Cork trees are closely related to bananas. True story.
Putting a cork in it has a long and storied history: corks provided the ideal closure for bottles and barrels for twenty centuries, and the argument still exists that there is nothing better than a chunk of tree bark for keeping quality wine in good condition.
However, in the early 20th century cork manufacturers in Portugal were nationalised, with the government handing over complex industrial and distribution systems to their cronies and useless brothers-in-law. Only a few companies managed to keep continuity, to keep producing quality corks, but they were overwhelmed the bumblers who produced volumes of second-rate TCA ('corked-aroma') closures for years.
It's the first weekend of June, and that means it's the annual LD Carlson conference. LD is Winexpert's distributor in the USA and the largest consumer beer and winemaking supplier in the world. Winexpert's relationship with them goes back over two decades, when Carlson's Ron Hartman took on the original Brew King wine kits--a bit of a visionary step at the time, but one that's been great for both of us.
The very first conference was 14 years ago, and it was a tiny affair in Akron Ohio with a few dozen retailers. Small, but effective: the first time I spoke at the conference I did a Q&A that lasted what seemed like days--it was well over four hours, as the folks attending got hooked on the idea that there was a guy who not only could answer their questions about wine kits, but also was obligated by his job description to give those answers.
We've all some a long way since then. The recent conferences have been held in Cuyahoga Falls, in a pretty lovely venue at the Sheraton there. The eponymous river is very famous locally, for an amazing phenomenon. It used to be so polluted that it actually caught fire--thirteen times!
Geez! You set a river on fire a couple of times - like that couldn't happen to anyone! - and people never let you forget it.
Always nice to have you back in the neighborhood for a visit, Tim.
Thanks, Lisa: it's always great to get back to Ohio and see all my friends.
As for the burning river, you have to admit it's kind of an arresting idea, like a mountain floating away, or haystack going for a walk: simply not the norm!
I've been thinking about the wine kit business (I know I don't mention this very often, but since it keeps me in cheese sandwiches and pays the kitty-treats bill, I do think about it quite a lot). This is always a dangerous proposition, but I have been coming across the same question from a bunch of different sources, and in most places that I visit where we distribute our consumer winemaking products: 'How do I get new customers interested in my wine/wine business?'
Sure, not a new question, but it's getting more obvious as times goes by. While wine sales are generally increasing across the category, not every consumer winemaking store is growing at the same rate as the commercial side, and it's more significant when you compare the wine numbers to those of beer. To be sure, traditional macro-brew beers (those made by one of the Big Four, who collectively control 50% of all beer on earth) are in the swamp, declining continuously for the last decade, but Craft beer (brewed by independents for reasons in other than quarterly corporate profit), is exploding, continues to explode:for all intents and purposes appears to be a big happy explosion as a default state. Wine people can't help but think, 'Where's my piece of that delicious alcohol-pie?'
Where do you put the carboys in a 450 sq ft condo without knocking the bikes over?
Nobody needs eleven fixed-gear bicycles--nor does an man require thirty pairs of jeans that would fit a toddler. Toss the junk and make wine!
Tim
David Noone Posted 23 days ago
A truly accurate and genius description of most industrial American beers as having nothing more than "alcohol and wetness".
I guess I'll have to put the kibosh on the Dancing Gorilla label I was making.... TIIIIMMMM!!! (Screamed a la Capt. Kirk)
Nothing wrong with some alcohol and wetness, but if it tastes like gorilla sweat as well, then I'm out.
Tim
Kirsten Posted 12 days ago
I won't pretend to be a hipster but my partner and I, who got into wine-making fairly recently, are in the right age group and seem to be living a hipster-ish lifestyle (uh-oh...). I don't know if it's at all helpful to know why someone who only recently got into wine-making didn't do so until now, but I figure it's worth writing a few lines about it.
I had known about wine kits for years but never got into wine-making myself for several reasons that I assume can be generalized to my generation as well as the next: cost, effort, space, and class. The first two are clearly misunderstandings that my local Winexpert retailer resolved in all of twenty seconds.
The third, space, is not really a misunderstanding -- it does take space to store the equipment when in use and not, 30 bottles of wine or more realistically many more than 30, etc. -- but a challenge to be overcome. I have a very small house but I hadn't really started settling in prior to taking up wine-making so I have the luxury of planning renos and decor around the new hobby. For example, my home office is a blank slate waiting for me to find the time to custom build a pub-height desk with wheeled "fermentation stations" underneath. Until then, everything's in the middle of the kitchen and it looks a bit -- okay, a lot -- like I'm a hoarder! Most people don't have the luxury of the blank slate abode; they're already settled in their homes and the space allotted for wine is big enough for a few bottles, not for primary fermenters, carboys, bottles, etc. Most of my friends and family would be unwilling, even if able, to find the space for all the stuff wine-making requires and produces. Setting someone to work on creative solutions for that problem might help as well as making for new product lines for Winexpert or a subsidiary company. Ikea-style furniture that doubles, in typical Scandanavian fashion, as something functional, disguising wine-making equipment? An easy sell to the hipster crowd. Then again, maybe this already exists and I just don't know about it. I tend to go for more DIY problem-solving so haven't really looked into it.
The fourth is, I think, the biggest issue you'll face and I'm somewhat ashamed to admit it was a real stumbling-block for me. Wine kits call to mind the redneck great-uncle who used to make fruit wine in his bathtub, 'shiners out in the sticks who sell their wares through the local taxi service, and folks who can't afford the good stuff and'll drink anything so long as it'll get 'em drunk. At least that's what they call to mind for me and for a surprising number of people that I know -- even on-premise, though using the exact same kits, is thought to be classier than doing it at home. People look down their noses at home wine-making and hipsters, above all else, are "cool". The fact that they still sell wine kits in hardware stores (where I live, at least) doesn't help. Just selling the product won't combat this stigma. It seems to me that you have to renew and sell the whole *idea* of home wine-making. Ideas about how to do that are pretty easy to dream up -- heck, you can snipe them from the beer world because they've already done this. Again, though, maybe you guys have already tried this.
