I try not to work on weekends, leaving these days instead for family and the home. But, when duty calls, I’m in the office. Like today. I’m preparing to give a presentation to a potential client on Monday. The art of pitching work is not something that has fast and hard rules associated with it. It is very much something you do by feel. More often than not, I find myself in the offices or the cellar of a winery….

A note to regular Fermentation readers. It’s possible there will be little postings today as I’m scheduled to go on a valium/vicoden/novacaine-induced binge this morning. The other possibility is that I will be posting about wine later on but it will make little sense to anyone but me, my dentist and my pharmacist.

Assumptions!  They usually aren’t good if you make them without the facts to back them up. I was working with a winery whose winemaker smoked. I don’t know how much. But, I saw him smoke often so I’m guessing it wasn’t a casual puff. But I really didn’t care. My advice to him was simply don’t smoke in front of people you aren’t sure smoke themselves when you are representing the winery because nothing good can come of it. I…