Last night I attended the second of what will probably be many open forums on the proposed amendments to the Sonoma County general plan. At issue is whether or not the county should extend Riparian corridors 100 feet from each bank of designated creeks, streams, and rivers, whether biotic habitat zones should be enacted where [...]

My son finally arrived yesterday morning, which means that the OIV series will have to be put temporarily on hold. I do expect to make tomorrow’s talks on Winery Costs and Profitability, so check back then for info on building and financing inventory, size distribution and market niche and their affect on profitability, financing premium [...]

The tasting was a great success and nearly all of the wines were wonderful (two were corked unfortunately, one more than we “deserved” given industry rates). As should be expected with a field selected mainly from the Russian River Valley, the appellation dominated the tasting. There were some surprising results from the tasting however, with [...]

There have been a number of news stories on the effects of immigration on the wine industry the past few days. The first story I read, on Sanluisobisbo.com and written by the Associated Press, does a good job of putting a human face on the plight of recently laid off vineyard workers. In an interview [...]

Eric Asimov writes about Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in his latest post, and relates some of the astronomical prices DRC wines are commanding in New York ($2400 a bottle). The site he links to for information on DRC is interesting and well written, though the author falls prey to some remarkable anthropomorphic hyperbole, even by [...]