Central Coast Wine Blogs

Crush, Continued

It's that time of year again. Time for grapes to be harvested and turned into wine. Do we call this time of year "crush" because the grapes are poured into hoppers and dumped into crusher-destemmers to be de-foliated and mangled before fermenting? No, we call it "crush" because this is the time of year when forklifts are backed into doors and tanks; tractors roll down terraced hillsides; hoses get plugged up, tanks overflow, and the winery dogs sleeping on warm cement get run over.

This is how wine is made. When a winemaker refers casually to the "blood and guts" of his winery, he is probably not referring to accounts receivable or distribution channels. He is likely referring to a dismantled crusher, sitting like a beached ship among a sea of littered parts---or the last cellar worker to explode the head off a barrel of wine.

Wayne's Tire does a thriving business this time of year, catering to the ag industry, making road calls nearly 24 hours a day to replace forklift tires, tractor tires and truck tires. The wine industry here is not a tidy, large-scale industry with predictable sizes and types of mobile equipment. Small vineyards and wineries use whatever they can find and afford; picking bin trailers have varying sizes of wheels and tires, and of course they don't just go flat---they shred themselves completely in inconvenient places like terraced hillsides and highway intersections.

Electricians are also highly popular this time of year, as every critical piece of equipment except the punchdown tool runs on electricity---and huge amounts of it. And of course all these generators and presses and whatnot have signs plastered on all their panels saying, "Do Not Open" or "Hazard--Danger," so who wants to go poking around in there?

Forklifts are definitely the most popular piece of equipment during crush---being used for forklift races, diving boards over winery fire protection ponds, to hold basketball hoops, as tire jacks, and for subtly chasing snoopy tasters who wander onto the crush pad.

It's not always fun and games however, as cellar workers wade through hordes of yellow jackets, faint from fermentation fumes (whenever a cellar worker is missing he's presumed sleeping, but we all check the fermentation tanks for floating shoes), drop heavy tools, and yank the barrel washers out without turning off the hot water.

The Magic of Crush

In late summer, there is a moment in vineyards known as "veraison," which translates roughly as "moment of truth." It is the moment when grapes begin to turn from hard, green beads into sweet, plump fruit. From that moment until harvest the vineyards are at their most vulnerable. The hazards of the early season--heavy rains, late frosts--are minor compared to the dangers that haunt the last few weeks of vintage. Hordes of deer and birds descending on tender fruit can wipe out an entire harvest in a few days. Late season heat ripens grapes too quickly, robbing them of flavor. A lack of heat delays harvest into late fall, when freezing nights can turn grapes into tasteless mush. Late season rains swell grapes with water, breaking the skins and infecting entire clusters with mold.

During these last few weeks of summer, winemakers are in the vineyards, looking at the clusters, crushing grapes between their fingers, tasting the fruit. The winemaker's phone rings unanswered, mail piles up in messy stacks, and deadlines are missed. In the winery itself, cellarmen spend weeks draining barrels and tanks of previous vintages, bottling and labeling wine and shipping it out, cleaning tanks, barrels and equipment. Like the unveiling of a statue, cloth covers are pulled off the crusher and the press, and the huge machines are rolled outside, cleaned, and tested. Truck-size scales are pulled out of storage, assembled and calibrated to receive incoming fruit.

But to those of us who have been through this before, these busy weeks seem quiet, sounds seem muted. The vineyards are full and leafy, and heavy with fruit. Vines sag over their trellis systems and trail on the ground. Heat waves dance over the vines and an occasional breeze lifts the aluminum strips which are meant to frighten birds. In the winery itself, empty tanks stand with their doors hanging open. Barrels are turned upside down in their racks and the whole winery has a strangely hollow feeling.

Like survivors of a storm who smell another forming, we move through our preparations quickly with our minds focused on the horizon of late summer, waiting as the rising sugars and flavor of the vineyard slowly escalate--because all of this activity is only preparation for the season we call "crush."

Abalone's Revenge: The Cayucos Abalone Farm

 
 
A while back, I arranged a fundraising dinner and some tours of local food producers as a fundraiser for a culinary association.  We started the day at the Cayucos Abalone Farm with a personally guided tour conducted by Brad Buckley. Perched on small bluff overlooking the ocean, the farm produces almost 500,000 abalone a year. They culture only red abalone, under the brand name Ocean Rose.

