“I have never seen anything like this…” I heard this sentiment expressed by more growers and winemakers during the 2011 harvest than ever before in my 25 years of doing this. I said it myself any number of times. It’s not that any one thing about this vintage stood out on its own as unusual [...]
Archive for the ‘Winemaking’ Category
Natural Wine Myth
Tom Wark recently posted a criticism of the “natural wine movement” on his blog, titled “Authentic Wine and Mistaking the Tail For the Snout” where he says: In many ways the “Natural Wine” and now “Authentic Wine” movement is well behind the curve. Winemakers the world over have long embraced the notion of exposing terroir [...]
Biochar & Yeast Nutrition
I love Twitter. For example, biochar would not be on my radar today if I was not following @RandallGrahm on the platform. I remember reading an article on terra preta some time ago (might have been this article in National Geographic) but it is Randall’s sustained expression of enthusiasm for biochar as a vineyard amendment [...]
Wine Alcohol — Here We Go Again
Yesterday Jordan Mackay posted an article on “The Fruit Bomb Resistance” over at SF Mag. Jordan is a good writer. We love SF Mag at Westwood and like participating in their events. I personally avoid drinking over-the-top cocktail wines, and certainly don’t make them — so yes, you could label me as a “fruit-bomb resister.” [...]
Harvest 2010 — Finally Over!
We picked our Grenache and Counoise on Wednesday. The crew did a great job of field-sorting and we saw almost no rot in the bins. Yields on these varieties were way down: 2.60 t/ac for the Counoise (most of the loss to rot over the last couple of weeks) and an unprecedentedly low 1.80 t/ac [...]
Talking “Natural” Wine – Again
Jamie Goode is a trained scientist who today in his blog wrestles with the tension between faith and science implied by “natural” wine. I am also a trained scientist, plus I am deep into my 24th vintage as a winemaker. You might be surprised how infrequently the term “natural” comes up in discussions among professionals. [...]
Harvest 2010: A Quick Update
Just time for a quick update before I run off to the winery to clean up the press and crush the fruit we picked yesterday. This is a radar snapshot of the storm that is on top of us. We have had over 3″ of rain in the last 24 hours and more is expected. [...]
Grape Ripeness And Wine Alcohol
Are you as tired as I am of all the whinging over high-alcohol wines? Yes some, perhaps many (but not most) wines over — what? — like, 14%-14.5% alcohol by volume? — might strike some tasters as “out of balance.” Certainly any “high alcohol” wine is a risk to drink too much of when one [...]
“Natural” Wine And Yeast
I spent a part of my day last week in a back and forth with the inimitable Alice Feiring, and Adam Lee of Siduri, about yeast. Alice was reacting to an earlier commentary by Dave McIntyre of the Washington Post, where Dave ended his piece with: If the natural-wine movement makes us question the additives [...]
Sounds Like “Pre-Emptive Minimalism”
Today Eric Asimov posted to his blog about Ridge Vineyards winemaker Paul Draper, “A Non-Action Approach To Winemaking.” Ridge is celebrating its 50th anniversary; Paul has been winemaker there for 40 of those years. I have met Mr. Draper a couple of times, but we are not acquainted and have never discussed winemaking method or [...]
