Jun 20, 2006
This past fathers day was a hoot. We had four fine fathers gathered with their wives and children and grandchildren all in our newly renovated back yard. It was all good…Until I had to explain myself. You see it was warm outside. And while a chilled rose and gewurztraminer were on the table, I wanted to drink something red. But it was just too damn hot to really appreciate it. So I did what I often do with red wine…
Jun 19, 2006
Maybe wine IS God’s gift to man. Every year seems to bring new discoveries of how wine is good for us. The latest discovery, and one of the more intriguing, is one which iidentifies red wine as helping to induce sleep due to the high amounts of melatonin, a hormone that is produced in our bodies and that helps regulate our internal "body clock", which tells us when to sleep. Italian researches now tell us that some grapes they tested,…
Jun 19, 2006
Lest we forget that the wine industry is an agricultural industry, given to the whims of Mother Nature, the is now the 2006 Port vintage to consider. Apparently a storm that rushed through Portugal last Wednesday did extensive damage to what would have been the Port wine vineyards in that country. Initial reports had the loss in the neighborhood of 80% of the vines due to severe hail. Today the estimates of the loss and damage was said to be…
Jun 16, 2006
Just a reminder to those reading FERMENTATION that there is a cadre of folk who help the FERMENTATION Cause. Check them out. Visit their websites and businesses. They include: K&L WINE MERCHANTSA fantastic wine retailer located in the San Francisco Bay Area and on the Internet. They recently got serious props from the Wall Street Journal for just about everything they do in the store and on the Net. INERTIA BEVERAGE GROUPThe industry experts on how to sell wine on…
Jun 14, 2006
A Cautionary Tale What’s the impact of building a winery marketing strategy that relies on receiving only great scores and ratings from the most important wine critics? Consider this cautionary tale. A few years ago a very fine winemaker decides it’s time to make their own wines, rather than make someone else’s wine. So the winery is born. Well, actually they lease space at another winery to make about 400 cases of wine. They get fruit from great vineyards and…