Our first abalone epiphany was that abalone are not bi-valves like clams or oysters. They are snails. Gross, yet cool. Various strains of abalone also have their own particular flavor.

Blending Trials

 

  
 
We face each other over two glasses of wine. He asks for my opinion first. My wine repertoire consists of "I like it," or "I don't like it," and maybe a comment on the acid-fruit balance. But this is all he needs—the gauntlet thrown down.

Examining wine is this man's sport and passion. He doesn't just taste, or smell, or see. He views wine as a chessmaster views the board, or a sailor his boat. Every tiny detail is vital, and my opinion is only a catalyst, a challenge that invites him to step closer and lose himself in yet another brief but passionate relationship.

If I say I like it, he looks surprised, as though I couldn't possibly be serious, but bravely he says nothing, going back into the glass to re-examine it dubiously for positive qualities. After a moment he says, "But the phenolics are a bit high, don't you think? And there is a definite brassica component that detracts from the varietal character of the wine."

A Paean to Zinfandel:Paso Robles Zinfandel Festival March 18-20

 

March. The end of winter and cold feet, of leaving for work in the dark and coming home in the dark. It's almost time to dust off the barbecue; our hunter-gatherer instinct awakens and hungers for blackened, peppered steaks and grilled vegetables.

This month is our paean salute, our end-of-winter bonfire, our celebration of everything wine symbolizes—good food, warmth, red berries and red lips, sunlight and firelight, and most of all, the mystery of earth's bounty and man's eagerness to preserve it.

Some zinfandels are elegant yet barbaric contenders for a Gallic throne, mysterious and powerful, with layers of complexity under a velvet mantle. Some are distinctively New World zinfandels—brash, bold and individualistic. Late harvest zinfandels and syrahs with dark, divine flavors strike a resonant note deep in your soul on a chilly night.

Each season's harvest is different, a reflection of the winds, the moons, and man's ability to capture earth's magnificence in a bottle.

Join us for Paso Robles' annual Zinfandel Festival, March 18-20.

50 Tips for Cellar Rats: Intro Excerpt

 

The following is an excerpt from 50 Tips for Cellar Rats, available from Amazon and Lulu.

Do you want to work harvest at a winery?

Are you looking for excitement?  Want to learn more about wine production?  Do you want to sink your hands into a bin of warm, fermenting, aromatic must and breathe deeply of the perfume of terroir?

Working crush at a winery is one of the most exciting work opportunities in the world.  You will be working with men and women who are simultaneously artists and scientists, farmers and celebrities.

Wine is an industry that revolves around the land, the magic of soil, and a luxury product that is fragile and yet has been known to improve over decades.  Like music, wine is an industry where math, art, and passion combine, and where humble artisans can become stars overnight.

The wine industry has a lot of fans, and many of those fans would like to be a part of it, if even for a few magical moments.

And this is where you come in. 

A New Year in the Vineyard

 

Winter, even here in our relatively mild central coast, is a time of dormancy. Barbecues are covered or rolled into the garage, basketballs and baseballs lie forgotten in dusty corners, roses and grapevines raise bare arms against cold and shredding skies.

Like most fruit trees and vines, grapes require this period of dormancy to build strength for the coming vintage. In a way, this time of year is truly the beginning of the next vintage, just as January is the beginning of our new year. A vine is impacted by its past—the type of trellising selected, the demands of past years in terms of water and heat and production, and the amount of tender care and handling it may or may not have enjoyed. But that is in the past. Now the vine is resting, rebuilding, getting ready to produce a new "leaf," as a year is often referred to in viticulture. A new leaf, new buds, new clusters as if nothing had gone on before, as though nothing can deter it from beginning fresh.

Like all plants, a vine is mindless in the sense that it will joyously burst into life in the spring and given its own way it will sprawl, climb, and spread like the weed it is, until, exhausted by its summertime orgy of sun-chasing growth, it finally produces some wild clusters of bird-size fruit.

It is up to the husbandman, gardener, or vineyard manager to prune, shape, domesticate, and tame those shameless vines into tidy rows of well-branched vines dripping with the appropriate number of grape clusters per acre—discipline bringing order and strength into nature.

