AmericanWinery.com

I’m hip to upcycling.

I like the idea of remaking a product over for use again and again. Recently I came across TerraCycle, a website that creates products out of used plastic bags, drink pouches, corks and more. Of course, it’s best to reduce waste as much as possible, but we can also make new uses with what we have. Since we are prone to some heavy cork popping in this business, may I suggest you collect your corks (natural or synthetic) and send them to TerraCycle so those smart folks can upcycle them into some cool looking stuff. It’s very easy to do.

You can send as little as 10 corks or 10,000 (Wow, now that’s a lot of wine!) Visit this page to learn more about the cork upcycle program. I like what I saw and also enjoyed checking out the blog…read more here.

Personally, I plan to try to get through the huge pile of The New Yorker that accumulated all winter plus brush up on a little wine education. If you have any room on your summer reading list for a couple of wonderful books about wine and food in the Northwest, add these gems. Both are by some really fantastic wine writers and are beautifully researched and produced.

Braiden Rex-Johnson brings us her seventh book -  Pacific Northwest Wining & Dining: The People, Places, Food, and Drink of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia. Published by John Wiley & Sons. This is a lush, handsomely photographed and thoughtfully edited book covering the Northwest and British Columbia.   If you love food and wine this book makes an excellent practical guide through many wine regions as well as a lovely wine-table book.  There’s food pairing and recipes throughout.   Braiden is a celebrated cookbook and food and wine author, plus a really lovely person!  I met her at a recent event in Walla Walla and was instantly convinced she knows her topic!

Visit Braiden’s website for lots of good information about food, wine and dining in the NorthWest!

The other find is more of a guide and it’s so well written and exhaustively researched, you’ll want to keep this on hand for reference.   Steve Robert’s has published WineTrails of Washington through WineTrailsNW .  This is the ultimate guidebook for exploring Washington’s wine country regions.  There’s seemingly no winery that is overlooked (although with the rate of growth of wineries in Washington state, it’s hard to keep up!)  Each winery is very well profiled along with maps, photos and contact info.  Steve has a great website that offers lots of information about planning wine tours, wine tasting events, release parties, winemaker dinners, and more.  Check it out at winetrailsnw.com

In my house, we drink wine pretty much everyday with our main meal. We enjoy wine with food and think everyone should too! But what about all those empty wine bottles? Of course we take them to the

recycling center. Still, there’s a lot of energy consumption and waste in the cycle and it bothers me. I love the purity of a wine bottle. It’s hard to imagine an elegant, handcrafted wine preserved in any other container. Or is it?

The Tetra Pak is on my radar as alternative packaging for wine. Used widely in Europe and some in the States, there’s a perception that wine packaged in this type of container is of a lower quality. The industry could benefit from blind tasting panels to give consumers better insights. Personally, I’ve been very satisfied with the wine I’ve tried in this packaged form, but is it a better environmental choice?

Reading Cradle to Cradle: Rethinking the Way We Make Things (William McDonough & Michael Braungart, North Point Press 2002) makes me think about the entire cycle of the wine bottle. I’m a wine maker and I have a lot of misgivings about the waste related to everything that goes into the manufacturing of the “product” (This includes corks, capsules and the ultimate non-renewable resource, water!). Establishing a local market for wine that could enable the return and reuse of wine bottles at the source is a radical and unwieldy proposal, but we may see this kind of enterprise emerge as consumers press for better solutions to ease their own contribution to the waste cycle.

How many times have you found yourself in the wine aisle at the supermarket and completely at a loss about whether to buy a particular wine or not? It happens all the time! It’s hard to know if a wine is right for you if you’ve never tired it before. Hey, I’m all for the occasional “What the hell, let’s try this!” approach, but it’s useful to have a recommendation. A recent survey in a major wine publication noted that over 50% of consumers make a wine purchase based on a recommendation. That could mean from a review, a wine merchant or through a friend. Bottom line, it helps to know a little bit about what you are buying.

When you are looking to buy wine online, the same rules apply. If you are interested in buying a wine you’ve never tried before, try turning to your fellow wine drinkers for insights. Wine reviews posted online by wine consumers are a great way to get that second opinion you may be looking for. Granted, palettes can differ widely and tasting conditions really can effect how or why someone liked a particular wine, but if you trust your source, go for it!

Likewise, if you really enjoyed a wine, take a minute to talk about it. There are professional tasters and we all know they have their place. Scores and reviews in wine magazines are important to wineries no matter what their size. But if you liked a wine and have your own opinion about it, you can talk about it with authority too. Write your own summary of the wine using descriptors that you are comfortable with. Post it online and share your opinions with your wine community. The winery will appreciate your feedback and your fellow wine enthusiasts will thank you! Speaking of which, a review for a wine I tried recently.

Cheers!