Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/70670
TE CHNOL OG Y grand tradition will always seem hollow and inauthentic. But that's good news because technical innovation is our tradition in California, and our wine should reflect that in some way. I grew up in Flint, Mich., which was the birthplace of General Motors. My grandfather came to Flint from Liverpool in 1907 because it was the Silicon Valley of his time, but by the time I was getting out of high school in the mid-'70s, everyone who was paying attention knew that the business model for GM was broken. The cars were crap, the passion for innovation long gone. A type of self-satisfied cynicism had set in. The problem was everybody was still making so much money they were afraid to rock the boat. It took 30 years, but even- tually this attitude destroyed the largest corporation the world has known, and my family and I had a ringside seat. So when you appeal to doing things the same old way, I know about the dark side of that. It's informed a lot of my career. And of all the places I travel to in the world today, the one that captures the spirit of Flint in the late '70s, that mixture of complacency and unease, is Bordeaux. W&V: What cutting-edge technologies do you see on the hori- Of all the places I travel to in the world today, the one that captures the spirit of ...complacency and unease is Bordeaux. —Winemaker Rick Jones zon? What are you working on? Jones: I've been thinking about Brett a lot lately. Some of my favorite wines have some amount of Brettanomyces in them, and we seem to have become caught in black-and-white thinking about it, either letting it run rampant or acting to eliminate it completely. I'm working on a project in the general area of yeast propagation and management, for the purpose of having more robust and effective ferments, and I think it would be fun to grow "good Brett." My work with Della Toffola, which is located in Veneto, near the region of Prosecco, has gotten me thinking about a high- quality California Charmat process sparkling wine. I think there's room in the market for a fresh, fruit-centered sparkling wine, without a lot of autolysate character but made with coastal grapes and priced between something like Andre or Barefoot and méthode champenoise. One of the long-term threats I see to our business is the rise of cocktail culture in millennials, with its wider palette of flavors. If we continue to make the same wines we were making 20 years ago, with everybody copying one another, we are going to look pretty boring in comparison to cocktails. I know it's tempting and probably more profitable in the short term to make another Merlot with a cute animal on the label, but it's going to cost us sooner or later. I'm not saying that launch- ing new products is easy, but giving in to doing it the same way is giving in to the Flint-style thinking. A resident of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Laurie Daniel has been a journalist for more than 25 years. She has been writing about wine for publications for nearly 15 years and has been a Wines & Vines contribu- tor since 2006. Skolnik_Dir10_Jan10.qxd 10/19/09 10:04 AM Page 1 FRENCH AND AMERICAN OAK for fine wine STAINLESS STEEL COOPERAGE CALL 877-542-1158 TO ASK US ABOUT OUR NEW TOAST BLENDS 38 Wines & Vines JULY 2012 Providing leading wine makers with stainless steel barrels of high quality, durability, and design. SKOLNIK INDUSTRIES, INC. 4900 SOUTH KILBOURN AVENUE CHICAGO IL 60632-4593 PHONE 773.735.0700 FAX 773.735.7257 TOLL FREE 1.800.441.8780 HTTP://WINEDRUM.SKOLNIK.COM EMAIL: SALES@SKOLNIK.COM