How to Tell a Wine Geek from a Cork Dork

 

The following post is a reprise of a newspaper article I wrote in 1992.  It was subsequently published on the Dover Canyon Winery blog (which no longer exists). The post enjoyed viral hits and backlinks from all over the world.   I'm sure poor Roger (pictured above) never expected to see his photo reprinted on hundred of sites.  I hope he can take comfort in my opinion that he is not a cork dork, but a true geek. 

Recently, at a dinner with friends, one man's date turned to me and complained, "He's so boring.  All he ever talks about is wine.  All day long he talks about wine."

I probably  looked hurt, because I was just as engrossed in our discussion of Syrah as he was.  Lorraine leaned toward me and whispered, "She's right, you know.  We're all hopeless wine geeks.  Look at us from an outsider's point of view."

But the deeper I get into the world of wine, the harder that is to do.  I think moving our discussion from Merlot to Syrah is a total change in conversation.  Have I been slowly losing touch with reality and drifting more and more into a fascination with varietal differences and degrees of oak, malolactic overindulgence, and varying theories on wild yeasts? 

I must, however, point out the vast difference between a wine geek and a cork dork.  In my lexicon, a wine geek, like a computer geek, is consumed by his field.  He likes dry and sweet wines, white and red wines, French and American wines.  He is an experience junkie, always looking for a new and vinous adventure.  

A wine geek will look at an untried varietal like a biologist discovering a new phylum.  "What's this?  A pinot verde?  Get out the Riedel, we must examine this!"

A cork dork, on the other hand, will hold his glass by the base.  He'll swirl a wine until it's exhausted, and after a long speech on the supposed characteristics of a wine he has yet to taste, will finally sniff it and announce his disappointment in its aroma.  A cork dork will aspire to all things French, and the barrels must be new, the women young, and the wines very old—although any one with any experience knows that these choices are not necessarily the best.  If you try to pour him some dessert wine, he'll snatch his glass away in horror, leaving you in the foolish position of pouring wine on the table.

When visiting wine country, you will inevitably encounter both wine geeks and cork dorks.   Therefore, I suggest these ten guidelines for differentiating between poseurs (dorks) and real geeks (us). 

1.   A dork will make you feel uncomfortable.  They are supercilious, punctilious, and from my point of view, just plain supersillious.  A geek, however, will make you feel comfortable, and value your opinion of his wines.

2. A dork holds his glass by the base, or with his fingers curled sensuously around the body of the glass.  A geek grabs his glass by the stem and just sticks his nose in.  All business.

The Memory Garden

 
 
"How do you come up with all these aromas and flavors?" is a question I am frequently asked about wine. 

One fall, as I was barrel sampling some wines a particular scent eluded me.  I knew I had encountered it before, but where?  I finally found it in the pantry of my "memory garden"--it was the yellow-ish green lace that is found on whole nutmeg cloves:  mace.

Based loosely on the concept of The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, I have created a memory garden in my mind that I visit when seeking the scents and flavors in a wine.

A Visit with Benito Dusi

 

As clearly as I can recall, Ridge was the first extra-appellate winery to actually put "Paso Robles" as an appellation on their label. A daring move for a winery with a fine reputation—to align itself with an area that, at the time, was commonly associated with cattle farming and the subterranean Salinas River, which disappears entirely under its sandy riverbed every summer.

Imagine it is 1959.  Driving down Highway 101 to the beach towns of Morro Bay and Cambria, Dusi Vineyard was a charming stop on the way to a clamming weekend with the wife and kids. Women wearing loose rayon sundresses, silk stockings and open-toed heels accompanied their husbands on the short walk into the Dusi tasting room—a small, separate cottage between the home and vineyard. A six-foot tasting bar hosts the southern side of the cottage. Magazines lauding the four San Luis Obispo County wineries are still carefully fanned out on the corner of the tasting bar. I pick up the 1959 Sunset guide to California wineries. A two page black-and-white spread with brief descriptions of each of the four wineries also includes photographs of sleepy Cambria, a rickety one-boat dock with a view of the Rock at Morro Bay, and a family clamming on a local beach.

In a daring leap of faith, central coast zinfandel grower Sylvester Dusi and his son Benito raised the price of their wine by ten cents a case. Dusi zinfandel went from $5.90 a case to $6.00. They held their price at $6.00 a case for fifteen years—from 1959 to 1974.

