Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog

A (wine) Star Is Born

This pretty much made my day!

I do believe a star is born.

A Very Unusual Wine Book

"The House of Mondavi", a new book by Julia Flynn Siler, is a very unusual wine book. As an indication of just how unusual take a look at what  the "Customers who bought this item also bought" at Amazon.com:

Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich

The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy

The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of the Lazard Freres & Company.

Not many books are ever released that focus on the business of wine. Most are "how to drink" and "how to know what you are drinking". But then Siler is taking on a very unusual wine business in "House of Mondavi". Despite the ubiquitousness of Mondavi-branded wines in America, it remains one of only a handful of wineries to ever be traded publicly and to ever reach the heights of general public recognition.

On the other hand, Julia Siler is a very unusual reporter. You can count the number of folks who cover wine as a business outside the trade publications on one hand. This unusual position puts Ms. Siler in the position of getting the middle finger on that hand since unlike most writers on wine she actually doesn't write about the "glamor" and tastiness of wine, but rather the character of its underbelly.

The book itself is part history, part wine book, part business expose with a dollop of gossip thrown in. That's about the right combination to attract a pretty wide audience. And all in all it seems to me the author has done a pretty good job of combining all those perspectives, delivering a page-turning event, and opening up the other side of wine to folks who probably only know that Napa Valley makes damn good wine and is a pretty cool place to visit. There's also intrigue in them thar vineyards.

Robert Mondavi, the focus of the book, comes off pretty as I see it. This man was a force of nature, a seer, and someone with a remarkably generous disposition. This all comes through in "House" despite the occasional implication that Mr. Mondavi could have known better at times, perhaps treated some folks close to him better or taken different directions that would have made for a happier outcome for many people. But I don't think the delivering the kindly and farseeing side of Mr. Mondavi was the author's intent. Why should it be? She wasn't writing, "Mondavi: Great Man of Wine". That story has been written over and over. But the fact that his greatness does come through loud and clear in a book that is a business expose is testament not only to him but those who know him and provide background and information to the author and despite the implications of the book that Mr. Mondavi's charitable inclinations had something to do with the course of the company's stock price and viability.

As I was reading the book, I started wondering just how man such stories could be written about the wine industry. How many compelling business-related books on the wine industry actually deserve to be written and would resonate with enough readers to justify their publication by a company in the business of making money through book publication?

I can think of two or three that have already been written, but those focused more on the business of wine or of Napa Valley, rather than a person or company. Those books will surely be written again as more and more folks become interested in wine and want a peak behind the curtain. Then of course there was the recent book on Robert Parker that was both personal profile and part business profile.

I'm not sure another "House of Mondavi" will be written anytime soon as something similar would take finding a character such as Robert Mondavi, someone nearly larger than life in the business who personally changed the business and became known most American households.

There are a number of folks around Napa Valley who are upset with the tone and substance of Julia Flynn Siler's book and by extension with her. Napa Valley and the wine business is a pretty small place and folks can be understandably protective of their home and friends. They'll probably get over it. In the end, Robert Mondavi is far more than what are between the pages of this book for these folks, for Napa and for the wine industry. However, "House of Mondavi" is a pretty darn interesting look into the wine industry, particularly for those not living here, not FOM and who enjoy a good read.

Good News...No Need to Read My Blog

Good News!!!

You no longer have to come to Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog in order to read it. You can now read Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog   HERE .

...And the best part...You don't even have to know what you are reading is from the Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog.

...because they use my copy and don't attribute it to me. Isn't technology great!!

WineOnlineDirect.com  appears to be a wine blog with pretty good wine information, if don't say so myself. It imports posts from other blogs as its own copy. On the front page it has the first paragraph of its imported posts from other wine blogs. You can read the rest by clicking on the title of the post. No where on this page does it mention the blog from which the post was....taken.

When you load the page with the entire post you see down at the bottom of the page, in small, light grey type, "originally posted by Tom Wark"...with a link to Fermentation.

It appears that besides me, others in the wine blogosphere are getting this lovely bit of exposure including
The Seattle Wine Blog, Jamie Goode's Wine Blog, and WineCast.

WineOnlineDirect.com has one purpose in life: shove as many GoogleAds as possible on to one page and collect as much money as possible from click throughs.

