Oh, No! We Are Going to Run out of WINE!

Even by the standards of popular media, this is amazingly dumb.

The article.

If only there were some mechanism to signal wine producers to make MORE wine.  We could call it....I don't know.... price?

I am making a bold prediction:  THere will be no wine shortage.  "Peak wine is peak idiocy.

Wild, Wild Life

Strange things in the campo. You see Chinese tractors:

Do click for a more fruitful image. (That's el Patron, standing and facing the camera. A very fine gentleman, who moves with the pace of the land. Not fast, but sure.)








Then, the beautiful (but not very dangerous) Chilean rose tarantula.

Vino de Fundo Santa Ana

Went down to Chillan, after flying to Concepcion, toward the south of Chile. You can't say "in the south," because the country is so tall. But Chillan is quite a bit south from Santiago.

Got to stay at the winery/home of the in-laws of Eugenio. All the estates there are "Fundo BLANK BLANK," where the blanks are the names of the wife of the estate owner; in the case of Fundo Santa Ana, that was Ana. Amazing to watch the grapes being taken in, and the wine being made. There are VERY few concessions to the 20th century here, except for the use of gasoline powered engines on the tractors and the grinders. Everything else is escuela vieja.

The view of the big house from the vineyard:

The field, with the wagon and boxes of grapes:

A short video of the delivery of the grapes to the grinder. A centrifuge separates the stems, which still have a lot of sugar in them. These are used for compost and animal feed. The noise is the grinder.

The press. This could have been from 1600. Absolutely no mechanization of any kind. Here they are removing the pressed skins, which still have quite a bit of sugar in them, to use for one more pressing and fermentation.

The sunrise, looking out over the vineyards from the big house.  Fire on the mountain.  Amazing.