How to use this blog

Submitted by Clark Smith on Sun, 04/27/2008 - 12:00am

This blog consists of pieces on various wine technology topics. These are sorted into Categories: Postmodern Winemaking, Natural Winemaking, Terroir, Alcohol Adjustment, Social Responsibility, and so forth. The Search function will bring up titles discussing your keyword: sulfites, micro-oxygenation, chips, allergens, fining, and reverse osmosis are rich in content. I also recommend the Postmodern Winemaking Calendar Mandala or the the Postmodern Winemaking Glossary which ties all the concepts of postmodern winemaking together.

Use of oak chips/powder/staves

Submitted by winesmith on Sun, 01/18/2015 - 9:42pm

Q: Is eliminating the barrel from the equation eliminating the romance of a cellar full of barrels? And do consumers care to know that their wine was oaked in a more cost effective fashion?

-Roger

There is nothing romantic about the corpses of 200-year-old French oak trees stacked in their thousands to impress the tourists. It's as reprehensible as it is unnecessary and wasteful.

Science and Politics

Submitted by Clark Smith on Wed, 08/25/2010 - 4:57pm

The recent attack by anti-GMO activists on an experimental planting of biotech grapes in a government-funded site in Colmar, France raises some thought provoking discussion about public safety, burden of proof and the nature of the public commons.

The Buck Starts Here

Submitted by Clark Smith on Sun, 03/23/2008 - 12:35pm

Progressive Banking in God's Country

Submitted by Clark Smith on Sun, 05/27/2007 - 1:33pm

God's Country

Submitted by Clark Smith on Sat, 08/19/2006 - 11:31am

California winemaking gives me the creeps. And I'm not alone. Everything winemakers do is completely dependent on hispanic labor. Yet we treat these people like animals. You have no idea.

When I negotiate a sale of a piece of Napa real estate to be converted to vineyards, the first thing we do, before the D9's can fell trees and rip land, is to hire Mexicans to hand-carry out the bedsprings (which foul the backhoes of the machinery) left behind by the displaced tenants.