Owner: Pinotblogger: the Capozzi WInery blog URL:http://www.pinotblogger.com Join Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:37:13 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Blogging the birth of Capozzi Winery in the Russian River Valley. Site statistics:Click here
Pricey Pinot and Secret Sauce 2007-02-09 00:35:37 Jamie Goode writes about the venerable DRC and pinot in general over at his blog. In his post he muses about the inherent goodness of DRC and makes this comment:
It's also likely that as we taste DRC the label does influence our perception in a positive way (I've only once tried a DRC wine blind; on all other occasions the label has been seen).
I agree that it is quite likely that the label influences our perception of DRC. I’ve tasted a DRC blind as many times as Jamie (once) and was completely underwhelmed. And I mean completely. And shocked. Brand is a powerful, powerful thing.
Get your 1 ounce pour of DRC at Whole Foods. Cost: $30
In another DRC related note, Dr. Vino alterts his Fairfax Virginia readers about a super-secret upstairs room at Whole Foods where sample pours of many high end wines can be purchased in amounts of 1, 3 and 5 ounces. The most pricey of the pours? DRC of course!
Pours are available in one, three, and five ounce sizes and range from $1 to $30 an o Read more:Pinot
Best Winery Blog Finalist 2007-02-07 22:42:52 This is obviously a self congratulatory note so I’ll keep it (mercifully) brief. Pinotblogger has been nominated for Best Winery
blog over at Tom Wark’s Fermentation. This is one of those situations where getting nominated really is almost as good as winning. I’m especially thrilled after looking at the judges panel:
Judd Wallenbrock, President of Humanitas Wines and GM of Michel-Schlumberger Winery
Michael De Loach, VP Sales and Marketing at Hook & Ladder Winery
Sarah Donnelly, Direct Sales and Wine Club at Williams Selyem (Congrats on your 25th vintage!)
Eric Quanstrom, Director of Marketing at Appellation America
Cyril Penn, Editor of Wine Business Monthly (of which I’m of course a subscriber)
Greg Walter, Editor of Pinot Report (of which I’m also a subscriber)
and
Jo Diaz, Owner Diaz-Communications
Thank you to each of the judges, to everyone who nominated pinotblogger, and of course to Tom for spotlighting so many fantastic bloggers.
Now g Read more:Finalist
Wine's "Dirty Little Secret" 2007-02-06 22:32:17 Breathless title, I know. But that is how the distributor of Velcorin jokingly refers to the chemical they sell, so I think I’m safe in being a little sensational.
About a week ago I mentioned that after talking with folks at ZAP that I heard about a fairly toxic chemical that winemakers were using to kill microbes (yeast, mold, bacteria) and stabilize wines. It turns out that the chemical has been around and in use, with FDA approval I might add, since 1988. So basically I’m pretty late to the party on this one. Cyril Penn at Wine Business Monthly has even written a piece on new mobile Velcorin dosing services back in July of 2005.
In any event, since ZAP I’ve been on the phone with a few folks getting the skinny on dimethyl dicarbonate, the chemical name for Velcorin. It turns out that the trick in using Velcorin is in getting the proper training on the dosing machines that you use to inject the liquid sterilant into wine. The FDA has only approved its use at levels Read more:Dirty Little Secret
Wine Library 2007-02-06 01:04:58
On Friday I joined the board of directors of the Sonoma County Wine Library
. I believe my term will expire in 2010, I’m not positive, but either way I’m in this for the long haul.
The annual meeting was held at the Kendall Jackson visitors center just off 101 and it was a pleasant affair. The speaker was Bob Johnson, former LA Times cartoonist and a noted wine label designer. He gave an interesting talk on the process of creating a label, and how he works through a project. Bob’s workflow revolves around him drawing everything by hand and then turning the results over to a graphic artist who digitizes it using Adobe Illustrator. At the end of the talk he gave away signed copies of this great print he did for the cover of Pacific Wine Company. Good times.
What the heck is the Wine Library anyway?