In 1959 Benito Dusi was a young man in his mid-twenties. Although now in his seventies, it’s not hard to see Beni as the young man he was and always will be. He has a way of flashing oblique glances at me under his lashes, as though he knows a good joke but is too shy to tell it. He’s not tall, but he’s muscular in a wiry kind of way, standing upright with his shoulders unconsciously back and open, even when the room is cold. It is easy to see him as a young, bashful, and incredibly smart farmer.

Reviews for '50 Tips for Cellar Rats'

From Sheldon Haynie, Lightheart Cellars, San Martin, CA:

"It's an excellent training manual that we will use to orient new volunteers and as a seasonal refresher for the part time family and friends who may be assisting, as well as for ourselves, as a reminder of things we haven't done in a year. 

Your style of presenting the 50 tips makes it an easy read, and the block highlights set off salient points well. The many anecdotes and observations make the do's and don'ts more sensible in context. 

We'll be buying several."

Editor Eric Arnold at The Daily Sip says:

"The guide is packed with simple, easy-to-read information that you can absorb in less than hour: Everything from what sorts of food and drinks to stock up on for the busy harvest season to how to be clean and efficient on the job to when to speak up--or keep your mouth shut. Many of us here at The Daily Sip wish we'd had such a crash course before our first winery jobs--it'd have prevented some serious drama, not to mention some property damage."

Eric is the author of First Big Crush and a former editor at Wine Spectator and Forbes.

Getting Ready for Wine Festival: Managing Volunteers

Volunteers aren’t really ‘volunteers’ in the usual sense of the word. They are ad hoc assistants. At some wineries they are paid—and paid well, perhaps with a combination of cash and wine.  And you might want to warn them they will work hard on their shifts. You'll also want them to have your best interests at heart—on everything from sales to cleanup.

How many volunteers should you have for an event? Not too many, not too few. Depending on your past years’ experience you should have enough people to handle sales and packing comfortably and efficiency, with extra volunteers assigned specifically to food or tours, and one or two extra for go-fers. Go-fers may sound like a luxury, but they often end up being the busiest of your volunteer staff—they will replenish wine stacks, wash and buff glasses, carry clean glasses and supplies to outdoor stations, step in when others need a break, carry food from barbecue to serving tables, relay messages and run errands, and pick up tourist debris.

Understand that you (the owner or manager) may not be able to work effectively during the event—you’ll be busy supervising and visiting.  Even if you plan to man the barbecue or a sales station, odds are high that your time will be taken up by visitors. Therefore, get all your setup tasks done well before the event. The day of the event (or on each day of the event) you should ideally have an hour of peace and quiet before opening in which to relax, review details, and greet your volunteers.

Use lists! And improve or edit the list after each event. If you are not a ‘list’ person, then delegate the list-making to someone who is—and ask that person to keep you on task as well.

Have a prepatory meeting prior to the event. For locals, maybe a wine and cheese evening.  Be prepped for the prep. Have take-away instructions to hand out, and give out fresh sets the day of the event.  For out-of-towners, email them a complete list of your expectations.  Then call them and go over each item and invite questions.

Your volunteers do not need to be very wine knowledgeable, but they must care about your product and your presentation.  The image they project at an event is an important part of your branding and hospitality experience. A loud guffaw accompanied by, "Aw shucks hon, just drink what ya like!" will not impress a lady who is seriously interested in wine. Each event is an important chance to reach a large number of people with an efficient use of time and samples. Make every second count by ensuring that your volunteers respect this opportunity and maximize it for you.

Some things to go over:

Getting Ready for Wine Festival: Handouts!

  
When customers flock to your tasting room this coming festival weekend, whether they buy one bottle or one hundred, you'll want each customer to become an ambassador for your brand—and that means giving them information.

I usually recommend to clients that you craft a postcard handout.  Postcards, unlike full size tasting sheets or newsletters, can be affixed to refrigerators and bulletin boards.  And they're inexpensive to print—make the first side full color for impact, and the back in black-in-white to save money.  With a supply of postcards on hand, you can save your more expensive print newsletters for customers who buy $50-$100 or more.  If you have a spare laptop, set it up in the tasting room so visitors can subscribe to your blog and leave comments while they are there.  (You might want to cover the keyboard with a plastic protector.)

