http://www.pinotblogger.com A blog about starting and building a family winery in the Russian River Valley Mon, 12 May 2008 18:28:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In honor of Alice Fiering's recent call to dump the whole of California's wine production down the nearest sewer pipe, I thought it might be fitting to look back in time to a period where France didn't have a defender as vocal and virtuous as Alice. A time when the ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/05/09/california-wine-the-final-synchronized-flush/ This marks my first ever Wine Blogging Wednesday, a tradition started by Lenn over at Lenndevours sometime in the Neolithic period of the wine blogging timeline. I'm happy to finally join in the festivities. The wine type this month, chosen by Tim at Winecast, is Old World Riesling, which worked ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/05/07/wine-bloggin-wednesday-old-word-riesling/ For the past couple months I've been using twitter.com to catalogue smaller day to day items such as winery related marketing stuff, interesting links that don't warrant entire posts, Sonoma County Wine Library info (where I'm serving as President for 2008) and other ephemera. There is a vibrant daily conversation happening ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/05/05/twitter-the-pinotblogger/ I finished a final estimate of the losses we incurred due to the insane cold snap this weekend. It came out to exactly 20%. 3.4 acres of Rebecca's vineyard were hit and hit hard by the sub 30's temps this past Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Below you can see the temp ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/04/23/20-of-rebeccas-vineyard-crop-lost/ Great post over at Pinot Law that I highly recommend you check out. Here's the take-away for the time strapped: I do not wish to belabor the point, but the sooner the wholesalers realize that a major paradigm shift has occurred in the wine market, the better off they will be. ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/04/15/wine-and-vcrs/ There's a general philosophy among open-minded Christians that basically boils down to: "Don't sweat the small stuff." When one denomination agrees with 90% of what the other has to say, why focus on the 10% that separates? I've held a similar attitude regarding Gary Vee since he burst on the scene ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/04/11/the-problem-with-gary-vaynerchuk/ The opening line in Steve Heimoff's profile of Greg La Follette in New Classic Winemakers of California reads: "It has been said of Greg La Follette that he could bring a church to tears about Pinot Noir." In the clip below you can get a bit of a feel for how ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/04/10/how-to-make-a-church-cry-over-pinot/ I'll be posting a few clips from a very cool and interesting winemaker roundtable from last month over the next few days. Sponsored by Kendall-Jackson and benefitting the Sonoma County Wine Library, Steve Heimoff (his latest book can be found here) led a discussion with some of Sonoma's top winemakers. ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/04/10/the-golden-triangle/ Are wineries that sell direct ruthlessly competing with the clicks and mortar crowd? That's one of the questions David Williams poses in the latest issue of Wine and Spirit (UK). After taking the reader on an extensive survey of the past and present of online wine retailing, David asks whether the ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/04/07/death-to-the-fine-wine-retailers/ Since I can't come up with a remarkable April Fools joke, I'll just point you towards this post from 2006 by Anil Dash. Your April Fools Day Joke Sucks. Hmm. So this is what it's like being a critic. Much easier than trying to create or do something new and interesting. ... http://www.pinotblogger.com/2008/03/31/your-april-fools-day-joke-sucks/