This Week In Wine – 10/30/11
October 30, 2011
To Save Soggy Grapes, Winemaker Looks To Helicopter
It’s been raining for days and the crop you’re a week away from harvesting is about to mold. If you don’t dry it quickly, you will lose the crop. What do you do?
If you’re Bruce Cakebread, you call in a helicopter to be a giant grape dryer.
When rain soaked Napa Valley two weeks ago, Cakebread — the president of Cakebread Cellars in Rutherford, Calif. — used a technique occasionally employed by orange and cherry farmers. It’s just the latest example of farmers forced to take drastic measures to salvage crops in the face of extreme weather.
If mold forms on grape clusters, they can’t be picked for harvest. Fortunately for the valley’s winemakers who got drenched this month, most of the white and red varietals had already been picked. But the Cabernet Sauvignon — a tougher, more resilient varietal — still hung on the vines during the wet weather.
Click here for the full article.
My Thoughts
I’d be interested to know if it works! I’ve heard of Australian wineries doing this before, but not so much in California. Either way, it’s great publicity! Plus, what a great way to one-up your neighboring vineyards!
Leon Panetta To Toast Bin Laden’s Death With $10,000 Bottle of Wine
The U.S. government offered a $25-million bounty for Osama bin Laden, but there was a lesser-known enticement for then-CIA chief Leon Panetta: a sip or two of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1870, one of the world’s most celebrated wines.
Last year, Panetta attended an annual New Year’s Eve gathering hosted by Monterey restaurateur Ted Balestreri, who was chided by some of his 28 guests about the $10,000 bottle of wine sitting in his wine cellar. Asked when he would finally uncork it, he answered: "When Leon catches Bin Laden." The bottle will be opened this New Years Eve.
Click here for the full article.
My Thoughts
I could make a joke here about how that bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1870 is about 5 years past its prime….but I won’t do that…
Posted in News | Tagged Bin Laden, Cakebread, Helicopter, Marlborough, Napa, New Zealand, Salisbury Vineyards | Leave a comment //
Mollydooker Winemaker Sparky Marquis
October 29, 2011
Believe it or not, me and Sparky go waaaaaaaay back! I’m talking 2009, here!
Mollydooker winemaker Sparky Marquis was actually the first ever winemaker I interviewed when I started blogging. This week he came back to Jacksonville for the release of his 2010 wines. The interview was supposed to last about 15 minutes. We ended up talking for closer to an hour.
<Sparky starts pouring every-single one of his wines into glasses lined up in front of me.>
….so any big changes with this vintage, I mean stylistically…?
I guess the main thing with all of these, when we start talking about style it’s an interesting factor, because we base all of our wines on fruit weight. So because the fruit weight stays the same, stylistically the wines are going to be identical every vintage. We do get a slight variation from regional variances, but in terms of style it’s identical.
So let’s get this out of the way first. The “Crash Heard Around the World”, when you lost 1/3 of your Velvet Glove production to an unfortunate container accident. What’s come of that?
It was an incredible story. Back in July, there was the press release about $1 million dollars of our wine in Australia being dropped, and it was the 2010 Velvet Glove…it was incredible. The whole time since then has been amazing. It was just “one of those things”, a mechanical failure. Nothing you could do about it.
I’m sure the guy who dropped it felt pretty bad!
<Laughs> Oh yeah! The forklift driver was devastated. We ended up bringing every-single box back to the winery, and we had them all laid out, and it was just like a cemetery! Tombstone, after tombstone, after tombstone. We inspected every single case, and nothing was recovered. All 462 cases got destroyed.
But looking on the bright-side…you did get a good amount of publicity of out it!
Yeah! The number of people that have heard of Mollydooker as a part of the crash, there are probably a few balancing points going into it as well!
When we first met, back in 2009, Mollydooker didn’t have much of a Social Media presence, not that many other wineries did. Now you’ve almost come up to be one of the leaders. Can you talk a little about that.
