Made in forests, spoiled in processing?

Docking.

A press release commenting on this year’s cork harvest caught my eye today. It reads very much like a grape harvest or vintage report. Yet, I could not help but think that, just like with wine grapes, while the harvest may be exceptional, individual corks can still be spoiled.

I have nothing against cork. Yes, it is a let down when I open a highly-anticipated wine only to find TCA gushing out of the bottle. That happens only in a small portion of cases. Read More

Is the OpenWine Consortium aimlessly adrift?

Is the OWC out of steam?

I joined the OpenWine Consortium when its membership numbered only a few hundred. I saw the OWC as something with potential to help the industry: it could organize bloggers, raise the bar for online wine publishing, create some educational programs and help wine producers and budding wine commentators build their brands. As I write this, the OWC boasts 4,613 members.

Other than organizing the Wine Bloggers Conferences, the OWC offers a forum for discussions. However, it has been months since I last saw any active efforts to organize members or truly accomplish something of impact for the wine industry. Certainly, the WBC is the most successful effort of the OWC, but as some have commented, rather than helping the industry learn how to harness the Internet and Social Media, these events have been criticized as being primarily press junkets for wine bloggers. Read More

How hot is your wine?

Hot wine.

Don’t you just hate it? That wine shipment you had been anticipating is delivered and when you take it from the driver’s hands, the box is hot to the touch. You dread to think about the temperature of the bottles inside. On such occasions, I have opened the shipper and felt the bottles to be warm.

An informal poll of the delivery drivers who visit my front door indicates that the inside of the delivery vehicle can be about 15°F higher than outdoor temperatures. The temperatures inside the delivery vehicle can reach 100°F when the outdoor temperature is 85°F. The question that begs asking, then, is: Just how hot does wine get inside a shipper if it sits in a hot truck during delivery?

My quest for an answer to this question is a featured article on WineBusiness.com today.

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I’ll be right back

"The world's oldest metaphor"

Today, around 2 pm, I should be going under anesthesia. (It is no small tribute to H.M.O.s that only five months after injuring my knee, I will be undergoing surgery to repair it). While my consciousness is dissolved into oblivion (for what will, hopefully, be a very short time), I offer some wine similes for your amusement.

I don’t like analogies, similes and metaphors. To me, using them is like peppering every sentence with “like” and “you know” (yes, I know this is a simile). There are precise and articulate ways of conveying ideas with language. I see it as intellectual laziness when specific, concrete words are bypassed in favor of an attempt to invoke some symbolic imagery. Never mind that most similes and metaphors tend to be trite and jaded. Read More

A father’s wish

Two weeks ago I wrote about a CNN.com commentary supporting lowering the legal drinking age in the US.

Today, Toben F. Nelson and Traci L. Toomey, both faculty members at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health have offered a commentary in support of keeping the legal drinking age at 21. Read More

What’s the deal with wine and cigar pairing?…

…Hey! Wanna go ride bikes?!

"Ritalin", by thh70.

Every so often, I come across a winery event or some class focused on pairing wine and cigars or wine and spirits. I’ve never understood this pairing. I’ve tried it, but didn’t “get” it. I’ve read a fair amount on the subject. The general rules seem to focus around matching aromatics or the textures of the smoke and beverage.

With these guidelines in mind, I’ve tried to experiment with wine or spirit and cigar pairings. Still, I don’t understand what the deal is. I can describe nuances of the smoke’s aromatics, but the smoke overpowers the beverage and the pairing does nothing for me – at least not in the way wine and food pairing does. Read More

Does latitude matter?

Does latitude matter?

As wine growing culture in a particular region evolves, it sometimes becomes apparent that what has been grown for a long time is just not going to cut it anymore. The interplay between climate (rainfall and temperatures), soil, a variety’s productivity, the character of its fruit does not always yield a desired quality level in the finished wine.

So, through the initiative of individual growers, as part of an organized effort or by official mandate, different cultivars are brought in to a particular region with the hopes of elevating the quality of a regions wines. This is the essence of Cépage améliorateur. Read More