Good Grape Wine Company

March 1 2010

News, Notes and Dusty Bottle Items – Open that Bottle Edition

… Flotsam and jetsam that doesn’t fit in a blog post by itself …

Open that Bottle Night

It was a reasonably quiet edition of Open that Bottle Night (OTBN) this past Saturday. An occasion started by the Dottie Gaither and John Brecher, former wine columnists for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the event was started 11 years ago to celebrate drinking that special cellar bottle that needs an event that never seems to come.

If you want to read an interview ipso facto, head over to Palate Press for the 2010 exclusive with Dottie and John (who remain tight-lipped about their next move post WSJ –probably based on their severance agreement—look for their next move in 2011).

For my part, I opened a 2004 A. Rafanelli Zinfandel.  It’s a huge wine, not quite off-putting Amazonian, but big nonetheless, with charm to spare, and it’s drinking beautifully right now. 

Coming back from a work-related awards ceremony on Saturday night (the rubber chicken, kissing babies, slapping backs circuit), I couldn’t wait to get home, take off the sports coat and pour a glass.  The A. Rafanelli did not disappoint.

To me, A. Rafanelli represents what is good about California wine – sublime vino, small, multi-generational and family-owned with enough down-to-earth cachet to keep it interesting.  It’s expensive, yet fairly priced based on production.  Plus, I was introduced to this by a good friend and completely cowed by Dave Rafanelli on a visit to the winery years ago.  A. Rafanelli is quintessential.

On a side note, Open that Bottle Night is the first “wine holiday” of the year.  In a humble effort to try and build momentum with a coalition of willing wine drinkers, I’d like to build some momentum around a calendar of wine events.  Next up is “John James Dufour Day” on April 3, 2010 – intended to celebrate “bud break” and the man that many credit with starting the first successful winery in the U.S. in 1807.

Orange Wine

I’ve recently taken on a heavy interest in wine topics and story tracking.  To me, it’s fascinating to watch topics emerge and stories break that build momentum over a period of time.

This is the sort of thing that helps wine writers develop their “bona fides” because there is so little hard news in the wine industry.  Therefore, getting in front of an emerging trend helps build credibility as being witness to something that is now “esoteric,” but may shortly be “prevailing”—something that can be pointed to as a benchmark.

Undoubtedly, this is also the sort of thing that PR professionals do as they measure the success of their work.

I use Highbeam, Cruvee, Google alerts and good ol’ internet searching for research.

One of the topics I’ve been monitoring is “Orange” wine.

If you’re interested in getting caught up on a topic that has the wine writing cognoscenti aflutter, check out the following links:

Wikipedia – partial article aggregation for Eric Asimov and Jon Bonné

Eric Asimov I

Eric Asimov (New York Times) II

Jon Bonne (San Francisco Chronicle) I

Ray Isle from Food & Wine

Jeremy Parzen from Do Bianchi I

Jeremy Parzen from Do Bianchi II

Alder Yarrow from Vinography I

Alder Yarrow from Vinography II

Jordan Mackay

Feargus O’Sullivan (Financial Times)

What does this particular focus on “Orange” wine in the last eight or nine months mean?  Likely that we’re going to see and hear more about it in throughout the year as thought-leadership trickles down. 

Expect to see an article in a mainstream wine magazine (read:  Wine Spectator) sometime this year.

Want to buy a Blog?

Speaking of Google Alerts … if you’re a wine information hound and you’re not subscribed to Google alerts around various wine subjects (red wine, white wine, wine blogs, winery press release) then you’re missing out on seeing some really weird and wacky stuff that may not always cross the radar otherwise.

In a two day span late last week, a Google alert flagged a mention of Good Grape at a site that valuates web sites – it pegged this site as being worth $230,501.

Elsewhere, I saw a web site auction listing for a blog called, “Grape in a Bottle.”  The auction is now closed, but the site could have been yours for a mere $1500.

Ironically, the valuation web site said, “Grape in a Bottle” was worth $248,472.

For all of this talk about “monetization” it seems a bigger problem is something that is supposedly worth a lot of money can be had for .006% of the alleged value – that is, of course, if there any takers.  If not, then it’s worth exactly what somebody is willing to pay—$0.

So, what does it all mean?  Some people garden, some people refinish furniture, whatever the hobby is, the payment is in the process itself.  The intrinsic value will always be higher than the monetary value for something you love.

At least that’s my $0.02 cents, which is probably worth less than that.

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