The Wine Library is a collection of around 5000 books, periodicals, journals, pictures, newspaper clippings and oral histories that date back in some cases almost 500 years
ZAP! 2007-01-29 05:31:44 Like alot of other wine bloggers I had a great time at ZAP, but I’m still tired from all the tasting. Morgan, Jimmy and I tasted through over 200 Zins from 8-10 am before the media arrived in an effort to screen for TCA. It was something (I think we only found 4 bottles with taint).
Overall I was extremely impressed with Napa and Russian River Zin, and with the former especially. Napa fruit from the Hayne vineyard produced by Chase and Turley were standouts. Really tremendous stuff that, when made in the restrained style, sports refined aromatics that rival those of Pinot. Just amazing stuff. Down the line the Ravenswood vineyard designates were phenomenal as well.
I looked for fellow wine bloggers, but alas none of us crossed paths. I did however get to spend some time talking to Paul Draper of Ridge and had a fantastic conversation about the similarities between Zinfandel and Pinot noir with Joel Peterson. It was a great experience all around.
Morgan led us on a whirlwind tou
Food and Wine Life Hacks 2007-01-26 03:41:53 Culled from this list of kitchen tips.
14. Don’t throw out all that leftover wine: Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
13. Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.
1. Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips.
6. To easily remove burnt-on food from your skillet, simply add a drop or two of dish soap and enough water to cover bottom of pan, and bring to a boil on stovetop-skillet will be much easier to clean.
8. If you accidentally over-salt a dish while it’s still cooking, drop in a peeled potato-it absorbs the excess salt for an instant “fix me up.”
10. Place a slice of apple in hardened brown sugar to soften it back up.
12. To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh-if it rises to the surface, throw it away.
I’ll be at a very interesting conference tomorrow
Can Red Wine Help You Live Forever? Well, Yes. 2007-01-20 16:51:27 At least according to David Stipp in his article on Christoph Westphal and David Sinclair’s biotech start-up Sirtris. I can tell you I’m a believer. I’ve been taking resveratrol for the past two months and, coupled with a decent diet (which of course confounds resveratrol’s efficacy) I’ve lost over 20 pounds. Anecdotal evidence is all we have at this point unfortunately, but soon we may have much more.
Here are a couple clips from the three page Fortune article to wet your whistle:
…if it succeeds, its medicines may retard the onset or progression of a whole slew of age-related diseases, from diabetes to Alzheimer’s to cancer. The drugs may also have an extremely provocative side effect: They might extend life span. You have to go back to the advent of antibiotics in the first half of the 20th century to find such broad therapeutic potential.
And my favorite part of the article comes in the last graph.
When asked about it, though, he suddenly Read more:Forever
Elsbeth in Under the Wire 2007-01-19 13:01:23
Elsbeth, co-owner and blogger at Escafeld Vineyards got in just under the wire last week (when I announced a deadline for picture submissions). Above is a shot of Elsbeth in Argyle Vineyards, one of the grape sources for their wines.
Thanks for the support Elsbeth! It’s an honor to have you on the samples list.
In an unrelated note, I’m blogging from the airport in Orlando after a nice week of vacationing with the family for my 30th birthday. I’ll be responding to emails and catching up on wine stuff later today.
Help Us Design Our Tasting Room 2007-01-11 20:48:26 So we are starting the process of designing our tasting room and I’d love to get some feedback from you. Below is a word-sketch of what we are considering and I’d love to get input and suggestions of all kinds. Some questions to consider:
What do you like in existing tasting rooms?
What do you hate?
What things do you wish were there but usually aren’t?
Any other ideas that you might have.
If your idea is used we will commemorate it and be sure to give you credit. Perhaps a plaque if appropriate, or maybe we’ll build a shrine to your genius for all to see.
To help get your creative juices flowing, here’s what I’ve come up with:
A curved half circle bar. - This is generally considered a best practice in the industry simply because it allows one or two servers to pour to more folks than a straight bar does. It also helps to prevent guests from lining up two deep. You never want guests two deep. It diminishes their experience and makes the entire exe
Yineng Tu and Tim Elliot Floss the Organic Cotton 2007-01-11 19:09:18
From the looks of it he is enjoying himself. Great shot, and he was going to be the last person on the samples list but at the 11th hour Tim from Winecast sent in a pic of himself toiling over a blog post. Looking at the snow out his window I started to feel guilty given that yesterday temps here in the Valley were hovering around 60 degrees. So in a fit of sympathy, Tim has also been added to the samples list which is now officially closed.
