Wonder If We Know Just Who We Are Yesterday felt like my birthday. According to the calendar, my birthday is still some ten weeks off, but yesterday my phone rang all day long with people wishing me well and congratulating me. A lot of the calls were from people wondering where, in the Northern California […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-Nine (May 13, 2003)
Blast from the Past There was a wine I bought some time in the early part of 1985, from my old friend Kermit Lynch. It was the year I started Edmunds St. John, and I wasn’t sure yet what kind of wine I intended to make, so I was shopping around for inspiration. The wine […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-Eight (March 2, 2003)
Breakfast of Champions Spring Training 1989(Whackin’ in Huatulco) Back around 1990 I played slowpitch softball in the Berkeley “C” leagues, on a team composed, for the most part, of aging psychotherapists, with one or two wine business types thrown in for good measure. We were the “East Bay Wine Works” team, known colloquially, as “the […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-Seven (December 14, 2002)
Talkin Bout Good News! Each year since our first vintage, back in ’85, we’ve celebrated the completion of harvest in one way or another. The first few years we had a party for the family and friends who’d helped out with the crushing and pressing. We’d whip up a pot of stew, or a few […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-Six (November 27, 2002)
Merging with the Energy I’m babysitting our 28HL membrane press through the last squeezing of grapeskins for vintage 2002. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. The last day of crush (for which thanks-giving is always in order) comes, this year, 90 days after the first day of crush. Almost a quarter of one year, by far the […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-Five (October 27, 2002)
After the Summer Another harvest is (almost) in the books, again, in a year of decidedly mixed blessings. It’s been a really distracting harvest for me this year, for a number of reasons I’d like to share here. Actually, my distractedness probably began quite a while before this harvest. No doubt you’ve noticed that this […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-Four (Labor Day, September 2, 2002)
Ban des Vendanges 2002: Gamay Shelter! We almost made it to September this year, before picking any grapes. The onset of harvest, for me, is always best when I feel prepared: when all the barrels are empty, the previous vintage’s wines tucked safely into bottles, the bins for hauling grapes are clean, I’ve got a […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-Three (August 25, 2002)
Waitin’ for You It’s a curious thing how different one’s voice sounds to one on a recording than it does at the moment of vocalizing. Perhaps you remember the first time you heard your own voice, recorded. I sure do. I was completely aghast! I think I was maybe 10. My friend Chuck Cirimeli was […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-Two (August 14, 2002)
Got the Butterflies I had a conversation with another winemaker recently about a subject that comes up for me constantly, and for which the answer seems to continue to evolve. We were discussing what makes Edmunds St. John wines so different from other California wines. He’d raised the subject by mentioning the lack of oak […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty-One (August 11, 2002)
The Great Leftfielders I watched Barry Bonds hit his 600th homerun last night on television. The homerun itself was impressive, an arcing line-drive, charged as any thunderbolt. Watching Bonds over the last couple of seasons has been truly compelling; here is someone who has found his gift, his connection to the source of things, and […]