A few other thoughts that may do little more than reveal my ignorance about the whole industry:
1. What about truly local kits that will really give wine-makers a sense of place? I'm from an area where there are quite a few small wineries and a few people who just grow grapes to sell them to home wine-makers. I have no idea how to go from grape-on-vine to wine and I'd pay more than the average wine kit cost to buy, for example, Seyval and l'Acadie kits and produce at home the same wines my local wineries are making. I'm sure the same goes for other wine kit makers here and in other regions. (Heck, I'd even drop everything to cultivate a vineyard here to produce grapes to be turned into wine kits! How much fun would that be?!) This would definitely give a sense of place -- beyond just "in my kitchen" -- and would fit in with the whole "locavore" movement (itself largely motivated by those spooky-magical consumers we call hipsters).
2. How about an "eco-line" of wine-kits? Anything from organic grapes to recycled cardboard for the boxes to a non-plastic juice bag/holder would fit the bill. (This also suggests a marketing strategy -- and not one that depends on any eco-line -- something like the Brita water-filter ads with the build-up of bottles that have to be recycled. Let's face it, making your own wine reduces waste and fits in with the whole eco-friendly thing that's (rightly so) all the rage right now.)
Well, I must say I'm a bit surprised, but lucky enough to have made my trip to "mecca" of wine kits last summer. I have had conversations with Linda by both phone and e-mail, and even when I didn't like what I read, I knew it was right. Linda (and Tim) and I hail from the same neck of the woods (Saskatchewan) so I always felt a bit of a connection. Good luck Linda in your future endeavors and thanks for the help. Maybe you'll have time to visit Kamsack now!
I'm a huge fan of synthetic corks. While I'm also down with natural corks, the price-point on them for equivalent quality is so high that synthetics beat the heck out of them for most purposes--they never chip, rot, leak, split or taint, go in easy, come out easy and are extremely uniform in size and appearance. Nomacorc is my product of choice, as they have excellent quality control and great research on their products.
But have you ever wondered how synthetic corks are made? Vectored from the wonderful site, Wine Folly, here is a short video of the process:
Oh my, this is some kind of record. I'm going to talk about Winexpert products for the third time this year. Wow, you'd swear they paid me or something.
But I'd talk about our Limited Edition wines even if they weren't my baby: top quality grapes from extremely cool regions and viticultural areas, varietals and styles that can be unfamiliar (at first!) and the opportunity to make a vintage wine to age and enjoy in the coming years--what's not to love? This year was totally cool because it was the first time we included a grapeskin pack in one of our LE 2012 wine kits.
Tim -- Whew indeed!! I have been a home winemaker for over 11 years and Winexpert is generally my kit of choice. There has been only one year I have not ordered, made and consumed at least one of if not all four and then five Limited Edition kits.
Since you have pushed the idea of reading the directions before I started the kit, I did. It's kinda like a guy telling a guy, "yeah, ya better look at the map".
What a shock when I followed all of the directions and discovered the SG to come in at 1.080 and nothing better.
I couldn't believe WE made a mistake, and so, before adding sugar, I thought I would check your blog. Good thing I did. I would not have known about the problem with the Brix/SG readings.
Again, whew! and thanks!
Thom Green, Fort Wayne, IN
PS: Patterson Hardware in New Haven is my WE shop of choice.
Thom,
Glad that we caught it in time to avoid major confusion. The gravity reading caught me off guard as much as anyone--the longer I stay in this business, the more I realise I have left to learn.
The folks at Patterson are lovely people--glad you've found a fine shop.
Cheers,
Tim
Dave Posted 21 days ago
This is also one of the first kits to have the "don't top up" instruction in stage 3, stabilization. I have found that the grapeskin kits give a little extra back when thoroughly squeezing the bag of skins, and with a little extra diligence when racking from the primary, may carboy was just about full. When I racked before stabilizing, I did not use the sediment bowl on my auto-siphon, and as a result, had to reserve a little wine to leave enough room for stirring. When I finished adding the reserve back into the carboy, it was about full again. 8ish days later, when I racked it off the sediment, I added about 1/2 bottle of a commercial Barolo (man that was expensive). It's now sitting for a little longer carboy aging, and it already smells and tastes very good. I will have a hard enough time getting some to 18 months, let alone 3 years.
I did finally find the instruction that says it's OK to top up with wine for bulk aging, in the bottling (step 5 instruction). I must confess that I have not read the bottling instruction in quite a few years.
Cheers Tim, it's going to be delicious!
Cheers to you Dave--I've got three carboys getting ready to bottle and I'm looking forward to trying it as it evolves over the next decade.
This is without a doubt the most exciting announcement I’ve ever made in the 13 years I’ve been with Winexpert—and it’s something that’s going to change everything about the Consumer-Made wine industry, from coast to coast!
Let me explain: in Canada there are two ways to make your own wine. The first is obvious: you buy a wine kit and a few pieces of necessary equipment and in the comfort of your own home you go through the process of making up the batch, pitching the yeast, transferring the resulting wine, clearing and stabilising it, and finally bottling it so it can age until it’s ready to drink.
Cork trees are closely related to bananas. True story. 
Pretty much the view from my room. Pretty nice! 
He did seem eager to open a dialogue . . . 
Nebbiolo grapes looking ripe. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons _f500x375_1364800629.jpg)
This is going to be good!
Comments
Tim
Posted 13 days ago
Oh man, why does YouTube always choose a still in my videos that makes me look like I just ate a lemon?