In late August 2020, just before harvest started in earnest, I sat and enjoyed a glass of wine and the sunset with the legendary Lorenzo Corino where I learned about the patented Metodo Corino, the vegan biodynamic system he developed with La Maliosa’s Antonella Manulli. They worked together to develop a protocol and a process which lab tests showed significant enough differences, so that with the production of a scientific paper, they received their patent in May 2019.
“Biodynamics is yesterday,” said Lorenzo. But the moon is eternal: “I trust the moon. The moon is very important. When a new moon, the vines grow faster. The moon is something we know well and follow.”
Lorenzo Corino 1947-2021; photo courtesy VeroVinoGusto
“Cabernet Franc? Isn’t that a blending grape?” my friend Kathy asked. “You’re right,” I assured her. “It’s probably best known as part of a Bordeaux blend. But in the Loire in places like Amirault and Tete Rouge, all biodynamic certified, Cabernet Franc stands alone. And people in the US and other parts of the world are growing it too to make stand alone wines!”
Aldo Clerico grew up in the heart of Barolo country in his family’s vineyards in Monforte d’Alba in the Langhe in northern Italy. He studied accounting in college, but in 2004 he returned to his roots to become a wine maker:
“Artists teach us to see the world with refreshed vision, they force us to ask questions about society, they console us and even enrage us. But, above all, they engage us and remind us of our own role in the world,” says Donna Granata, founder and leader of Focus on the Masters (FOTM), a non-profit, 501(c)(3), art appreciation program that documents, preserves, and presents the lives and works of accomplished contemporary artists, with most of them from here in Ventura County, California.
I love the idea behind Thanksgiving– the idea that we as families and friends, that we as a nation, that we as individuals pause, even during a pandemic, to give thanks, to be grateful for what we have, for the bountiful harvest the earth provides for us year after year. The actual holiday of Thanksgiving and what it represents? Not so much.
Turkey
The Thanksgiving story we grew up with is largely a myth that erases the people who lived here for millennia before the Pilgrims and the Puritans made their way to these shores. The first Thanksgiving celebration didn’t even take place in Plymouth, Continue reading →
Carménère is the red Bordeaux grape famous for going extinct — and then found flourishing in Chile under the pseudonym of Merlot! It’s hard to imagine how the two could be confused: if you taste Carménère from Chile, you’d never guess it was Merlot. While both have cherry fruit and herbal notes, Merlot is much more mellow, mild, and smooth while Carménère is more wild and crazy with notes like jalapeño jelly. But everyone figured that was just the influence of the terroir in Chile until Continue reading →
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 