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 […]
Whoppin’ Good Time! – November 6, 2009
Organolepticians Number 80 I saw Bob Dylan and his band the other night, at the Greek Theater here in Berkeley; I must have seen him eight or nine times over the past 44 years. Just making a statement like that kind of makes my head spin around a little. I was a kid when I […]
What’s In a Name? – September 26, 2009
Organolepticians Number 79 Sycamore tree! I’ve seen the storms come tearing at you, But I’ve never seen them catch you, and I wish I could bend that way…* I almost called my album “Bend That Way,” but the fellow who was doing the liner art kept sending me these lewd drawings, and I succumbed to […]
Beauty In The Beast (The Baby and the Bathwater) – July 27, 2009
Organolepticians Number 78 For hundreds of years, countless winemakers throughout Europe have vinified their grapes in concrete. It’s a material that, when formed into a large vat, or tank, is sufficiently thick so that its thermal mass will counter the heat generated by a fermentation, keeping the rate of ferment relatively slow and even, and […]
April Starlight – 24 March, 2009
Organolepticians Number 77 How the seasons roll round! I wrote a song called “April Starlight” in 1977, when I was a tour guide at Mondavi, and my younger daughter was still waking up nights, needing a little snack. Just by sitting up with her for half an hour, in the wonderful silence of a chilly night, […]
First The Tide Rushes In – November 5, 2008
Organolepticians Number 76 November 5, 2008 One January morning, at roughly age 10, part way into Dwight Eisenhower’s second term as President of the United States, I got my first look, on our primitive black and white television set, at the Harlem Globetrotters, and I’ve never been quite the same since then. How could anyone […]
August 30, 2007
It must be ninety in the shade in Berkeley. The skin on my right hand has turned a little blue from grape pigment, from punching down bins of Gamay and Syrah. The Syrah from Wylie looks like black bean soup, except the liquid is a purple that seems almost electric. I’m well into Harvest 2007, […]
November 25, 2007
ONCE AGAIN WE’RE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE EDMUNDS ST. JOHN’S 16th Annual Post-Harvest, Pre-Holiday Fete du Vin Extravaganza Edmunds St. John, with Eno and Harrington Saturday December 1st and Sunday December 2nd, 2007 12-5pm 805 Camelia St., Berkeley between 5th and 6th Sts. RSVP: (510) 981-1510 As always lots of […]
Organolepticians Number Seventy-Three (February 28, 2007)
Late Winter Offering There’s snow on the tallest hills around the Bay Area this morning, and I’m wearing a few extra layers, trying to keep the PG&E bill down. As cold and wet as it’s been lately, we’re still way down on seasonal rain, and hoping for a few more storms as Spring moves closer. […]
Organolepticians Number Seventy-Two (September 4, 2006)
Me and My Shadow 2002. A numeric palindrome, the kind of year that makes you feel like you don’t know if you’re coming or going. That’s how the harvest seemed for us, that year. At first it seemed everything would be early. Then again, we had ten days in the middle of the month when […]