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Thought-provoking commentrary from Wines & Vines readers
A jewel of an initiative
Hudson Cattell's article on the Amethyst Initiative (Wine East Editor's Perspective, October 2008) should be read and supported by everyone in the wine business. Some industry leaders (not Robert Mondavi) sold us on accepting the 21-year-old legal drinking age to avoid a warning label--oh, yes! All of us know from our own families and our dining rooms that the best alcohol education is the European model of early introduction, so the initiative by college presidents to rethink this issue is totally appropriate. Please contact them with your support at info@amethystinitiative.org.
Harvey Posert
HPPR
St. Helena, Calif.
Alternative opinion
A few comments on Alan Goldfarb's article regarding oak alternatives (See Headline). Our company, Perryville Stave, has made barrel staves since 1946 (four generations) and has made toasted chips for 15 years or so. Currently we employ 22 people, cut enough wood for 25,000 wine barrels and ship 250,000 pounds of
chips per year. We do business with some of the companies mentioned in the article, either supplying wood or chips. All of this is American oak sourced in southern Missouri and Illinois.
My comments are confined to American oak alternatives. Obviously, not every company operates in the same manner. For years nobody would tell anybody else anything--we had to figure it out by ourselves. Wineries were willing to talk about alternatives (not in public) and were obviously using them. Coopers didn't want to talk about alternatives at all and wanted the whole thing to go away.
Things are changing slowly on both of these fronts. We are on our third toasting procedure, which is the convection oven process, with only 2-year-old wood that we cut ourselves from the log. As far as suppliers being secretive about sources, I can shed some light.
A lot of them do not own their sources of wood and are obtaining their wood where they can find it: Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Minnesota, Indiana, wherever. Several of the suppliers mentioned have contacted us for wood in the recent past, and at least one has sold its mill operation. Geographic area of sourcing has been in large part a bogus marketing ploy for years. Everybody on the bottom of the food (wood) chain knows it. There are some truthful suppliers and some who tell people what they want to hear.
We don't employ chemists, winemakers, and gas chromatographs. We don't know much about winemaking or marketing, but we have been in the wood business for years. If you want to see how we do it, I extend an open invitation to see a first class barrel stave chip/insert operation.
Steve Bailey
Perryville Stave Co. Inc.
Perryville, Mo.
Grants for grapes?
I just read the article concerning the Texas shortage of fruit in the wine industry (See Headline). We are assisting the Louisiana wine industry to address a shortage of available fruit, as well as teaching students how to grow crops. It's a joint effort between our office at the USDA, Amato's Winery of Independence, La., and the Independence High School agriculture department to teach students how to grow Muscadine grapes.
We are hoping that through this experience, students will graduate and go into the business of growing fruit. This will help to address the shortages that the Louisiana wine industry is facing.
We are looking for grant funding that might be available to help. Would your contacts know someone or an organization that may be interested?
Donny Latiolais, coordinator
Capital RC&D Council
Hammond, La.
Hudson Cattell's article on the Amethyst Initiative (Wine East Editor's Perspective, October 2008) should be read and supported by everyone in the wine business. Some industry leaders (not Robert Mondavi) sold us on accepting the 21-year-old legal drinking age to avoid a warning label--oh, yes! All of us know from our own families and our dining rooms that the best alcohol education is the European model of early introduction, so the initiative by college presidents to rethink this issue is totally appropriate. Please contact them with your support at info@amethystinitiative.org.
Harvey Posert
HPPR
St. Helena, Calif.
Alternative opinion
A few comments on Alan Goldfarb's article regarding oak alternatives (See Headline). Our company, Perryville Stave, has made barrel staves since 1946 (four generations) and has made toasted chips for 15 years or so. Currently we employ 22 people, cut enough wood for 25,000 wine barrels and ship 250,000 pounds of
chips per year. We do business with some of the companies mentioned in the article, either supplying wood or chips. All of this is American oak sourced in southern Missouri and Illinois.
My comments are confined to American oak alternatives. Obviously, not every company operates in the same manner. For years nobody would tell anybody else anything--we had to figure it out by ourselves. Wineries were willing to talk about alternatives (not in public) and were obviously using them. Coopers didn't want to talk about alternatives at all and wanted the whole thing to go away.
Things are changing slowly on both of these fronts. We are on our third toasting procedure, which is the convection oven process, with only 2-year-old wood that we cut ourselves from the log. As far as suppliers being secretive about sources, I can shed some light.
A lot of them do not own their sources of wood and are obtaining their wood where they can find it: Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Minnesota, Indiana, wherever. Several of the suppliers mentioned have contacted us for wood in the recent past, and at least one has sold its mill operation. Geographic area of sourcing has been in large part a bogus marketing ploy for years. Everybody on the bottom of the food (wood) chain knows it. There are some truthful suppliers and some who tell people what they want to hear.
We don't employ chemists, winemakers, and gas chromatographs. We don't know much about winemaking or marketing, but we have been in the wood business for years. If you want to see how we do it, I extend an open invitation to see a first class barrel stave chip/insert operation.
Steve Bailey
Perryville Stave Co. Inc.
Perryville, Mo.
Grants for grapes?
I just read the article concerning the Texas shortage of fruit in the wine industry (See Headline). We are assisting the Louisiana wine industry to address a shortage of available fruit, as well as teaching students how to grow crops. It's a joint effort between our office at the USDA, Amato's Winery of Independence, La., and the Independence High School agriculture department to teach students how to grow Muscadine grapes.
We are hoping that through this experience, students will graduate and go into the business of growing fruit. This will help to address the shortages that the Louisiana wine industry is facing.
We are looking for grant funding that might be available to help. Would your contacts know someone or an organization that may be interested?
Donny Latiolais, coordinator
Capital RC&D Council
Hammond, La.
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