Make sure you've got all the winery contact information on your cards, including your winery blog address and Facebook or other social media identities.  Your goal is to get people to visit your website, subscribe to your blog, become your friend/fan on Facebook, and otherwise subscribe for future contact.  
 

10 Signs Your Business is Failing: And How to Recover

Although we are seeing signs of general economic recovery, the last year has been a hard slog for small winery and vineyard owners.  In an economic downturn, the luxury good, hospitality, and travel industries are often the hardest hit.  Among our associates, chins are held high and stories of silver linings abound.  But industry vendors and salesmen are telling a different story--one of back payments requiring COD status, higher returns, downtrending sales, and equipment foreclosures.

Now more than ever, it's important to have a clear-eyed view of your business' health, ratios and sales trends.  In a climate where bankers are looking at every new loan application with a jaundiced eye, and subjecting renewals to greater scrutiny, it's important to be able to identify and address each of the signs that your bankers will be looking at.  Even if you feel that your sales and bottom line are healthy, you may be surprised to see your business in a different light by applying some of the ratios below.  And if your business really is healthy, then you should be able to present these ratios with pride and explain what you are doing to protect and increase them.

A white-paper article by Debra Ellis of Wilson & Ellis Consulting describes the Ten Hidden Signs Your Company Is Sinking and Some Life Preservers.  We'll discuss each of these ten issues in a little more detail, including what you can do to improve your business health, but here is the list in simple form:

1. Customer attrition exceeds acquisition.
2. Your best customers are buying less.
3. Buyers are not completing the life cycle.
4. Your vital signs are erratic.
5. You have more back inventory.
6. Costs are not aligned with sales.
7. Analytics are trending down.
8. You are avoiding innovation.
9. Employees are unhappy.
10. You have lost your passion.

Death, Desire and Cassoulet . . .

 
 
  
What, exactly, does Central Coast Wine Blogs do?

What I do is make your dreams possible. 

In fact, I may occasionally take you outside of your comfort zone and show you the possible. 

For instance, when I met New York cookbook author Brigit Binns, who is also known in culinary circles as roadfoodie, I was instantly charmed. Who hasn't heard of roadfoodie, the sassy vixen who has documented her culinary travels across the US and around the world?   Brigit is the author of 23 cookbooks, including some gorgeous Williams Sonoma selections. When I met her last month she was working hard on a couple of cookbook drafts and  taking a month-long hiatus in Paso Robles to relax and finish her recipe testing.  But her current dream is to write a cookbook inspired by the central coast, where she spent many glorious summers as a child.

To help her achieve that goal, I introduced her to some wineries and local food artisans.  But I really wanted her to experience our culinary connection to the land, so I even went so far as to set up a boar hunt for us.  Dubost Ranch Winery kindly hooked us up with professional guide Matt Tupen ([email protected]) and we had the time of our lives. 

From roadfoodie.com, What a Boar:

"I am standing underneath a scarred, ancient oak tree on an isolated ranch far to the west of Paso Robles, in central California, with a dead body, a blond woman, and a strange man—I first laid eyes on him five minutes ago—who is holding a very, very sharp knife.  'It’s a surgical blade,' he says, with disarming cheer."

"The dead body is a 200-pound wild boar, the man is a hunter, and the blond woman is Mary Baker, of Central Coast Wine Blogs; she has opened doors for me in this wine community that I might otherwise have spent months—if not years—knocking on."

You might think that sliding around in the mud in an ATV and learning to skin a boar with a surgical knife is not a typical woman's idea of fun.  And you'd probably be right.  But we loved it  And the boar (pictured above) was parceled out lovingly to local foodies.  In Brigit's hands, he became a delicious and robust cassoulet, which she proclaimed a 'Passoulet', and it was served with Paso Robles syrah and cabernet.

So when you ask me what Central Coast Wine Blogs does, my reply would be . . .

I help you realize your dreams.  Whatever you want to achieve, I can take you there and beyond. 

#1 Wine Blog on Facebook's Networked Blogs

 

Central Coast Wine Blogs is now the #1 blog on the topic of wine on Facebook's Networked Blogs list.

