Editor's Letter

 

Equipped for the Future: Insights for 2017

January 2017
 
by Jim Gordon
 
 

JANUARY IS A GREAT MONTH for thinking about the future, and this issue of Wines & Vines has plenty of food for your thoughts. It’s traditionally our biggest issue of the year, and it is timed for distribution at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, Calif., running Jan. 24-26. That event also makes a great springboard for planning what to do in the winery, the office and the vineyard in 2017. Read managing editor Kate Lavin’s preview of the symposium.

New cellar equipment is going to be on a lot of people’s minds this month. Consider Andy Starr’s column to get mentally prepared for any equipment purchases you may be pondering for this year. As a former winemaker who also earned an MBA degree, Starr has a knack for laying out plans. Not all of us do, but as he explains with a little humor in the column, “It’s OK to plan.”

A piece of equipment that’s murky for many winemakers is the reverse osmosis machine. But don’t worry, a pioneer in adapting this membrane filtration technology to wine production, long-time contributor Clark Smith, lays it all out for you. He explains what reverse osmosis is, what it’s useful for and how to select a unit for your needs.

Senior editor Andrew Adams’ Technical Spotlight article on the new Sugarloaf Crush custom winery in Sonoma County describes the rush to open the facility in time for the 2016 harvest. It was one of those harrowing, last-minute installations of equipment just in time to crush fruit. But the job got done. All those small fermentors on the cover of this issue were installed, and Sugarloaf was in business.

Laurie Daniel has been writing the Wines & Vines interviews for 10 years now, and this issue has a double dose of them. She questions San Francisco Bay Area winery architect Jeff Goodwin about trends in materials and construction methods related to wineries and also interviews co-owner and winemaker Jared Brandt of Donkey & Goat winery in Berkeley, Calif., about why and how he ferments whites on their skins and reds on their stems, among other things.

Grapegrowing content in this issue includes one great example of vineyard innovation in Lompoc, Calif., “The Radical Reshaping of Babcock Vineyards” by Tama Takahashi. It also includes in the Wine East section a great example of research that has very practical applications: Imed Dami’s report about the freezing tolerance of Vitis vinifera cultivars in eastern North America.

Finally, since it’s important to have a good record of the past in order to make better plans for the future, our Vintage Report 2016 recaps the most recent growing season and harvest in wine regions from the West Coast to the east. Adams wrote the intro to this extensive report, and 23 well-informed correspondents (mostly extension advisors) filled in the particulars from their regions. There’s much more in the issue, too, but we’ve run out space.

If you’re attending the Unified Symposium, we warmly invite you to visit our team at booths 428, 430 and 441 to say hi and give us your feedback about how we can serve you better. On behalf of everyone at Wines & Vines, we wish you a happy and well-planned New Year.

 
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