Am I off my rocker thinking I should be getting a cut of this income??

How about you Jamie, Tim and Gene? Have you gotten a cut?

As I mentioned in another post a few days ago, I recently made the mistake in another forum of using someone else's copy without attributing it to them. Dumb!! However, in my defense, I did not set up a money making venture based on stealing their copy then trying to hide a fleeting reference to them. Color me proud? No. Color me honest.

Wineonlinedirect.com is run by a company called Eyeball Farm out of Sacramento. They are an online pay-per-click ad firm. The firm is run by a gentleman named Jim Bonfield. I was thinking about writing to Jim (jim@eyeballfarm.com) to ask why he was trying to pass off my work has his. Or at least to ask him to place a prominent link to FERMENTATION on the front of his website where my posts show up so prominently. Maybe someone else will do that.

Instead I thought I'd take this moment to merely reiterate how cool it is that folks like Tim at WineCast, Jamie at Jamie Goode's Wine Blog, Gene at Seattle Wine Blog and all the other bonafide bloggers work so hard to pump out good information and viewpoints on the world of wine. These are honest attempts to inform their readers and feed their own passions rather than being....well...being similar to the WineOnlineDirects of the world.

For those of you interested in a very good example of how to use other people's blogs to help people get info while making sure attribution is given to the blogger check out WineLifeToday and AlaWine .

Where's My Tin Foil Hat?

I have a couple of acquaintances who could legitimately be called Kooks of the Tin Foil hat variety. You probably know the type either from having come across one in a political forum on the Internet or in movies as the over-the-top conspiracy theorists who sees black helicopters flying through the night sky. My two acquaintances happen to be of the "a-powerful-cabal-of-one-worlders-are- conspiring-to-make-us-all-slaves" type.

There is no doubt there they would point to THIS STORY as evidence, then point to this quote from the story as proof:

"With the passage of Senate Bill 131, Ohioans can take opened bottles home in the car."

As I think about the implications of this particular story, I find myself reaching for a tin foil hat.

How is it that Ohioans, and probably citizens of nearly every other state in America, need to have their politicians pass a law in order to have the right to take home with them an unfinished bottle of wine?

You pay $50 for bottle of wine at your favorite restaurant but just can't finish it. It turns out that in some states you have to leave $25 worth of wine on the table rather than take it home with you the same way you would an unfinished heap of pasta.

I commend the state of Ohio for passing it's new law that allows one to take home an unfinished bottle of wine, but lament the fact that there actually must be a law to allow it.

The problem of course is that we can't be trusted with an open bottle of wine in the car with us. While this kind of nannyism isn't enough to make me pack up and move to the hills or to a country where the powerful cabal of slave drivers can not reach, it does, for me, make that tin foil hats look just a bit more like a sassy accessory than a sign of having gone over the edge.

Wine, Dope, Jesus and Free Speech

The extent of the State's ability to control speech doesn't often touch on the issue of wine or alcohol. Yet today I think it does. At least today's Supreme Court ruling in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case reminds me of the ways by which substances such as wine and alcohol are treated by the state.

The 5-4 ruling today tells us that a school has the right to censor speech at school events that might be construed as advocating drug use against the schools stated policy.

At the school my children go to here in Sonoma Valley, they are prohibited from wearing any clothing that contains the image of alcohol or a pro-alcohol message. For example, if I get a T-Shirt from Ravenswood that says "No Wimpy Wines" and give it to my boy, he may not wear it to school because it promotes alcohol consumption. If found wearing it he will be given a large, bright orange T-shirt to wear over it for the day that reads, "Tomorrow I will dress for success".

There are other clothing prohibitions in place at the school, most of which have to do with gang apparel and scanty clothing.

My point is that wine and other types of alcohol are lumped with gangs, drugs and promiscuity at my children's school and likely at other schools across the nation. This will not come as news to most people. Nor do I think it's necessarily a situation that demands some sort of community uprising. (The fact is it would take a heck of a lot more than banning a wine t-shirt at school to get most wine communities to rise up.)

So while I don't know how Jesus would have felt about bong hits, I do wonder what the school's reaction would be to this t-shirt:

"JESUS LIKED WINE MORE THAN WATER!"

Maybe one day the Supreme Court will even tell us if this is a subversive message.