For us, social media has been such an important factor of what we do. I can remember, it wasn’t that long ago that we were in a process of writing individual emails to people, then it gets to a point where email just wasn’t cutting it. We have around 22,000 people on our mailing list.
Mom was always super excited about social media, Facebook and Twitter, but none of us really understood it…
Posted in Interview | Tagged Australia, Buy Mollydooker wine, Miss Molly, Miss Molly wine, Mollydooker, Shiraz, Social Media, Social Media for Wineries, Sparky Marquis, Sparky Marquis Interview | Leave a comment //Texas-Style Chili Paired with Huguenot Cuvee de Rouge, Santa Ynez – California.
October 28, 2011
This last Monday, I had the privilege to attend my first ever Monday night football game! Suffice to say it was probably the most American thing I’ve done all year!
For the first time since I’ve been living in Jacksonville, the Mrs and I decided to take a big leap of faith, and become season ticket holders for the Jacksonville Jaguar’s (whom I still insist on pronouncing JAG-U-AHHHS).
I can’t say why I thought season tickets would be a good idea. I’m basically only there for three things: the cheerleaders, Jaxson DeVille, and the military fly-over. The rest of it (namely the “football"), doesn’t make much sense to me! I guess I don’t see much of a purpose to: playing for 5 seconds, stopping, having a chat about it, changing all the players, having another chat about it, playing for 7 seconds, and then stopping when some-guy throws in a flag! To me, it all just seems like a reason for big men, in tight pants, to roll around in the mud with each other…….and there’s a name for that where I come from!
I digress……now that I’ve insulted your national sport…
So bearing in mind this was my first EVER Monday night football game, and tailgating was going to play a huge role, I needed a killer recipe. Searching my usual recipe resource (Foodandwine.com), I came across: Texas-Style Chili with Beer. Without a doubt, it was the most American recipe I could find; and if “AWESOME” had ingredients, some of the individual components for this “chili” would probably be in it:
– 3 different kinds of chili peppers
– One bottle of pale ale (I opted for Terrapin Hopsecutioner).
– Beef short-ribs.
– Coffee.
– Bittersweet Chocolate.
What can go wrong!?!?!
Posted in Pairings | Tagged Grenache, Huguenot Cellars Cuvee Rouge, Huguenot wine, Sangiovese, syrah, Tempranillo, Terrapin Hopsecutioner, Vingevity | 2 Comments //Little Red Wine Riding Hood
October 28, 2011
In 1990, a traditional version of Little Red Riding Hood was removed from schools in Empire, California; supposedly because the classic Grimm’s fairy tale recounts that the little girl took a bottle of wine to her grandmother.
”That passage condones the use of alcohol,” said Lynn McPeak, the district’s interim curriculum director. ”It is one reason we chose not to distribute the book.”
Posted in Facts, Funny | Tagged Little Red Wine Riding Hood | Leave a comment //Honig Winemaker’s Dinner at Matthew’s Restaurant
October 28, 2011
Top 10 Songs About Wine.
October 26, 2011
There are countless numbers of songwriters who’ve also been inspired by wine, but writing songs about wine isn’t a new phenomena. The "Charles Heidsieck Waltz" was an orchestral piece composed by Paul Mestrozzi which debuted in 1895!
Below are my top 10 songs with wine in the lyrics:
10. Celebration by Kanye West
“You know what though? You my favorite accident. So go head pop some Cristal.”
9. Ironic by Alanis Morrisette
"It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay. It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late"
8. Hotel California by The Eagles
"Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice
And she said ‘We are all just prisoners here, of our own device’"
7. Never Tear Us Apart by INXS
"If I hurt you, I’d make wine from your tears"
6. Big Shot by Billy Joel
"You had the Dom Perignon in your hand and the spoon up your nose"
Posted in Facts, Funny | Tagged Chateauneuf du Pape, Cristal, Rap About Wine, Songs About Wine, Wine Music | Leave a comment //← Older posts Newer posts →