Here’s the pic of Tim:
Everyone who made the list, congrats. I’ll be sending out an email to confirm your shipping addresses and to give you more details about the program. Thanks!
Read more:Elliot
, Organic
, Cotton
How To Break Into the Wine Industry 2007-02-09 22:38:17 Over at Ask Metafilter, a very cool question and answer site that takes advantage of “the hive mind”, someone asked about breaking into the wine industry. I thought the ensuing discussion was great and I’ve excerpted some of it below. I encourage you to read the whole thing if “breaking in” interests you, and then check out the job posting linked at the end of this post.
I love wine, and I’d like to get involved in the wine industry. The question is, how do I go about making that a reality - how do I “break in”?
As I said, there were a few really good answers from people on both the sales and production side. Interestingly, the best responses came from people who no longer work in the industry. I’m not quite sure what that means, but here’s some interesting intel from the sales side:
Working in the wine trade on the retail or wholesale (as opposed to winery) side is very guild-like. There is a clear path of apprenticeship that Read more:Break
Blog Productivity: Edit, Upload & Post a Pic in 60 Sec 2007-02-12 06:53:59 I love my Macbook. I don’t know how I got along without it. It’s well designed, beautiful (at least as far as computers go), and best of all it allows me to be unbelievably productive. That’s a good thing too because when harvest hits high gear next fall free time will be in very short supply. I wouldn’t want my pinot blogging to suffer. (more…)
Read more:Productivity
, Upload
A Valentine's Day Love Story in Two Parts 2007-02-14 22:42:31 Stories about how couples meet and fall in love are some of the very best types of conversations to have over wine. Regrettably I can’t offer you a nice glass of pinot to sip while you read this, but I thought it would be fun to share the story of how my wife and I met. It’s fun tale chock full of drunk driving, sex and reality TV, and it pairs well with a heaping side of personal shame. I promise it won’t be dull. Besides it’s Valentine
’s day, and I forgot the flowers.
A Davis Love Story*
When I was at Davis I shared an apartment with my cousin Amanda right next to campus. It was a nice, peaceful place with hardwood floors, old plaster walls and a second story view of tree-lined B street. Amanda and I were good roommates. I usually had a little bit of extra cash for the bars and I’d treat her to drinks on the weekends, and for her part she’d keep the apartment spic and span. As a bio major she had a thing for cleanliness. As a future winemaker Read more:Parts
Best Winery Blog Award 2007-02-22 01:56:19 I’m proud to report that Pinotblogger took away the Best Winery
Blog award in the first American Wine Blog Award
s over at Tom Wark’s Fermentation. Thanks to all my friends, family, readers and industry friends for Voting for Pedro. Good times indeed.
Here are the other winners, I suggest you check them out as they are all worthy of being a daily read and warrant an RSS subscription if you’re into that kind of thing.
2007 American Wine Blog Awards Winners
BEST SINGLE SUBJECT BLOG:
The Wine Collector Blog
BEST WINE PODCAST OR VIDEOBLOG
Wine Library TV
BEST WINE BLOG GRAPHICS
The Good Grape
BEST WINE REVIEWING BLOG
Vinography
BEST WRITING ON A WINE BLOG
Dr. Vino’s Wine Blog
BEST WINE BLOG
Dr. Vino’s Wine Blog
And a special shout out to The Grape Nuts for their very kind write up. Thanks for your continued support guys!
Great Podcast on Pinot Clones 2007-02-26 21:00:37 Over at Grape Radio they’ve produced a tremendous podcast on Pinot
Noir clones moderated by fromer UCD professor Carole Meredith. Really great info for both enthusiats and producers alike.
Thanks to the Grape Radio folks for recording and providing this great seminar from World of Pinot Noir 2006.
Check it out.
Read more:Great
, Podcast
, Clones
A Davis Love Story, part 2 2007-02-27 23:05:22 Part 1 can be found here.
