How much wine can you drink?

This week I'm at the Meadowood Wine Writer's Symposium in in mustard flower-filled Napa Valley. Here I am learning about Methoxypyrazines, Brettanomyces, and, not to be left out, Ionone with writers who have been in the business for 10-20-30 years.

One of the speakers, Investment Banker Baker, spouted off some very interesting statistics:
• In American stores, wine has the second greatest number of SKUs. Vitamins have the most.
(So what does that say about us Americans?)
• In 20 years, 1/2 of the world population will fit in the definition of middle class for the each respective country. Baker's implication was that sales of wine will increase as a result.

Can we sustain that kind of wine production and consumption?

25 cent photograph moves a village

While preparing for a presentation to a camera club, I looked over some of the images I took on my second visit with the Konso tribe in Ethiopia's Omo region. Especially moving for me were the reactions of villagers to photographic prints I brought of images I had taken during my visit three years earlier.
I had photographed many women working and taking care of their babies. One by one, I brought out photo prints. Villagers crowded around to identify the subjects. Someone would run to get the person. The looks of recognition were amazing. When the subject saw their photograph, they were instantly rushed back in time three years ago. I could only imagine what must be going through their minds since they had no photographs, cameras or TV. Now their children had grown. Serious flash back.

But the most moving moment came when I brought out a photograph of an old man. The village elders I was meeting gathered around to identify the man. He had died. Someone said that they had seen his son working in the fields. "Get the son," demanded one elder. When the son saw the photograph, he hugged it and started to cry. This photograph was the only thing thing he had to remember his father.

It's not often I'm so moved I can't take a picture. This was one of those moments.

The print probably cost me 25 cents to print (but $3000 to deliver). The villagers, elders and chief were so grateful that they gave me a special escort so that I could photograph anywhere and anything in the village, even the sacred wooden statues.

Farmers can't see Wangfujing Shopping Street

This photograph will be framed and given to Oregon State Representative Matt Wingard to commemorate his recent trip to the land of contrasts, China, including Tianjin city.


Chinese farm workers get to the fields and vineyards near Tianjin as they have for hundreds of years while more affluent urbanites take digital point and shoot photos in front of upscale shops on Wangfujing Shopping Street in Beijing.

Creating experiential mind visuals

Since I haven't yet posted The September China Photo/Wine Tour information on my web site, I wanted to mention some things on our tour that few, if any, foreigners ever see.

There's The Yellow Valley. It's something like a mini Grand Canyon, but without the tourists. Like none. The four or five times I walked there while staying at Grace Winery, nary a tourist–Chinese or foreign; only friendly farmers tending orchards and vineyards for survival. To the local farmers it's just another landscape to grow crops and tend sheep. I watched a sheppard guide his flock from the valley bottom up vertical canyon walls. The whole experience created a permanent visual for me.

What are the visuals for the sheppard? Beauty or burden?

Oh, I forgot, the tour is September 5-16, 2010. We visit 5 wineries, photograph harvest, talk with winemakers, see the Great Wall, walk a part of the 109 acres of Tienanmen Square, and experience Yellow Valley.

Encounter with God

Eddi, my wife, and I are reading out loud The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. It's about a Spanish sheppard boy going out into the world searching for his Personal Legend and a connection with the Soul of The World.

Page 127:
"Listen to your heart. It knows all things because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there."

Page 130:
"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."
"Every second of the search is an encounter with God," the boy told his heart.

My being responds to this need for the quest, the search. Why do I need to visit China or the most remote tribes in Africa? Does anyone else have that need?

Was that the barrel I tasted?

Today I interviewed Rick DeFerrari and Jenny Berg–significant other partners–for the Garage Winemaker story I'm doing. After 6 years of being assistant winemaker at Elk Cove, Jenny is now the head librarian in McMinnville. Rick happens to make wine barrels at Oregon Barrel Works and wine in the corner of a commercial space. Perfect.

We tasted some 2009 harvested Pinot Noir from Elk Cove's Mt. Richmond vineyard taken from three different barrels: 1) a newly made barrel, 2) a barrel used one time and 3) one used two times. Although they were aged for slightly different periods (30 or 36 months), all the barrels were lightly toasted. Let me add that Rick and Jenny are experimenting with partial whole cluster complete with stems fermentation in the mix.

So could I taste a difference? Yea. The biggest difference, I detected a slight green stem flavor but only in Pinot from the new barrel.

Blogging our Photos into The White House

At our last Monday morning staff meeting–oh yes, my in-office staff: Digital Asset Manager, Tamarah Hietanen; Photoshop/Marketing Intern, Perrie Wickart and Marketing Intern, Whitney Signalness–we brainstormed ways to get buzz about our Fine Art Prints.

Why not get one of our Fine Art Prints into the White House collection–yes, The President's Crash Pad, I asked?

Great marketing idea. Think of the PR. Wait, how do we do that? My idea was for me to take a free White House tour with a small framed print tucked under my long black overcoat. Then, I pull the print out near a blank wall, hold it up with one hand against the wall and photograph me and the print on the wall with my other hand. Perhaps one of the Secret Service guys could snap the shutter. No problem.

My staff did a courtesy laugh, then booooood down that idea. They came up with a much greater idea.

Stay tuned to this blog to find out what that idea is and how we will execute the plan.
(Look for "Photo into White House" category.)
Please feel free to share suggestions along the adventure.

(By the way, we already have three large prints in Oregon State Senator Mark Hass's office. From there, it's only a bit over 3000 miles to the White House.)