Jun 14, 2006
Ever wonder what the life of a barrel looks like? Annette Hoff, winemaker at Cima Collina, a client of Wark Communications, one who works in a region I’m quickly coming to conclude is on the cutting edge of all that is great about California winemaking (Monterey), and who also is a great blogger, has a post on just this subject. The fact is, Annette simply doesn’t’t blog enough…or, enough for me. Each of her posts are a delight, very personal,…
Jun 1, 2006
Helen Turley, America’s most famous "consulting winemaker", is again facing a lawsuit involving a client. This doesn’t really surprise me, for a number of reasons. What is interesting however is the mindset that would allow a person to agree to Ms. Turley’s terms for her participation as a consulting winemaker: -Agree to spend a huge, top-end sum of money on both vineyard development and building a winery to Turley’s exact specifications(vineyard development I can understand…But why spend huge amounts on…
May 23, 2006
It was, I believe, the great Gore Vidal who once wrote, "Every time a friend of mine succeeds a little part of me dies." It’s a pretty astute, and brave, commentary on the effects and power of envy. Some of us bloggers fancy ourselves decent writers. Some of us are mistaken, some close to the mark, other are underestimating their value completely if they think themselves only decent writers. A safe self assessment puts me somewhere between the first two…
Apr 27, 2006
The "Wine Pod People" (just looking at that phrase gives you the willies, doesn’t it) got some GREAT publicity today when the San Francisco Chronicle published a fine story about their unique home winemaking system: The Wine Pod. We caught wind of the Wine Pod back in February and were very taken with the idea of having such a compact, integrated system for making wine in our home. (I’m still working on the wife..she hasn’t relented…yet.) The anecdotal evidence that…
Mar 2, 2006
CAN THE FLORA AND FAUNA THAT SURROUND A VINEYARD CONTRIBUTE TO THE TASTE OR AROMAS OF A WINE MADE FROM THAT VINEYARD? The answer is yes. The classic example used in California is the instance of a vineyard that might have eucalyptus trees surrounding it. In this case, people have claimed to detect a distinctive "minty" quality in the wine that is attributed to the oils from the tree adhering to the grapes and being transferred to the wine. Another…