An Autumnal Tale with a most Improbable End Equinox Eve, Sept 22, 2023 Friends, Once a year, just before the first rain beetle takes flight, as the angle of shifting light splits umbrellas of leaves in a syrupy prism of golden green into carmine, as the redolence of sappy summer dries to a heavy blaze […]
Letters from the Edge
Blush and the Bovine – A tale of two deaths and eternal life
As goes rosé, so goes beef. Rosé is dead, long live rosé Whilst summer fills our cups with sunshine, before her longest day grows dim, let us pass a moment together and let our thoughts be fluid, quenching the desiccated landscapes of our wrung-out minds. Put down spinning worries and numbing problems and let’s make […]
“Is this thing on?” In which Mimi gets a Microphone
Uh, for those of you who just tuned in, the Pinedale Shopping Mall has just been bombed with live turkeys. Film at eleven. ~Dr Johnny Fever I’ve got lists. Do you have them? For me, listing is a love / hate relationship. It’s like all kinds of things that I know I should do; I […]
new Hope Well, and new wines!
HUNTER’S MOON October 9, 2022 Friends, First and foremost, we finally have some Pinot Noir to sell and I’m so excited to share these wines with you. As you know from my earlier letter about Vendange 2021, these are the last wines I made at my old site, and for that their stories carry special […]
Bated Breath – Vendange 2021
‘New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings’ ~Lao Tzu We ended how we started, by singing on the land. That vintage 2021 marked the beginning of yet another decade in this millennium was a truth I only appreciated in retrospect. That it was the last harvest for me at 12345 Oak Road (seriously, that […]
New Release 2021 wines from Hope Well
Hi there, Friends, It’s been a few turns. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. Everything has changed. What, in the pandemic, we may have mistaken for a temporary, though massive, perturbation in our lives, may have in fact been the changing of a deeper rhythm of our lives. But that is another post, and today it is […]
Trees in Viticulture? Podcast with Mimi Casteel
Why is it relevant to talk about trees in viticulture? Earlier this year I had a chance to explore this important and relatively new topic in regenerative viticulture in a podcast with Pauline Vicard, Executive Director of ARENI, “a global research and action institute dedicated to the future of a Fine Wine world sustainably evolving […]
Mimi Casteel Revisited – Is Wine Big Enough, Organic Wine Podcast
My second interview on Organic Wine Podcast last December was a welcome opportunity to explore where I am going next on my Hope Well journey. Adam Huss never fails to ask the difficult and interesting questions. For instance, Is Wine Big Enough? Mimi Casteel Revisited – Is Wine Big Enough? December 6, 2021 Mimi Casteel started […]