If you’re of a certain age you may remember I Love Lucy – a t.v. show in the 1950s (and re-run throughout the 60s and 70s) featuring Lucille Ball. One of the episodes I remember best (apparently it was in season 5) was called Grape Wrestling. In it, Lucy pulls up her skirt and climbs […]
Month: September 2014
Winemaker Andrzej Lipinski of Big Head Wines
When I started work on the App I was struck by how often the name Andrzej Lipinski came up. When the App was first published in 2012, he was the winemaker at Cornerstone Estate Winery, Burning Kiln Winery, The Organized Crime Winery, and Colanari Estate Winery, not to mention having left his fingerprints on winemakeing […]
A living lab
On a recent visit to Southbrook Vineyards I asked Ann Sperling, Director, Winemaking and Viticulture, about how the harsh winter of 2014 impacted Southbrook’s spring pruning. She explained that, in general, they pruned pretty heavily. Their theory is that they wanted to ensure that the vines had as much energy as possible, so that they’d […]
Estimates of Damage from the Napa Quake
Though most people thing of wine as pure pleasure, whenever I visit a vineyard or winery I can’t help but think that – at its heart – it’s farming and therefore subject to the whims of Mother Nature. And, when Mother Nature deals a wine region a tough hand – as she did this past […]
A Perfect Taste Combination
One of my sisters has an expression she sometimes uses when she’s describing a meal that she’s particularly enjoyed – she often refers to what she calls “perfect taste combinations”. Now, lest you think my sister is some professionally trained chef who is waxing poetic about rarified ingredients that are cooked and served just so […]
Being thankful for having a reason to use bird bangers
After posting the video of Ann Sperling talking about the Green Harvest I realized that viewers of the video may be wondering about the loud bangs in the background. (Indeed, one viewer even posted a comment on YouTube asking.) Those are the bird banger canons used in the vineyard to scare birds off. At this […]
Of lemons and lemonade …
This week I was out at Southbrook Vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake and Ann Sperling, Director, Winemaking and Viticulture, was kind enough to show me around the vineyard. Seems the harvest in the Niagara region is going to be late this year (by about three weeks) because of the slow start after the harsh winter and the […]
Women Winemakers in Ontario
I’ve updated the app (watch for notification from the App Store for the update) and I’ve included a new category: Women Winemakers. I’ve been considering adding this as a category for some time, but a friend of mine thinks it’s sexist of me to do so…. After much thought, I decided to add it – […]