Found an amazing place right outside of Siena where they grow sangiovese, olives, fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts… all in balance or promiscuo as they say. Not a vineyard, not a farm… I call it a taste palace, maybe there’s a better name out there. I might work with them to install a major solar setup and some biohydrogen generating algae ponds. In my dreams, right?

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I’d like to introduce Richard Manning, the newest grapethinker to our bunch. Rich, Jake, and I have known each other for about a year now. We hooked up over a common interest in the semantic web, AI, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and a love for bad ass music. We’ve been talking about technology’s application to help optimize our world, mainly in industries where Rich as worked… he’s built neural networks and intelligent agent applications in insurance, banking, and utilities. We’re also really interested in optimizing logistics and inventory management for retailers. Rich worked for Sun Microsystems for a good part of his career and now has his own knowledge engineering consultancy called Siorcgorm. His contributions help us expand our reach as a technology company and we’re absolutely stoked to have him a part of our team!

Wow, what an excellent conference! A game changer. I have to thank my friends over at Village Green Energy for hooking me up with a free pass. I’ve been so passionate about this movement as long as I can remember… ever since 6th grade when I messed around with electromagenetic fields and plants. Early education for me was all about ecology and environment, and that followed with rigorous economics in college, which I didn’t quite understand about myself until now. Having not gone into banking with my degree and now seeing the state of the economy I was like shit… but David Suzuki put it so clearly… it’s (eco)nomics. I can’t believe I never recognized that. I automatically associated economics with the greedy, short-sighted mentality of Wall Street that focuses solely on the bottom line and exploiting the market for cash and egoic status. Yet you realize the bottom line is not the statement of cash flows or the balance sheet… it’s the fuckin planet. Ecology + Economics = Sustainability. This conference was absolutely buzzing! People were feeling alive and connecting and touching each other like I’ve never seen in my life. We all knew the green revolution is ready and about to change the world in a big way.

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Admittedly, its largely to the work of dedicated bloggers like Lenn Thompson that I owe my continued fascination with New York State wines. New York’s white wines, from the fertile Long Island soils and the Germanic climate, have a unique and distinctive character that quite frankly, puts Californian whites to shame. This Chard shows off tropicality with mineral structure, making it a perfect aperitif or a between courses palate cleanser. Along with the rounded touch of malolactic fermentation there’s a perfectly balanced element of wood that integrates well on the palate, leaving a hint of tinned-pears on the finish.

Seeing as the United States is playing against South African on the 30th of September, in the white wine department I will have to concede a handful of points the America for this fine Estate.

Foodist Colony despite the great name has really got something going with their ‘build your own restaurant guide’ function. My god mother has shelves of binder files with holiday ideas, recipes and restaurant reviews all clipped from magazines and put into folders for later use. Just clicking on my Bookmarks, I have over 220 bookmarked sites, and with so much more information I seldom have time to go back, and by the time I do, I can’t remember why I had bookmarked it in the first place. This kind of personalizable wiki which allows readers to share reviews as well as build up a list of places they’ve been to and places they still want to go has huge potential to catch on to everything from novels (creating a virtual book club) to wines, recipes and restaurants. It’d be like an online experience journal, and ultimately recipes, restaurant recommendations, lent books and wine are the currency of any great social circle, where there’s free trade of all. I would never be as disciplined as my god mother as to cut out and catalog physical articles, but with the ability to do it online I think we’ll all start. We want to make this our newest feature at Tastevine so people looking to organize and keep track of their recipes can do so.