#MFITV – The Fruit Gets Done

Weeks 2 and 3 of Man Falls in the Vines began super busy at the winery, but finished with the quietness of fermenting tanks. I have already talked of the craziness of Week 1 for #MFITV, when we brought in a good 150 tons of super premium Stags Leap District Bordeaux varieties. The last two weeks saw all of the rest of that fruit come in, all of it Cabernet Sauvignon, the heart blood of the Chimney Rock Winery (Twitter, Facebook, WineLog) wines. Our days were definitely long, particularly the last two, where we had two more days of bringing in at least 70 tons of fruit. The last of the lots of Cabernet were completed on 10/27/11 with a healthy roar of relief by the vineyard and cellar crews, and capped off by a raucous bin dive by Jeff in the last ton of fruit. I was in the north barrel room doing my morning ferm monitoring, so I'm still bitter that I missed his swan dive. My bitterness was sweetened however, when Jeff discovered that grapes can really go everywhere and anywhere, when hit at high speed!

5 Questions with Aron Ezra of MacroView Labs

MacroView LabsThere are many a wine app for iOS and (growing) on Android. Wine+Tech wünderkinds VinTank, have done extensive research on iOS apps (iPhone) over the last few years with the most recent count at 450+, as of 04/14/2011. Indeed, my own content is distributed on two mobile apps, Hello Vino and Wine by the Bar. With that many apps out there for a very specific genre, you can imagine that there is a lot of noise and a lot of well, mediocre (at best) apps for wine. So, it is a refreshingly rare circumstance when one comes across an app that kicks some serious vinous booty. And the new app (iPhone, Android) from Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery (Twitter, WineLog) by MacroView Labs (Twitter) gets my vote for kickin' that booty.

VinTank Deals Wines from the Vines

Deals from the Vines - Facebook Group - VinTankCrazy-smart wine biz innovators VinTank (Twitter), have successfully launched a new route on the Direct To Consumer (DTC) superhighway with their Deals from the Vines Facebook Group (DFTV). A relatively new feature on Facebook, closed Groups are an elegant yet simply powerful new component of the social media behemoth. VinTank has seized upon this new feature to form their version of the popular flash sales site phenomena that has taken over the interwebs during this Great Recession. While many of these sites have proven to be quite the boon to the budget-conscious wine consumer, they are not always so profit-friendly to the wineries, chateaux, Bodegas and Quintas that have participated in the various sales. VinTank's DFTV has already effectively smacked that paradigm with vigor, creating a sweet win-win for wino's and wineries, alike.

Vintners Hall of Fame 2010 Inductee Luncheon

Vintners Hall of Fame - CIA GreystoneLast year in late November, I had the very fortunate opportunity to attend the 2010 Inductee Luncheon for the Vintners Hall of Fame at The Culinary Institute of America, Greystone in St. Helena. CIA Greystone is the premiere college for the culinary arts, with the main campus at Hyde Park, New York. They also have additional campuses in San Antonio, Texas and in the imposing former Christian Brothers stone building in St. Helena, California. It is here at Greystone that they have converted the old winery Barrel Room into a an impressive showcase of the many men and women that have shaped the wine industry in America.

Help Your Favorite Wine Blogger!

Wine Bloggers' Conference Scholarship BadgeThe reach and influence of wine bloggers and wine social media mavens have exploded over the last couple of years, particularly in the last 12 months. Major wine critics have have noticed and responded, wineries and all three tiers of the wine business oligarchy have also taken notice and begun to capitalize on that influence (or are already playing catchup). The recent exhaustive and outstanding industry whitepaper by VinTank, Wine & Social Media is the first to encapsulate and quantify this influence and serves as a very important reference for these interactions between wine business, their consumers and the key social media mediators (human and software/websites) of these connections. It is a groundbreaking accomplishment and a signpost of the rapid, continuing maturity of the wine social media sphere.
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