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-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 […]
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-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-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 Twenty-Six (April 18, 2002)
The View from Here What follows here is the (edited) text of an essay I wrote back in 1995, as the result of an invitation to address a dinner gathering at Manhattan’s Savoy restaurant, on the subject of whether it’s possible, in an era dominated by mass-production and homogenization, to produce “soulful” wines. The impetus […]
Organolepticians Number Twenty-Eight (May 21, 2002)
Ramblin’ Blues: In search of the World’s Greatest Pizza Over a period of 5 days in June of 1996, I visited winegrowers in the Rhone valley with the estimable Robert Mayberry, who is, among other things, the author of a most useful and comprehensive reference work titled: The Wines Of The Rhone Valley (Rowman & […]
Organolepticians Number Twenty-Nine (June 24, 2002)
Rhônesome and Ramblin’: In Search Of A Linear Narrative Fanny Klein brought us coffee. She must have taken pity on us, that morning after. Fanny had agreed to be our translator for Sunday evening and Monday, giving me a chance to get my French “legs” under me, before I became our only link to any […]
Organolepticians Number Thirty (July 2, 2002)
The King of Luckytown There are 16 apricots in a blue and grey bowl on the kitchen counter this evening, in varying states of ripeness. Three more rest near the kitchen sink, where they’ll soon be trimmed around the spots where the birds and squirrels and bugs went after them before I could pick them. […]
Organolepticians Number Twenty-Two (November 8, 2001)
I Don’t Think We’re In Kansas Anymore, Toto It’s a Friday afternoon in late September. I’m in line at a checkout counter at Longs Drugs, waiting to pay for my tube of sunscreen and 2 large bottles of water, before heading down to Paso Robles, yet again, in the perpetual pursuit of harvest epiphany, when […]