Before Retirement, Vance Petrunoff Was Selling Bulgarian Wines from Sonoma, CA

Today I was out and about running some errands. At some point, I was struck by the thought that today would be the perfect day to sit outside and enjoy a glass of wine. The sun is out with only a few clouds in the sky, it’s not too hot and the city seems to be turning green. If that doesn’t warrant a glass of wine, I don’t know what does. The thing is when I got home after my errands instead of having a glass of wine I started reading up on Bulgarian grape varietals, growing regions and wineries. In fact I’ve just spent the last two-plus hours reading about wine. Obsessive? Maybe. Interesting? Oh, yes. http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/bulgarian-wine/#comment-1393

Prognoses about the economic health of wine companies must focus on the potential and opportunties for export. This is because in nearly all wine producing countries, with the notable exceptions of the USA and Australia, per capita wine consumption is decreasing. Most producers will start to commercialise their 2009 harvest in 2010, even if not sending out the actual bottles of wine, apart from Prosecco which is always precociously sold the year of its harvest. The quality in Europe looks promising. Harvests for 2009 push France once again into the top spot as the world’s top producer with 48,1miohl (an improvement of 12% over 2008 which was particularly low yielding). According to recent estimates Italian wine production is estimated at 46,5miohl for 2009 harvest. Spain will likely be in 3rd place, with a volume around 39,9miohl. Climate change may bring some positive ffects for producers in the short term and certainly the Champenois, for example, are sangine on the issue of globa...

After a brutal year for the wine industry, California's 2009 harvest is shaping up to be a glorious success. Much of the Pinot Noir and white grapes are already off the vine, and even those winemakers who have been waiting for grapes like Cabernet are finding pleasure in the fruit. "It's delicious," says Cathy Corison of Corison Winery in St. Helena. The story she tells is similar to other winemakers'. A relatively cool, dry spring and summer provided the cold nights needed to maintain grapes' essential acidity - the only exception being heat waves in late August and early September, which actually allowed some growers to play catch-up. "We were thinking we were about 10 days behind most of the year, and that pretty much moved us up," says Nicholas Miller, whose family runs Bien Nacido Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley. Otherwise? "An ideal growing season." Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/04/FD5L19UO75...