Loving the Fermentation Wine Blog

A Salute to Those Who Help Keep FERMENTATION going. Check them out. Please.

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HUMANITAS WINERY. Where givers go to drink charitably

 

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How To Successfully Bait Tom Wark

This is how you successfully bait Tom Wark:

YOU STUPID DIPSHIT WHINING SNIVILING MUST BE A DOPESMOKING, SHORT-DICK SYNDROME, PUD. IT IS ALL ABOUT A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE, FIRST, AND THE SHEER CAPACITY SECOND. dO YOU GO TO THE LOWES STORE EXPECTING, NAY DEMANDING, THAT THEY CARRY EVERY FUCKING BRAND-SIZE-COLOR-MODEL-YEAR OF PAINT? DO YOU THINK THE GOV. OUGHT TO LET YOU(OR YOUR 14YR OLD) BUY YOUR ZANAX ON LINE OR AT WALMART? GO DIRECT IF YOU WANT, EVERY ONE ELSE THAT WANTS TO IS, JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP ON YOUR HIGH-HORSE-SMARTER THAN EVERY-ONE ELSE IN THE WORLD LIBERAL DROOL.

For the record, no I don't go into Lowes expecting them to stock everything. However, I dont' expect the government to mandate that I am only allowed to shop for home improvement goods at Lowes or at brick and mortar home improvement stores.

Communing with my Imagination

Anyone who isn't dreaming about a better life or at least a lifestyle more suited to their disposition probably isn't very imaginative.

So, count me among the imaginative.

Now and again I'll peruse the various wine/vineyard real estate listings, usually just to see who is selling what, to discover what the going prices is for vineyards and wineries, etc. Yesterday I came across this Anderson Valley/Mendocino Ridge property that looks pretty tempting. and gets the imagination going:

Anderson Valley/Mendocino Ridge appellation
80 acres
Remote
Access to the metropolis of Boonville and Philo
12 acres of Old Vine Zin, Chard and Pinot
A very good reputation for the grapes
More room to plant
Two homes
Room for another home
Ponds.
$2 Million

One of the most tempting parts of this property is, of course, the vineyard. DuPratt has yielded grapes that have been made into outstanding wines by Navarro and Steel. The Zin portion of the vineyard was planted about 90 years ago. The vineyard itself is at an elevation of 1,200 feet meaning the cooler weather produces grapes that lead to wines of "mountain" character. Read: Good backbone and structure. And it appears that there are folks more than willing to line up to buy the grapes if the new buyer isn't inclined to make their own wine. Were you to sell the grapes off the Dupratt vineyard its unlikely you'd get anywhere close to covering your mortgage. But the view of the vineyards from your house might make up for that.

The other tempting part of this property is the location. Anderson Valley and it's surrounding ridges is simply a stunning locale that is likely being discovered by buyers as we speak. I certainly see more and more Anderson Valley wines these days. My experience with the the folks that live there has been wonderful also. Good people.

I wonder if one could run a public relations firm from this location?

Anyone up for a commune?

Altruism, Community, Wine & SNOOTH

I've been thinking a lot about Snooth lately. The recently launched meta site that aggregates reviews from numerous sources, as well as those entered directly on the site, to come up with aesthetic and critical profiles of wines, is a good thing. A very good thing.

If the web is to become a reliable place to go for opinions on products then we'd better have a variety of opinions. That's what makes me particularly interested in Snooth.

When running on all cylinders Snooth has the potential to deliver an array of opinions on wines ranging from the consumers, the retailers, the critics and the wine competitions. They attempt to translate all this information into a five point rating scale (it delivers half points...that's good). This is ambitious. But it wouldn't be worth doing if ambition were not built into the project. Just look around the net at all the other websites that offer "community reviews" of wines. Seems to me if you are going to enter this space, enter it big and bold. And that appears to be what Snooth is doing.

Snooth is currently pulling reviews from around the web, including CellarTracker, which seems to be the most successful community review site. However, there are also scores from the Spectator, Tanzer and others. There are medals listed from competitions.

This brings up a big difference between Snooth and other review aggregate sites: A skepticism with altruism. Cellar Tracker was built on the idea that wine lovers would be kind enough to offer their reviews of wines. And they've stepped up and done so. But there is no guarantee that this model of relying on folks to deliver their views on a wine to your website will pan out. There is in fact a real and obvious possibility that many a wine will be missed or ignored.

