One of beauties of an old wine is that it takes you back. As you taste and drink a wine of some age you inevitably begin to think, "what was happening back then." This weekend I had a chance to procure and taste two wines from my favorite California vintage of the decade of the nineties: 1994. There seems to be a general consensus that while a very good vintage, 1994 has been eclipsed by 1997 as the best of…

No one reading Fermentation needs convincing that wine is a pretty cool thing, on many levels. Yet one thing about wine that is not mentioned or remembered enough is the way by which wine, or really the grape) is a marker of civilization’s progress. This I was reminded of when I read an interesting little story on one of only a hand full of winemakers who is still making wine from the Mission grape. All but extinct as a wine,…

It’s election day around the country as well as here in Sonoma County. Here in our neck of the woods the big ballot initiative is Measure M. Measure M would ban for 10 years the production of GE (Genetically Engineered) organisms. What does that mean? Well, that has been a subject of debate. However, there is no question that a lot of people are watching this election and looking for trends that might be exportable to other areas of the…

A recent post on FERMENTATION concerning a new wine organization/club designed for women prompted a few interesting responses in the comments section of the post. One commentator, Lorenzo (who by the way has a very interesting web site dedicated to food and wine importing), took me gently to task for seemingly being threatened by the idea of a wine club for the female sex or at least for criticizing it too soon in the process. To quote Lorenzo: "I don’t…

Jonathon Nossiter predicts the coming end of the American Empire? Sure sounds like it. In an interview with the Japan Times, Nossiter, the auteur behind the scandalous film "Mondovino", suggests that the end of Uncle Sam’s grip on the world will lead to a demolition of of the "current taste in wine": "Globalization has always been around — French wines are the direct result of Roman globalization and the so-called classic style of Bordeaux was created to suit the British…