Archive for the ‘Signs of the Apocalypse’ Category
How To Make a Small Fortune In the Wine Business
March 28th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Start with a large fortune: The seeds of (Patricia) Kluge’s financial downfall were sown in 1999 when, along with third husband William Moses, she established the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard on 960 acres near Albemarle (Virginia). The couple’s plan: Create vintages that would establish Kluge Estate, and subsequently Virginia, as an East Coast mecca [...]
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An Outbreak of Inventiveness That Must Be Stopped
March 23rd, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Making wine out of stuff that wine shouldn’t be made of. Chocolate wine. Birch sap wine. Cranberry wine. Corn wine. Shitaki Mushroom Wine. Onion wine. Honeydew Melon Wine. Tomato Wine. Snake wine. Wheat wine is, in fact, beer, and thus is not to be reviled.
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Is China’s Thirst For Wine About to Dry Up?
February 8th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
People like me talk about the economic rise of China (particularly as it relates to the wine industry) as if everything that happens now is going to happen forever. (See Are the Chinese Taking Over the World?) The flow of extraordinarily rare and valuable wines to the Far East, for example, is reported as a [...]
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Frankenwine II: The Perfect Food Pairing
January 31st, 2011 by Tom Johnson
A while back I reported on a patent application for genetically altered yeast that, added to basically any fluid that is primarily water and sugar, would generate a Stepford Wives sort of wine with specific taste attributes. The yeast would at least theoretically make it possible to turn sugar water and a few chemicals (including food coloring) [...]
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Economic Indicators: Dumb Money, Big Money, and Chinese Money
November 30th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Harry & David, where you can buy pears for $3.50 each, is getting into the wine business. Entry-level for the H&D Wine Club is $780 a year, in exchange for which you will get 36 more-or-less $20 bottles of wine. If you prefer to receive only wines rated 90 points or above, the tab is [...]
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Surely the End of the World Must Be Nearby
September 22nd, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Fred over at NorCalWine samples wines paired with bacon and keeps a straight face.
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Wine Country Weird
August 25th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
If it’s true that California sets the trends for the rest of the country, we will be seeing an increase in wedding photography that has almost nothing to do with the bride and groom. Weddings are big business at vineyards and wineries everywhere, of course. And rows of grapes, somehow wild and orderly at the same [...]
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