Back to School

I recently treated myself to a one-day seminar called the New Grape Growers Workshop hosted by the University of Maryland.  I’m not certain if this classroom setting complies with my “self-education” concept, but I decided not to split hairs over it.  The head lecturer began each discussion with the same slide:  “Good wine is made in the vineyard.”  Makes sense. 

In the end it actually turned out to be pretty entry-level stuff, and some of it I could have done a decent job of presenting myself, particularly the lecture on financial modeling.  Sample question from the audience:  “I understand that this generic model you’ve built is for a single acre vineyard, but what if I have 10 acres.”  “Then you multiply all these numbers by 10.”  “Ok, but what if I have 20 acres.”  Nonetheless, there were still a few kernels of knowledge that I picked up, most notably that I’ve probably trained my Corot Noir vines on the trellis the wrong way, I should have been spraying fungicide all along, and besides, the wine produced from Corot Noir grapes tastes “just ok” anyway.  Hmmm, maybe I should have attended this workshop two years ago before I planted.  To be honest I wasn’t that discouraged though, it’s better to make your mistakes on seven vines then 30 acres, and that is why I call this my “dry run.”

Determined to fight on, I went home and racked my Chardonnay off the oak cubes, and noted that the wine was tasting pretty darn good, thank you very much.  No surprise really.  After all, good wine is made in the vineyard, and these grapes came from California and not from my sister’s backyard.