The ride to jail was more than a little surreal for the obvious reasons (”Oh my God, I’m actually going to jail,” etc.). But it was made even more so by the fact that my blue uniformed chauffeur was blasting 2Pac the entire ride from Davis
to the Woodland hoosegow. It’s hard to think of even a handful of artists that would be more inappropriate for a cop to be rocking out to, and I gave it some serious thought for a good part of the ride. It was David Lynch, backward-talking midget weird.
After check-in, I alternately leaned against a puke encrusted wall for support and sat on a strange pony wall extending into the middle of the holding tank. The other gentlemen in there with me, even though they looked comfortable lying on the ground, seemed to be impervious to the noxious smell of stale piss emanating from the floor. I have a pretty high tolerance for filth as I mentioned, but grabbing a few z’s of fitful sleep on the concrete s
Super-Secret Winery Financial Data 2007-03-02 20:46:57 In a closed and largely privately held industry like Wine it can be hard to find solid financial numbers to judge your performance against. One of the very best sources of information on the profit picture for northern CA wineries comes from Silicon Valley Bank’s Wine Division. SVB has been lending to Sonoma and Napa Valley Wineries since 1994 and has amassed a tremendous amount of financial data in the process. One of the very cool things they do for clients is to break out average industry numbers specifically for your size and niche, so that you can evaluate your projections or performace against that of your peers.
In a recent presentation at Sonoma State’s Wine Entrepreneurship seminar, a representative from SVP shared some aggregate data with the class. Behold:
WineryFinancial
s By Size (2005 data)
Winery Size
<3K
3K-10K
20-50K
50-120K
Revenue
$640,000
$1,805,000
$5,854,000
$12,003,000
Cases Sold
1,993
6,123
31,046
80,126
Avg $/Case
$321
$29 Read more:Super
Wine Country Pinot Noir Soda 2007-03-05 22:54:58 I haven’t tasted this stuff so I can’t pass judgment, but I am truely interested if there is a market for it. Are people are so Pinot
crazed that they will want to integrate our beloved grape into the soda pop portion of their diets?
The company that markets the product, Vignette, is located in Berkeley and they claim the Pinot Soda is made with around 50% real juice (no word on what the other 50% is), has no added sugar or corn syrup, is caffine free, and is “gently pasteurized”.
I’m not quite sure what “gently pasteurized” means myself. If you aren’t holding a juice at 161 degrees F for ~6 seconds, you can’t be sure that you’re really killing all the bacteria present, which is the whole point of pasteurization. And holding anything at high temperatures isn’t something I would think really qualifies as gentle. But hey, who are we in the wine industry to start casting stones when it comes to marketing anyway?
If you&rs Read more:Country
, Wine Country
, Pinot Noir
How to Make a Killer Wine Journal - Cheap! 2007-03-07 01:41:21 If you love wine you’ve probably at least glanced at the fancy wine journals you can buy from the likes of Wine Enthusiast and elsewhere. They let you scrawl a few tasting notes and scrapbook labeles into a central repository that you can file away and look up the next time you want to know what you thought of a particular wine.
Much of this functionality is now replicated with a bunch of the new wine sites online, but for me there is something very attractive about having a tangible thing in my hand. Ephemera, a physical token of an experience - whatever you want to call it - just appeals to me.
The thing is every journal I’ve ever seen has been so unbelieveably overpriced and downright fugly that I just never bothered. I don’t want some overly-serious leather bound tome with flowery script on the cover - or worse - some lame still life of a wine bottle or a vine peering back at me every time I decide to do a little scribbling. Yet at the same time a plain old spiral Read more:Killer
, Journal
, Cheap
Man Builds House Made of 13,500 Wine Bottles 2007-03-12 07:31:56 From ABC News Online:
“A house in Western Australia’s south-west is being built entirely from recycled wine bottles.
Around 13,500 wine bottles will be used in the walls of the house, which owner Peter Little says will save energy.
He says by filling the bottles with water, the entire building will be insulated.”
No picture, sadly. I’m curious if he removed all the labels or not. It would be interesting to have an entire wall of the dining room made up of Grand Cru. Impress the guests. You could probably craft a suitably feminine powder room out of burgundy bottles. And in the bedroom? Wall to wall Magnums, of course.