The Dover Canyon wine blog, which I also wrote, has slipped from the #1 spot but is still hanging in there at #6.

Dubost Ranch Winery, another CCWB blog, has entered the Top 50 list at #44.

Other central coast bloggers in the Top 50 include Justin Vineyards & Winery at #49, and Elizabeth in SLO at #24.

On the 'Dating' Top 50, my personal blog, A Year by the Lake is currently #24 and rising.

Come on, central coast bloggers!  You belong in the Top 50 too.  Go to NetworkedBlogs today and submit your blog.  (You can also get a cool widget like the one at right to add to your blog.)

50 Tips for Cellar Rats: How to Get (and Keep) a Great Job as a Winery Cellar Rat or Harvest Intern

 

 

Print Brochure $7.99

Electronic Download $5.99

Buy now!

   

Have you ever wanted to work crush at a winery?

Learn the secrets to securing a job as a harvest intern or cellar rat!

 

This 35-page eGuide includes information on how to:

Prepare for your internship

• What to pack
• What to expect
• Avoid stress and injury
• Respect cellar and vineyard hygiene
• Work efficiently
• Understand the winemaker's needs during crush
• Have a good time

 

Wineries

This 35-page eGuide is an excellent handout for new employees.

Quantity Discounts Available

•    25 copies - 25% off / $5.99 each
• 100 copies - 28% off / $5.74 each
• 250 copies - 32% off / $5.49 each

Each brochure is printed in a 6-inch by 9-inch paperback format with an attractive cover.  Orders are shipped directly from the publisher, which saves you money on shipping!

Inside a Wine Scam, Part V: The Worm Turns

"To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?
Not to the beast that would usurp their den.
The smallest worm will turn being trodden on,
And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.'"

William Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part 3

_____________________________________

At first, the callers are hesitant. "Hello, my name is . . ." "I’m a chef in the Midwest, and I sell gourmet products online . . ." "I’m with a skin care products firm in San Francisco . . ." "We broker handcrafted jewelry to catalog buyers . . ."

After a stumbling start, they race to the finish. "We almost made a huge mistake."

Through their calls and emails, I learned that even sophisticated firms can be targeted by this shipping scam. "We frequently send wine overseas in containers," reported one winery. "Although the email seemed a little odd, it was the price of shipping that alerted us, as we get much lower rates. While researching the shipping company online we came across your articles. Our customer was ‘John Nelson’."

Another caller explained that they ship products overseas to catalog buyers. "They are usually English speaking, but often dictate personal correspondence to a native-tongue assistant. Sometimes the emails we receive have very quirky English, so when I received the ‘birthday’ request, I thought it was odd enough to investigate, but I would have filled the order had I not been warned. Thank you!"

And as they say, the worm turns . . .

Maria Bruhns at Kirigin Cellars emailed to report: "I did some Googling and got nowhere, until Betaway emailed me where to send the $3300…to an Ashley Lowe, at, you guessed it, 315 N. Main St, Aline. I googled the address…got a café! Called the café, disconnected. Next search result gave real estate offices…it’s abandoned!"

And now the prey become the hunter . . .

Inside a Wine Scam, Part IV: Who's in Your Wallet?

In my last post, customer John Nelson asked me to run four stolen credit cards, accept the stolen funds, and then wire $2500 from our bank account to a Ms. Jeanette Springer.

He requested a Western Union wire transfer. However, in order to receive the wire transfer a living, breathing person must show up, produce identification, and be able to identify details regarding the transaction. (In Alpha Trans’ full communication, they ask for our location address, the money transfer control number and the exact amount of money sent.)

I expected our ‘front man’ and ‘shipping company’ to be based in San Francisco or Los Angeles—far enough away to get lost in a crowd, near enough to pick up the wine order. I also assumed right off the bat that anyone showing up to receive the money would have false identification. I imagined a nervous Nigerian immigrant who splits his time between swabbing restaurant floors and stealing electronics. Or a dreadlocked pimp with gold chains, gold rings and gold teeth, perfumed by Turkish coffee, opium and Moroccan cigarettes. Or a pale, anorexic computer engineering student with severe gambling debts.

But our anonymous law enforcement advisor is right—they want me to send the money several states away. Even then, I expected someone in a city, anonymous and unnoticed by most.

