Opening Up

Posted on Mar 17, 2013 in Art and Wine, Blog, Featured, Marketing innovations, Shaping Taste, Wine, Wine Shaman, Wine Tasting | 0 comments Wine lovers talk about how a wine opens up once its let out of the bottle. When we pour wine into our glass and swirl, we’re helping the wine open up.  It softens and release its many volatile components into the air, and our nose.  A lot more happens, of course, as the wine in our glass opens up. We may open up too while the wine does. And for those of us who are patient and lucky enough...
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Jewels of our Vines

Posted on Jan 31, 2012 in Art and Wine, Blog, Featured, Reflections, Wine, Wine Shaman | 0 comments It is almost 30 years ago that I started my journey into the inner beauty of wine. It began at Sterling Vineyards when they had an artist-in-residence program and I was fortunate to be selected with two years to prepare. I was guided by the winemaker Theo Rosenbrand who would ask questions - what would a wine look like that had been grown in the valley compared to on the side of Diamond...
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Shaping Wine…

Posted on Aug 2, 2011 in Art and Science, Blog, Featured, Marketing innovations, Shaping Taste, Wine Shaman, Wine Tasting | 2 comments If wine had an image to represent its character, style or personality – what kind of wine do you think would be represented by the above image? I often fantasize that if wine bottles had pictures of what’s inside the bottle, we the consumer might make different choices. Granted our experience of wine is subjective yet in my own experience  capturing wine’s expression under the...
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Once Upon a Time – Inglenook

Posted on May 4, 2011 in Blog, Featured, Wine Shaman, Wine Tasting | 0 comments I’m so glad to see Inglenook back in the news thanks to Coppola. Why? Years ago when I first started photographing wine through the microscope, when Inglenook made great wine and still ‘lived’ in their original buildings, their PR director hired me to photograph 45 years of their cabs. This was a very special tasting event with the Wine Spectator and who’s who in wine...
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Here’s to Jess Jackson

Posted on Apr 21, 2011 in Blog, Featured, Reflections, Shaping Taste, Wine Shaman | 0 comments I never knew the man in person.  I did know his wines and when I traveled throughout the US I was always glad to see them on the menu.  They were dependable.  I could count on them to be good. I was saddened to hear of his passing. And I always remember the portrait I took of one of his first ever chardonnays – the 1983 KJ chardonnay.  I enjoyed the wine and the image then  and I post...
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