Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/101495
EDITOR���S LETTER A Bumper Crop of Information This special edition is packed with original, useful content A s an editor I always like our January issue. It���s often the biggest of the year and gets extra distribution and exposure at the North American wine industry���s largest event of the year, the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium. Because the issue is big, it provides plenty of room for good articles, and that���s what we writers and editors live for. This issue is to me what the 2012 vintage was to winemakers here on the West Coast: an opportunity to make a really good product and lots of it. Our harvest in this issue includes a literally ground-breaking report about vineyard geology, a look inside Ridge Vineyards��� fermentation rooms, an unconventional way to cold-stabilize, an informed opinion about why not to conduct a media event and several more original feature articles, plus our exclusive market research in Wine Industry Metrics (page 12) and an expanded Headlines section (page 18.) Starting with winemakers The cover story by Paul Franson (page 44) consists of 11 mini-interviews with experienced winemakers. Franson started with an admittedly provocative (or lame) idea of mine to ask for advice about how to make your wine worth $10 more per bottle. Most of the winemakers brushed off that idea like a fruit fly at the crush pad and then answered another question instead: How do you take a wine from good to great? Nearly everyone���s first thought was to find great grapes. Not new, but true. Franson also uncovered a dozen or more useful little gems, such as Celia Welch���s suggestion that good lighting in the cellar aids good sanitation, which in turn aids better wine quality. I think you will find the input interesting. No one suggestion will gain you an extra five rating points from your favorite critic, but taken together the advice adds up. Going native The founders of modern Ridge Vineyards in the 1960s were original thinkers, too. At a time when new research was quickly improving commercial winemaking, Ridge���s founders decided instead to make wine with the methods from the 19th century, including native yeast fermentation. As we all know, they succeeded brilliantly over time. But it wasn���t just because they went all natural, as author Thomas Ulrich explains on page 64. The founders, being Stanford scientists, and winemaker Paul Draper (who is still on the job today) decided to measure everything they could during the native fermentations to first understand and later guide the process. Ulrich���s detailed examination of Ridge���s procedures will help other winemakers guide their fermentations, native or not. Do it yourself A huge gap separates many smaller and newer wineries from the larger, more established ones in terms of the equipment and services they can afford. But one thing that winemakers on either end are good at is solving problems on the fly and with the resources they have at hand. A frequent contributor, Richard Carey is the co-owner and winemaker at Tamanend Winery in Lancaster, Pa. Besides having a doctoral degree, he has a knack for do-ityourself solutions to otherwise expensive winemaking challenges. I think you���ll admire Carey���s initiative in developing a low-cost way to chill his wines in plastic tanks (page 150.) Please come by the Wines & Vines booths (Nos. 315 and 430) at Unified and say hello. Original thinking Maybe the most original article is William Fuchs��� entertaining and detailed report about ���Viticultural Geology��� (page 86.) Fuchs is a Ph.D. geologist who has contributed two articles about wine cave construction in the past six years. Fuchs conducted his own study of terroir by focusing on one small vineyard area in Napa Valley. He walked it���or, rather, climbed it, since the terrain was very steep���dug down to the rocks beneath the topsoil in dozens of spots, analyzed the rock samples and mapped everything in great detail. Then he correlated rock types with wine quality by working with three winemakers who use the grapes grown there. Along the way, he also discovered an uncharted seismic fault. 10 W in es & V i ne s JANUARY 20 13 Can we improve? Most of the articles in this special issue have equally interesting back stories, but I���ve run out of room to describe them here. We will keep bringing you news stories, market data and how-to articles about winemaking and grapegrowing throughout the year. I hope you will keep reading and shoot me an email or give me a call with any ideas about how we can improve our service to you. Reach me at jim@winesandvines.com. Please come by the Wines & Vines booth, No. 430, or the WineVinesDATA booth, No. 315, during the Unified trade show in Sacramento to say hello. All of us at Wines & Vines wish you a bumper crop of grapes and exceptionally high quality wines in 2013. SEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #H3 u