Blogs
:
Mixed Case: Opinion and Advice
It takes a vision—or a few dozen of them—to turn thousands of acres into millions of bottles. The stakes are high, and plenty can go wrong
Posted: December 27, 2012 By Ben O'Donnell
At the Penfolds Nuriootpa winery in Barossa, you can crush 22,000 tons of grapes. At Chateau Ste.-Michelle, 2.8 million cases of wine go out the door every year. If you are Peter Gago or Bob Bertheu, head winemakers at Penfolds and Ste.-Michelle, respectively, how do you even process and track so much stuff, let alone make it good?
"That's why God created Microsoft Excel, I guess," replied Bertheu. I asked four winemakers who head up large-to-massive operations that produce dozens of different cuvées in all price ranges, from $10 quaffers on up to the storied $600 Penfolds Grange. In my previous post on the subject, I gave a sense of the scale of the task and wrote about how the four keep tabs on their growers and grapes through harvest. Now I'll explain how they juggle as many as 52 different wines at once.
News & Features
:
News
From the Iberian Peninsula to Germany, winegrowers faced low quantities of grapes and a lot of work in the vineyards
Posted: November 20, 2012
News & Features
:
News
A wet spring and a hot, dry summer lowered grape quantities across the Italian peninsula and kept winegrowers working hard
Posted: November 19, 2012
News & Features
:
News
Winegrowers earned their paychecks as they dueled tough, wet growing conditions all year; the Rhône was a bright spot
Posted: November 16, 2012
News & Features
:
News
The sun came out for a warm, dry growing season in the Pacific Northwest; East Coast winemakers managed to dodge a hurricane
Posted: November 15, 2012
News & Features
:
News
Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Not in California, where most winemakers report an easy growing season with plenty of high-quality grapes
Posted: November 14, 2012
Sept. 30, 2012 Issue
:
Features
Posted: September 30, 2012 By Nathan Wesley, James Molesworth, Augustus Weed, MaryAnn Worobiec
News & Features
:
Unfiltered
Plus, an unauthorized M. Chapoutier fashion line in China, and cutting loose with the harvest olympics in Napa
Posted: September 20, 2012
Blogs
:
Mixed Case: Opinion and Advice
The evolution of the most important wine-industry innovation in nearly 150 years
Posted: September 18, 2012 By Robert Taylor
The Northern Hemisphere harvest begins this month, and in the vast, vast majority of the world's vineyards, it starts with a heavy machinery operator turning the ignition on a mechanical
grape harvester.
Many wine lovers might imagine—or might prefer—a scenario that involved skilled harvesters gently selecting the very best bunches of grapes, all by hand. But the half-dozen experts I polled—including industry insiders, vintners and mechanical harvester operators—conceded that 90 percent or more of the world's wine grapes are likely harvested mechanically.
If you're interested in the intersection of quality and value, you should be grateful.
Blogs
:
Exploring Wine with Tim Fish
When your hands are stained red, a cold one is all you want at the end of the day
Posted: September 12, 2012 By Tim Fish
It's half-past September and do you know what California winemakers are drinking?
Beer.
No, it's not a joke. There's an old saying, in fact: "It takes a lot of beer to make wine."
News & Features
:
News
A first look at vintage quality in the South Pacific, with eyewitness reports from growers and winemakers
Posted: June 21, 2012
News & Features
:
News
A first look at vintage quality in South Africa, with eyewitness reports from growers and winemakers
Posted: June 20, 2012
News & Features
:
News
A first look at vintage quality in Argentina and Chile, with eyewitness reports from growers and winemakers
Posted: June 19, 2012
News & Features
:
News
A first look at vintage quality in U.S. wine regions, with eyewitness reports from growers and winemakers
Posted: November 18, 2011
News & Features
:
Tasting Reports
A blind tasting of 11 of France's first 2011 wines finds another good vintage for the Beaujolais region
Posted: November 17, 2011 By Alison Napjus
News & Features
:
News
A first look at vintage quality in California, with eyewitness reports from growers and winemakers
Posted: November 17, 2011
News & Features
:
News
A first look at vintage quality in Austria, Germany, Spain and Portugal, with eyewitness reports from growers and winemakers
Posted: November 16, 2011
News & Features
:
News
A first look at vintage quality in French wine regions, with eyewitness reports from growers and winemakers
Posted: November 14, 2011
Oct. 31, 2011 Issue
:
News
Posted: October 31, 2011 By Mitch Frank, Augustus Weed
Blogs
:
James Laube's Wine Flights
Justin Smith, Brian Loring and others are dealing with the late 2011 California grape harvest
Posted: October 28, 2011 By James Laube
We're in the middle of another crazy, late California harvest. Good but spotty are other themes that run through most of what you hear about California's harvest 2011. And on the horizon, the smaller crops in recent years could spell price increases. In areas where grapes are still hanging, harvest is winding down quickly and should be finished by next week, ahead of predictions of rain and cooler weather.
