Wine Blog

Northern vintners work to improve wines’ quality – Wall Street Journal

Northern vintners work to improve wines' quality Wall Street Journal Wine connoisseurs who favor vintages from Bordeaux or Napa Valley might not have heard of the grape, but Marquette has been exciting Northern winemakers since a Vermont vintage won best-in-show red at a 2009 cold-climate wine competition. and more »

Leftovers from vineyard lend a hand in the kitchen – Green Bay Press Gazette

Leftovers from vineyard lend a hand in the kitchen Green Bay Press Gazette Steve DeBaker of Trout Springs Winery near Wayside uses waste from the vineyard to make grape powder and flour as a dietary supplement. / H. Marc Larson/Press-Gazette WAYSIDE — Fred and Barney didn't work out, but the chickens are a big hit in Steve … and more »

Great Wine Terroirs
“The vine and its wine are a great mystery. Only the vine reveals to us what is the real taste of the earth,” writes Colette. In this sumptuously illustrated and wonderfully informative book, Jacques Fanet invites us on an entertaining tour of the world’s most celebrated winegrowing regions to discover the characteristics of the bond that ties the vine to its place of birth: the terroir. Terroir is a uniquely French term for the subtle interaction of natural factors and human skills that define the characteristics of each winegrowing region.
Interviewing growers and researchers in France, Spain, Italy, California, Chile, Australia, and South Africa, Fanet looks for the soil in the soul of each wine. He takes us back millions of years to show how movements in the ancient bedrock, faults, mountain building, tidal flow, sedimentation, and volcanic activity contribute to the precise and individual character of each terroir, making the great winegrowing regions what they are today. Great Wine Terroirs provides wine enthusiasts with everything they will want to know about different soils and climates, the relationship between international grape varieties and the soil in which they grow, and how these factors affect the taste of the wines.
Color geological illustrations and timelines support the text and explain key phenomena. Fanet also provides a glossary, geographical index, and index of soil types and grape varieties. He explains enological practices and their effect on the terroirs and answers questions such as why the Châteauneuf plateau, almost 300 feet about the Rhône Valley, is surrounded by river alluvia and why there are fossilized oysters in the soils of Chablis. Those interested in the wine of California will find a lively discussion of the Napa Valley, with a detailed explanation of how the San Andreas fault, the Sierra Nevada, and the Great Central Valley have all played a part in creating the most spectacular wine-producing region on the continent.

Customer Review: Good Detail for Wine Geeks
This is a very good text for wine geeks ( I am a proud one myself), but not for the beginner to wine. If you are a lover of French wines and have a bent towards geology, then this is the perfect reference for you! The maps and soil diagrams are wonderful.

Researchers aim to help Northern vineyards, winemakers improve quality with … – Washington Post

WRAL.com

Researchers aim to help Northern vineyards, winemakers improve quality with … Washington Post Wine connoisseurs who favor vintages from Bordeaux or Napa Valley might not have heard of the grape, but Marquette has been exciting Northern winemakers since a Vermont vintage won best-in-show red at a 2009 cold-climate wine competition. Northern vintners work to improve wines' qualityBusinessWeek all 22 news articles »

A Companion to Grapes of Wrath
Customer Review: Superb!
If you enjoyed The Grapes of Wrath, you will enjoy this companion.

Even though the author is a professor from a university in Kansas, and even though he has filled this book with facts, it’s easily readable in a sort of journalistic style.

The Grapes of Wratch is discussed in themed chapters that need not be read sequentially. They include: the novel as literature, reaction to the novel in California, in Oklahoma, war-torn Europe, and throughout the USA; the author’s dedication to the plight of the Okies that preceded and followed The Grapes of Wrath, local, state & federal government reaction, the movie, Hollywood’s reaction to the movie, natural history of Dust Bowl from perspective of geologic time (did you know, the Dust Bowl was NOT caused by overfarming: there’s a geologic record that the Dust Bowl phenomenon is a regular occurance. Conservation-minded farming methods can lessen its impact, but cannot prevent a Dust Bowl).

A caution: if you haven’t already read The Grapes of Wrath, this book may be difficult to follow.

ITAL LIVITY EXPO: Promoting healthy lifestyles… Environmentally friendly … – Jamaica Gleaner

Jamaica Gleaner

ITAL LIVITY EXPO: Promoting healthy lifestyles… Environmentally friendly … Jamaica Gleaner The expo is themed 'A celebration of nature's bounty and the benefits of natural living' and will carry a number of exciting booths showcasing a wide variety of items. These include cooked vegetarian meals and the much-touted health benefits of …

Gardens of the Wine Country
The Napa Valley is a famous vintner’s paradise, with its long, warm summers and mild winters. Naturally, this also makes it a gardener’s paradise, and longtime Napa winery owner Molly Chappellet has an intimate knowledge of each nook and cranny of this horticultural Eden. Napa Valley’s oldest gardens were planted around 1860, at about the same time grapevines were introduced to the region, and though there are only a handful of these, their enormous oaks and antique roses perfectly fit the image of old Napa homesteads. The gardens at Schramsberg, Beaulieu, Spottswoode, Krug, and the Niebaum estate (now owned by Francis and Eleanor Coppola), to drop a few well-known winery names, fall into this category.

Chappellet and her collaborator, Richard Tracy, define “new gardens” as those developed since 1960, some by the enthusiastic new winemakers who brought new life to the Napa region. These gardens are numerous, breathtakingly beautiful, and have apparently provided abundant employment to a number of talented landscape designers over the past three decades. In many cases, a heroic amount of work was done to tame, for example, a rocky hillside into a proper Mediterranean-style villa garden, and Chappellet and Tracy note the details down to the individual plant names. The numerous color photographs, clearly often taken at daybreak and just before sunset, show off the calm, lush gardens to perfection.

Customer Review: An Absolutely Breathtaking Pictoral of Napa Valley Gardens
What an amazing glimpse into the world of Napa Valley Gardening. The author has brilliantly selected a wide variety of gardens, from the traditional Victorian gardens we expect, to the new age ideas of more modern gardeners.Molly says in the introduction that she fell in love with all of the gardens over and over…you can tell. Adding personality to the gardens, by telling us that each garden has the fingerprint of its owner…makes them really come to life…they seem much more like personal playgrounds than showpieces.A lovely book, perfect for anyone’s spring/summer coffee table.