Pinotblogger: the Capozzi Winery blog

Today the class is going out to Lodi to tour the Mondavi Woodbridge production facility and a couple other smaller (and it’s not hard to be smaller than Mondavi Woodbridge) wineries. Instead of joining them I’ve decided to play hooky, catch up on things and stay with the wife.

One of the benefits of going to the OIV has been meeting and getting to know a bunch of very cool and interesting folks. One of the coolest is Morgan Peterson, a Masters of Wine candidate. His knowledge of wines from all over the world is phenomenal and I’ve enjoyed sitting at the back of the room talking with him about wines, winemakers and winemaking almost as much as the presentations. He has also done quite a bit of traveling when he fills in for his dad at sales calls and winemaker dinners (his dad is Joel Peterson, winemaker and co-founder of Ravenswood), so he has some interesting insight into the wine market in Texas for example.

Another classmate who I’ve only talked to briefly, but is also helping spearhead sales for a new winery is Andrew Firestone. Firestone is building a new production facility in Paso Robles and Andrew says they will producing about 6000 cases there with a focus on some special high end bottlings. Paso is a pretty tight knit community of wineries (Mary at Dover Canyon is one), grape prices are relatively low, and the area has been getting some good press from people like Robert Parker lately, so it sounds like a good plan to me. Plus the tasting room is going to be located right next to a water slide park, which is nice.

Next week will focus on Brand Establishment and Brand Management at OIV so subscribe to my RSS feed so you won’t miss a post.