Instead, our trail takes us to Aline, Oklahoma. Population: 415 (and dropping).

Inside a Wine Scam, Part III: It Ain't TV, Lady

John Nelson sent me four Mastercard credit card numbers for his wine order. As I related here, they were all stolen.

"Identity theft is the # 1 crime in America today, even ahead of murder," said Angela of Sears National Bank as we went through the credit cards one by one.

Nevertheless, I contacted John’s shipping company, Alpha Trans, and these are the instructions they sent . . .

 

HERE IS THE INFORMATION FOR YOU TO GET SHIPPING PART OF THE PAYMENT SENT OUT VIA WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER.

NAME: Jeanette Springer
STREET :315 N Main St
CITY: Aline,
STATE:Oklahoma
ZIPCODE: OK 73716
COUNTRY: U.S.A

EXPECTING TO HEAR BACK FROM YOU SOON .

 

After some amateur sleuthing on Jeanette, I contacted the FBI regional office in Oklahoma. "What’s this all about?" snarled an agent. "Um, who am I speaking with, please?" I asked. "We don’t give out our names for security purposes," he said.

Thoroughly intimidated, I didn’t want to point out that I was looking at their website, which lists at least a dozen names—including first names, last names, and middle initials, presumably to prevent inter-cubby confusion. Moving on, I explained the scam and the fact that a front man was operating in their area, and we might like some help observing or catching him or her. "This isn’t TV, lady," he sighed. "We have legal issues."

He asked for all the details . . . and after trying my best to explain, I finally asked, with some degree of exasperation, "Do you have an email? I can simply send you a description of what’s going on, with all the correspondence, including email headers for tracing." "Oh, yeah, that would be good," he replied. "Hold on, I know this office has an email . . ."

In the meantime, a northern California law enforcement professional (who asks to remain anonymous due to jurisdictional protocols) agreed to an interview on these scams . . .

 

 

If someone feels they have been scammed, whom should they contact first? What can they expect to happen?

 

 

Inside a Wine Scam, Part II: The 'John Nelson' Letters

I received an email from a Mr. 'John Nelson' offering to buy some wine.   Here is John's initial email.

Hello, my name is John Nelson, an American . I live and work here in Seoul, South Korea. Actually when I was around last year for christmas holiday, I got a bottle of one of your wines from a friend as a gift and I love the taste .Since then , I have been planning on getting your wines for my birthday party ...coming up soon here in Seoul, South Korea. I will be making my payment via my American based credit card . I am registered with a shipping agency here in Seoul, which has representatives in USA . So you are not get the wines shipped but the wines will be picked up at your winery by this licensed shipping agency .The shipping agency have all the appropriate exportation documents and permits. . . Kindly get back to me so that I can make my orders . Thanks. John

Let's find out a little bit more about 'John Nelson.'

Inside a Wine Scam, Part I: How the Wine Scam Works

This isn't the first time a wine blogger or reporter has written about the Nigerian wine scam.  There's a pretty funny riff on the 419 'advance fee' scam, written by Jack at Fork & Bottle and published by Alder Yarrow at Vinography. Ric at TORBWine holds the evil Nigerian forces at bay even though they want to order Dom Perignon.

Nigeria is a poor country, but you've got to give them credit for hard work.   FraudWatchers offers internet chat forums for victims and fraud watchers, but the moderators there also have a separate forum for scammers who post there.  The subforum heading reads, "This forum is where all posts made on this board by criminal scammers (yes, they really are *that* stupid!!) are placed for the search engines."  I got a kick out of  Another Genius Scammer.

Inside a Wine Scam: 'John Nelson'

Recently, some small family wineries in our area were hit by internet thieves.  One small winery was innocently engaged in a fraudulent transaction for $80,000 and 4 pallets of their wine.  Then another winery also reported the loss of an entire pallet of wine in a fraudulent transaction.  They thought they were dealing with an overseas distributor and so the poor English in the email orders did not alert them.  When I got a similar email with shady details, I proceeded to snoop, lie, and cheat my way to answers with the best of the best.

Unfortunately, when I called a law enforcement office to tell them I could actually arrange for the perp to be at a specific place, at a specific time, easily identified, and engaging in crime at that moment, the response ranged from, "this isn't TV," to, "We don't give out our names for security purposes." 