The key, I would think, is finding the right neighborhood to build in. A few well-thrown rocks while you’re hosting a swank dinner party in your bottle barn and you’ve got yourself some serious issues. Not to mention potential litigation. But hey, at least your heating bill will be low.
Read more:Builds
, House
, Bottles
, House Made
Is Global Warming Good For Napa? 2007-03-12 23:05:53 I’m not sure if this qualifies as burying the lede (Napa Valley Grapegrowers look Beyond Hang Time), but the title and opening paragraphs of the article published today by Wine Business Monthy on the Hang Time Seminar at Copia last week certainly doesn’t reflect my main take away from the climate portion of the talk.
The first two paragraphs of the article report on old news; there is evidence that global warming has occurred over the last century and human activity is thought to be responsible. What a snoozer! The real story to emerge from the talks doesn’t come until the third paragraph:
But he and Dr. Deborah Elliott-Fisk also suggested that the impact on Napa Valley may not be catastrophic as the popular media suggest…
In fact, the weather in Napa Valley has been improving in some regards for at least 90 years. Dr. Snyder has analyzed records since 1917 from Napa and finds that January maximum temperatures haven’t changed much in 90 years, but the mi Read more:Global
, Global Warming
Photos of House Made of Wine Bottles 2007-03-16 20:25:40 Thanks to an email from Zach I have some pics of the house in Austrailia made of wine bottles. Behold the future of personal living spaces:
As you can see the bottles do indeed still have the labels on them. An interesting design choice. Takes the whole shabby-chic concept to a whole new level in my opinion.
El Jefe mentions in the comments that homes made of bottles are nothing new, and he’s right. Zach sent another link full of interesting pics of homes made from bottles dating back decades. Who knew?
Check it out.
Read more:House
, Bottles
, House Made
The Twisted Oak %@#$! Label Writing Contest 2007-03-18 02:53:35 I didn’t think it kosher to interfere with the contest while it was taking place (click here for all the details) but I feel like I have a winner for El Jefe’s write-the-back-of-label and win a case of wine contest. My inspiration comes from a catchy litle ditty that you may recognize from a few summers back.
Uh huh, this is my %@#$!
All the girls stomp your feet like this
Let me hear you say this %@#$! is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
(This %@#$! is bananas)
(B-A-N-A-N-A-S)
Again
This %@#$! is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
(This %@#$! is bananas)
(B-A-N-A-N-A-S)
Ooooh ooh, this my %@#$!, this my %@#$!
Signed, El Jefe & Fermento
Bonus points if Fermento can blend it to smell like bananas.
Anyway, as you can see, if I had entered I surely would have stolen the prize from other deserving customers, which clearly would have been wrong. Instead I give of my creative genius freely. Well, except that it really isn’t my creative genius, but that’s for the copyright lawyers to so Read more:Twisted
, Label
, Contest
Second Life Winery Nearing Completion 2007-03-17 19:11:47 After a little over 5 months of development, our Second
Life Winery
is getting pretty close to being finished.
As you can see in the photo above, the entry area (the covered building on the right) and the first three winemaking stages are complete. At each stage you’ll procees grapes that you’ve harvested from the vineyard. The goal will be to manage tannins, acid, alcohol and fruitiness so that you create a balanced wine that will receive a 90-plus point “Farker” score. It should be a fun and a pretty cool way to learn a bit about winemaking.
Stage 4 is the actual cellar and bottling area. You’ll need to work through each area to finish your wine and receive your Farker score. There is still some texturing that needs to be completed on the barrels, tanks and the bottling line, but we’re getting close. Next up will be the virtual tasting room.
For more pics check out SimVineyard.com.
Read more:Completion
, Second Life
Suspect in Arson of Wine Warehouse Charged 2007-03-19 23:44:08 From the SF Chronicle:
Mark Anderson, 58, is accused of setting the fire to cover up evidence in an fraud case. Anderson, the owner of Sausalito Cellars, subleased space at Wine Central, which was destroyed in the in the October 2005 fire.
Authorities said Anderson, 58, sold wine that he was supposed to be storing for clients and set fire to the warehouse to cover up his scheme. Two firefighters were injured in the fire.
