Friday, April 23, 2004

Instant winery.

Interesting in-depth article about "instant winemakers" - negociants - out on the West Coast. (One of the negociants they look at does Castle Rock wines, previously highlighted here.) People who buy excess wine, perhaps age it a bit more, and bottle it under their own label. And one thing I learned from the article is that the wine they buy often isn't just "excess" that the original winery couldn't sell - sometimes it's awfully good wine that didn't fit into the blend that the winery wanted to make that year, and it wasn't enough for them to bottle on their own. Or they've lost access to grapes that they've been putting into a single-vineyard bottling, and rather than continue to market a wine they know they can't make next year, they'll sell last year's wine to a negotiant, and move on to other wines.

Selling my own wine without having to be a farmer - perhaps this is what I'll do after I win the lottery.