So the best I can do for the future of internet safety is publish my rather long account of my voluntary investigation with wine customer 'John Nelson.'  I will show you how the wine scam works, why it works, who the real criminals are, and who the front men here in the United States are. 

Over the next few days, my 'Inside a Wine Scam' report will be published in five parts:

• Part I: How the Wine Scam Works
• Part II: The ' John Nelson' Letters
• Part III: It Ain't TV, Lady
• Part IV: Who's in Your Wallet?
• Part V:  The Worm Turns

A Paean to Zinfandel: Paso Robles Zinfandel Festival, March 19-21

March. The end of winter and cold feet, of leaving for work in the dark and coming home in the dark. It's almost time to dust off the barbecue; our hunter-gatherer instinct awakens and hungers for blackened, peppered steaks and grilled vegetables.

This month is our paean salute, our end-of-winter bonfire, our celebration of everything wine symbolizes—good food, warmth, red berries and red lips, sunlight and firelight, and most of all, the mystery of earth's bounty and man's eagerness to preserve it.

Some zinfandels are elegant yet barbaric contenders for a Gallic throne, mysterious and powerful, with layers of complexity under a velvet mantle. Some are distinctively New World zinfandels—brash, bold and individualistic. Late harvest zinfandels and syrahs with dark, divine flavors strike a resonant note deep in your soul on a chilly night.

Each season's harvest is different, a reflection of the winds, the moons, and man's ability to capture earth's magnificence in a bottle.

How to Write an Effective Press Release

　

A successful press release convinces a writer or editor to write about your product and business.

What actually happens to your press release when it arrives at the publication? I’ll tell you. An intern or editorial assistant downloads all the morning emails. Then she sorts them into piles. Then she picks up the biggest pile and walks it over to the advertising department. "Here you go," she says as she plops the stack on the advertising intern’s desk. "A hundred or so product pitches thinly disguised as press releases."

Print publications are in the business of selling advertising space to businesses like yours. This is the main source of their income. Therefore, if you approach the media with a message that you have a product to sell, your message will go straight to Advertising. Or worse—into the wastebasket.

"But I have wine to sell," you say. "New releases! I’m a new brand. I’m the hottest thing out there since Brad Pitt and they should be interested."

Um, sorry. They’re not. The wine industry churns out new labels like a Gallo bottling line. The fact that you exist and are anxious to sell product is not a story.

But you CAN capture a writer’s interest with a well-crafted press release, and there are only three things you need you do.

1. Identify a unique angle.

2. Position yourself as an expert.

3. Write a professional release.

Step 1: Identify a unique angle about your business.

It could be the start of a new trend, an unusual farming technique, experimental packaging—anything truly new or different. Here are some ideas:

Updates on 'Inside a Wine Scam'

Here are some recent notes and letters from internet readers who found Inside a Wine Scam helpful.

From Melbourne, Australia:

Recently, our hospitality business in Australia received a bizarre request in substandard "American" English.  i googled wine shipment scam and got your blog. Thanks very much for posting this ... it was highly enjoyable reading.

We are not a winery.  We are a hotel/motel/B & B about three hours outside of Melbourne, Australia... but a few years ago, as a lark, we [produced] a very limited edition label with a lovely image of our beloved kelpie dog (who actually loves a good lick of shiraz!).  

 

Loved your way of dealing with the scam ... the biker bar was an especially nice touch.  Australian authorities are a bit nicer but also relatively useless when i've reported scams in the past.  So thanks again for your posting.

From Napa, California:

I just wanted to thank you for your posts on the Nigerian wine scam. My in-laws own a winery in Napa and were about to wire off the money when my father-in-law had the good sense to call me and see if I could find out anything about the shipping company. I was so glad to be able to point them to someone else's experiences, instead of just pointing out, "They don't speak English! The email address says flightlogistics instead of freightlogistics! The address for the shipping company is an empty lot in Scranton! The other address for the shipping company is in the middle of a field in New Jersey! And don't they have wine in Korea? I mean, really, your wine is good, but KOREA?!" 

I wanted you to know that two years later your posts are still doing good. They would have been out $3000 in 'shipping costs', which wouldn't shut them down but wouldn't be much fun for them either.