LA PLUS CA CHANGE/ GOES TO SHOW YOU NEVER CAN TELL ORGANOLEPTICIANS #94 MARCH 2, 2018 Even without climate change, farming is a crapshoot. Eventually something goes awry: a frost right after bloom, a tractor axle gives out, ground squirrels girdle vine roots, virulent microbes, wildfire… Locusts! Zombies! Still, somehow, every year, grapes get picked, […]
The Crucible – August 9, 2010
Organolepticians Number 83 “I’m not sure just how I’m supposed to play this scene, but I ain’t afraid to learn…” (Wildfire, copyright 2004) You might think that by the time our 25th harvest rolled around we’d have everything figured out pretty well, maybe even have it all down to a science. And it’s true, I’d […]
A Few Thoughts Regarding Syrah, 25 Years Into The Parade… – May 27, 2010
Organolepticians Number 82 (May 27, 2010) The first wine I ever made from Syrah grapes was barely ten and one-half percent alcohol. I hadn’t intended it to be so low; twelve and a half to thirteen percent would have been more like it. But being pretty new at the winemaking business in 1985, I left […]
Time Out of Mind – February 8, 2010
Organolepticians Number 81 When I moved Edmunds St. John out of our Emeryville facility, in the late ‘90s, there were a few items I didn’t know what to do with: things there weren’t room for in the Audubon winery, where we moved, and no place else to keep them. Small pieces of equipment, some lab […]