Altruism can't be counted on. And the folks at Snooth, while they encourage the kindness of wine lovers by asking them to rate wines, have made a point of creating software that scours other sources of altruism, not to mention the professional points of view.

Snooth currently has over 1.5 million "reviews" or comments on various wines. How long would it take to generate that kind of useful content if you relied on altruism?

The other beauty of Snooth, and the reason you should use it and bet on it, is the way it allows one to search for wines or receive recommendations for wines based on wine-related words: heavy, big, cherry, oaky, low alcohol, etc. What this means is that both the review-obsessed as well as the ordinary wine lover who  simply knows what they want, can make good use of Snooth.

Snooth will eventually be monetized by allowing retailers to upload their inventory, which allows a "buy now" button to be associated with any wine in the system that is currently sold by any participating retailers. Eventually snooth will take a cut or percentage of each sale. I suspect if the community grows advertising will also be a revenue generating possibility. And why shouldn't it be a part of the site? A good ad for a good product isn't offensive in the least.

Everything depends on the user base Snooth can create.

Here's hoping it creates a base of millions of users.

Things I've Been Wanting to Say...

So much to impart, so little time. So, Here are some mini posts about things I've been wanting to say....

1. 100 POSTS: The Cork Board Blog, which just finished up its 100th post, is turning out to be one of the best new blogs in  the past couple of years. The Cork Board focuses on Napa Valley. I'm unaware of another blog, though it may exist, that constantly works the Napa Valley beat. That's hard to believe.

2. A BLOG FOR WA: There are other very good wine blogs focused on Washington State. A new one in the game is Write For Wine (nice title!) They just started up this month. Go give them some love and check out a new WA perspective.

3. I KNOW IT MEANS SOMETHING IMPORTANT:  Wine Opinions released a new survey that Steve Bachmann over at The Wine Collector has some interesting comments on. The survey looks at purchase influencers. Based on the survey, Steve, among other things, concludes the following:

-Initiatives to apply social networking to generating wine recommendations should have a receptive audience.

-Internet-based wine opinions contained in blogs or shared tasting notes are already a significant influence factor and growing stronger based on a steady flow of new initiatives.

Of course this last one interests me. The survey reports that "24% of consumers in the panel read wine blogs, about double the level which read the Wine Advocate or eRobertparker.com."

I'm not even sure what this means. But I think it is important.

4. DUMB, BUT INSTRUCTIVE: So, the other day I'm writing up a newsletter for Specialty Wine Retailers Association and I use a quote from Rich Cartiere's Wine Market Report. But, I didn't attribute it to him. Dumb. It was an oversight on my part. But it was dumb nonetheless. In the course of talking it over with Rich, who has been at the business of reporting on wine since before there was an Internet, he made a good point about attribution and the Internet: It's crucial and particularly crucial to those who have subscribers. We bloggers in particular sneakily use (steal?---look a the item above) things from others all the time. We give attribution and think we've done enough by doing so. One thing I try to do when I find myself inspired by another's writing is NOT to reprint the whole thing that inspired me. It's important to send people to the source, not only so they can get the whole story in context but so that these other sources have reason to keep publishing. Apologies to Rich and reminders to myself: always attribute and always link back and always give' em a reason to follow the link.

5. WHATTA PALATE!: How does Alder do it? I honestly have no idea how a one man show like Vinography can taste and post in such volume about so many wines as he does when he writes up those events. His Napa Auction and Rhone Ranger rundowns betray a man with a palate of amazing stamina. Wow.

6. OH, HOW I WISH: Anyone who wonders what the benefits are of being an accomplished and successful person in the wine business needs to read this post from John Kapon at Blogau Vin. OH MY GOD!

7. COMIC RELIEF FROM THE LOGIC-IMPAIRED: It's one of the silliest things I've ever read. Let me get this straight. If there is any risk at all that a minor will be able to obtain alcohol form a particular sales channel, we should prevent any wine from being sold through that channel. I do believe Craig Wolf, President of the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers Association, is angling to put his own membership out of business. After all, we really need to shut down all those brick and mortar retail outlets that sell wine. Minors might get alcohol through then. Wait...they DO get alcohol through them. Funny stuff, Craig!