what God's intended purpose was in creating them...but then again maybe it was the Devil's work?Anyway, the part of the article describing the spread of these creatures seemed to be a little understated. Yes they

India's harvest season

2007-06-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

Lynne has this question via email:Lynne said... Hi! I'm a winemaker that is interested in doing seasonal work in India. I was just wondering if you could tell me which month(s) are generally the harvest/vintage season? I doubt they have a small window of opportunity like ours...the few people I have talked with kind of shrug when I ask.I

Wine Styles - So Who's Driving the Bus?

2007-05-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

I'm fortunate enough to get copies of all of the major wine magazines and my in-box and RSS feeds are loaded with daily content. Despite the hectic pace of life, I find it hard not to stay "in touch" with what's going on in wine. I do tend to read more writing on the "trade" side and few on the "lifestyle" side, but I think I can confidently say that one of the most pervasive and divisive

Duckhorn's Final Bidders Announced?

2007-05-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

In his Wine Market Report, Rich Cartiere announced that the final three bidders for Duckhorn are Fortune Brands (Jim Beam, Clos du Bois, Geyser Peak, etc.), Pernod-Ricard (Mumm), and Constellation (everything from Mondavi to Wild Irish Rose).Now I've theorized on the Duckhorn sale previously but this is a further puzzlement. I just don't see why Constellation would be able or want to buy

Power 100: mistake or showing hand?

2007-05-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

This piece of data came out last week, but there's something in it which is just a bit curious...Probably just a typo, but they may have inadvertently tipped someone's hand in what would be some of the biggest news of 2007 so far in the wine world acquisitions file...Intangible Business (ok, so doesn't that sound like a 'Sopranos' euphemism for a 'legitimate business front'?) published it's Power

A Harvest a Month, That's All We Ask...

2007-05-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Today I am reminded of the story of a young consultant working for a large winery. The consultant comes running into the client's office saying that he has found a solution for the winery's underutilized asset base. "You're only putting wine through your crushing and pressing equipment one time each year! If you can just double that, you will be twice as profitable". This particular

Talking dirty

2007-05-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice article on Terroir - or more exactly, on what's NOT terroir - from Harold McGee and Daniel Peterson from the New York Times last Sunday.Some great quotes are inside, like this gem...“Plants don’t really interact with rocks,” explains Mark Matthews, a plant physiologist at the University of California, Davis who studies vines. “They interact with the soil, which is a mixture of

India & China: wine consumption to rise

2007-05-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

I have posted a few times regarding the economic boom that China and India will bring to bear on the future world wine industry, and the economic news continues to reinforce that idea.Below, I've included links to several articles which speak to this topic - and after reading, may just persuade you to pick up a few courses on "How to Speak Cantonese" or Hindi...The recent news points to the day

Good winery communication skills

2007-05-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

This item is from a monthly check of the WineBusiness.Com postings of winery jobs:Texas Hill Country WinemakerSome of the highlights of the posting are these..."Other Requirements: Final Applicants will be required to submit to physical and mental testing..."(While not sure exactly how they meant that phrase to be read, I'm reading it as "if you've applied, you need to get your head examined...")