As I strolled through Jean-Pierre Wolff’s vineyard, I found myself asking, “what do turtles have to do with wine?” I pondered if the turtles emerged from their home to help with harvest, if the shelled creatures imparted a bit of nuance to the terroir of the vineyard.
Wineries buy fruit all the time. However, The Winery at Holy Cross Abbey is the only one I know of that buys grapes from a prison.
A third-generation winemaker, Piero Incisa della Rocchetta comes from a family that's legendary in Italian winemaking. A third-generation winemaker, Piero Incisa della Rocchetta comes from a family that's legendary in Italian winemaking.
A cool, persistent spring was the beginning of the weather problems that would plague the 2011 California harvest, pushing back bud break to make the grapes almost three weeks behind schedule. May and June had heavy rains, and the summer heat never really spiked. Pinot noir and chardonnay seemed happy with this weather, and many producers were able to pick elegant, low sugar grapes before the main vineyard event of 2011: October rain.
Overall impression is sweet, light, easy-drinking and very New World.
If you are not familiar with the concept of Fair Trade, it follows the proverb of, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Can you imagine using a jeweler's eyepiece and tweezers to pull the male organs off a grapevine?
Randall Grahm can. It's a patient task, but he's doing it because he's impatient.
Our wine-loving lifestyle is under attack, and the enemy is much smaller and more difficult to see: diseases and pests like Pierce’s Disease, leafroll virus, and the apple moth.