If this guy is guilty I really hope they throw the book at him. What a waste.
Read more:Warehouse
, Charged
CSI New York Investigates Wine Fraud This Week 2007-03-19 23:36:18 From the UCD Trellis Alliance:
If you are a CSI New York fan, you may want to watch on March 21. They are doing an episode where they are going to attempt to identify a wine fraud. It’s not clear exactly what they’re going to do or show (and how realistic it will be), but it might be fun to watch.
If you are interested in REAL methods for authentication of wine and other foods, we found out about a new book that has just been published:
Authentication of Food and Wine
Interesting and topical considering that fake wine has been in the news quite a bit lately. But you don’t need to spend 170 bucks on a tome like the one linked to above to avoid buying fake wine, just take Steve Bachmann over at Vinfolio’s advice:
Pay attention to provenance and be prepared to pay more for when it’s solid — it’s worth it.
How much more is the real question. Steve figures for older vintages a 30% premium is the going rate. Be sure to have a look at his full post f
Free Startup Winery Cash Flow Spreadsheet 2007-03-21 11:35:29 Allan London, a CPA out of San Francisco and a board member of Goosecross Cellars in Napa, sent me a fantastic financial spreadsheet last week and asked me to share it with everyone. If you’ve ever dreamed about starting up your own winery, you owe it to yourself to play around with this spreadsheet. It will sober you up but good.
Below I’ll walk quickly through the scenario he’s presented, and give you some tips on setting it up for your own analysis. It’s a tremendously useful calculator that takes your back of the envelope assumptions and uses them to spell out in gory detail just how long you’ll need for your startup winery to actually generate a positive cash flow. It also highlights the importance of product mix in determining the amount of up-front investment required (i.e. making a Cab = more investment up-front).
Allan has also developed a full-fledged accounting system for established wineries called Virtual Winery
. You can download the free demo Read more:Startup
, Spreadsheet
Pinotblogger on Winecast 2007-03-22 18:13:53 I had the pleasure of sharing an hour of my Sunday last weekend with Tim Elliott, Jeff Lefevere, and Andrew Barrow talking about wine and the wine industry. It was my first podcast, and I enjoyed it.
There’s some good discussion of the 100 point rating system, Parker, Twitter, some shameless shilling for Capozzi. I even answer some questions I’m sure you’re just dying to know the answers to, like: Will I submit Capozzi pinot to Parker for review?
The Winecast podcast can be found here.
Interview with Mike Duffy re: Second Life 2007-03-27 05:54:40 A little over a month ago I did an email interview with Mike Duffy about our Second
Life Winery project for North Bay Biz magazine. But it wasn’t until just recently, while shopping at Fiesta Market in Sebastapol, that I caught a glimpse of the mag and picked it up.
Here’s a link to the article. I think it turned out pretty well, and Mike, who also writes the Winery Website Report, did a very respectable job of capturing the state of Second Life
development.
Yes, I realize that this is two posts in a row of shameless media whoring, and I cry your pardon. I’m a bit beat down from travelling to and from Davis the past 3 days (and again tomorrow morning) attending wine seminars. I’ve got some great info to share once I have a few moments to reflect and write.
Luckily I have this smiling little guy and my wife to come home to each night.
Good times.
Profanity in Wine Academia - Fuck et al 2007-03-31 00:41:16 So I received the most recent issue of the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture in the mail last night. Flipping through the articles and research notes and speed reading to find the juicy stuff, I usually just skip to the conclusions and only back-read when I find something particularly interesting. Thats exactly what happened last night when one particular paper caught my eye.
Titled Functional Analyses of the Malolactic Wine Yeast ML01, John Husnik (a PhD student at the University of British Columbia) et al test and analyse a new GMO yeast that performs malolactic fermentation at the same time as primary fermentation. Practically speaking ML01 eliminates the annoying problem of stuck MLFs (MILFs!), produces less volitile acidity, and was even shown to increse color extraction in Cabernet. Kind of a triple wammy of coolness for wine geeks.
There’s always a caveat, of course. GMO is a hot button issue and people have strong feelings about it, so I’m not even sure if Read more:Academia
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