Dec 7, 2006
I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of "Awards" lately. As I set my mind to this topic I seem always to come back to the same questions: What is their purpose? What do they accomplish? In the case of wine, awards usually come up in the context of competitions…wine competitions into which producers enter their products, have them judged in various (usually varietal) categories and hope to get a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal awarded to them. These…
Dec 6, 2006
Regular readers of Fermentation will know that I’ve enjoyed following the exploits of Amy and Matt, the proprietors of Domaine de la Grameire. I get to do this via their fine blog. Amy and Matt basically bought a vineyard in the town of Saint Quentin la Poterie in the Rhone Valley, set up shop, and went about making wine they like. A dream for many of us. They’ve been working hard and from the looks of things having a good…
Dec 4, 2006
If you stick around the wine business long enough, in just about any capacity, you end up thinking "I could do that." "That" being make and sell your own wine. Even I’ve had the thought. Then, I’ll walk into a client’s winery and see them pulling around hoses, dealing with the wrong palate’s of bottlings showing up with bottling happening tomorrow, and getting folks who owe them money to pay. I usually go back to my office and write a…
Nov 30, 2006
I sure hope my fellow wine bloggers are having as much fun as I am! This day marks the 2nd anniversary of my first blog post. This very short amount of time, the 1,129 posts, the countless typos, the three different URLs, the ongoing interaction with a readership far more astute than I and the chance to deliver my own brand of hubris into the blogosphere all adds up to GREAT FUN. What’s next for Fermentation? Certainly more of the…
Nov 16, 2006
I’ve written about that company called Enologix before. Not too flatteringly either. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not fascinated by the subtext of the Enologix story: delivering sameness of style is merely a proper response to what the consumer demands. Enologix is a company that has essentially mapped out the chemical elements of wines that score well with Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator Magazine. The company helps a winery deploy manipulations in the vineyard and cellar to come as…