Here’s another winery blog for your list Mike!

I met Morgan Twain-Peterson almost exactly a year ago at the OIV Wine Marketing course at Davis, just before my son was born. We hit it off immediately. We sat in the very back of the class and talked about the industry almost as much as we listened to the presentations.

I remember Jim Lapsley (the program coordinator) making a comment that in his experience there was a direct relationship between the grades he gave students and how close they sat to the front.
Burn!

I also recall Jim (who’s a great guy BTW) looking at me like I was a complete mouth-breather when I told him I was there to learn about the “old way” to market wine. Jim hadn’t heard of The Cluetrain Manifesto and he quickly ended our conversation when I mentioned it and then excused himself. Looking back Jim probably thought I was a communist.

But really, because the internets have done such a good job disseminating information, the real benefit of in-person conferences is networking not data exchange. Luckily that wasn’t lost on me or Morgan. Even though we chatted almost as much as the speakers did it was valuable time extremely well spent.

By far the best part of meeting Morgan though was the similarity of our circumstances. Both young. Both crazy enough to think we could build new wineries.

Then there’s the fact that his dad actually helped Joe Swan, our neighbor and patriarch of the Russian River Valley, build his historic winery. There’s also the fact that Morgan drank the kool aid and believes in the power of the online medium almost as much as I do. Last year while he was touring France he contributed his travel writing to pinotblogger, and just last week Morgan kicked the tires on his new winery website and blog at blog.bedrockwineco.com.

This is exciting stuff. In his words

Bedrock Wine Co. specializes in making hot-lipped, straight-up, no bullshit, delicious wines…My hope with this site is to give credit where credit is due. [O]ver the next couple of months a number of interviews will take place with those people who have helped me understand wine.

Not content to slap up just another winery blog, Morgan is taking the Bedrock Wine Co. blog into new frontiers with his extensive use of video. I especially dig his extremely detailed accounts of winemaking and winery minutiae. It’s fascinating for both industry folks like myself, and for passionate wine enthusiasts as well. For instance, there’s some great videos of Morgan out in the vineyards he’s sourcing from describing what makes them unique. There’s also footage of a barrel run to the east bay, and lots more.

Most folks have heard of Morgan’s Dad, Joel Peterson of Ravenswood fame, but his pop will be staying out of the enterprise for the time being due to a non-compete contract he signed with Constellation when Ravenswood was sold. So Morgan will be on his own this crush – no consulting winemaker on staff. 800 cases without a net (which should be the tag line for his blog IMO). Still, considering that Morgan made his first Pinot when he was 5 I’d say the family reputation is safe.

So, a great big welcome from pinotblogger to Morgan and the folks at Bedrock. I encourage you to check out the blog, join their mailing list when it’s available, and try their wines in 18 months. And until then, enjoy the journey vicariously through his words and video.

Should be good times indeed.