Good Grape Wine Company

December 18 2007

News, Notes & Dusty Bottle Items

Menu for Hope is currently conducting its 4th annual giving campaign for charity.  This worldwide effort, organized by Pim from foodie blog Chez Pim, unites food and wine bloggers from around the globe and offers tremendous prize opportunities for the casual blog reader across a spectrum of interests.

Of course, prizes aside, and the prizes are great (Who wouldn’t want a taping of WinelibraryTV at their house with Gary V. and $500 worth of wine in tow?), the real reason to give is that donations benefit the UN World Food Programme—the world’s largest food and aid program, working in 75 countries.

While much focus, domestically, at this time of year is on local giving, our global village increasingly demands a guiding touch that centers the world over.  This fundraiser raises our center of attention upwards and around us, using the Internet to leverage time and distance.

A couple of interesting things stand out with this worthy program—first, almost 90% of funds donated find their way to needy recipients—a stunning figure and a positive indicator of the monies raised finding their way to people that need it, not administration.  Pim, nor any of the regional organizers, including our wine blogger extradonaire, Alder from Vinography, take a red cent for their organizational efforts.  Secondarily, on a local level in my town, Indianapolis, I volunteer with a very worthy organization that provides culinary job training to a sector of society trying to get on their feet while at the same time providing meals to local shelters.  Our biggest fundraiser of the year does around $40K.  The fact that Pim’s project can mobilize the energy and effort of so many people –virtually- in order to give back $60K is a feet in and of itself.

Join me in giving to this very worthy cause.  You can see a list of prizes for which your $10 donation enters you into a raffle here.

Tap Your Inner Michel Rolland

On a wholly separate note, I must point out that Crushpad’s recent announcement of their Fusebox wine blending kit is a small stroke of brilliance.  I love it.  And, it plays nicely with the Crushpad mission of bringing the art of winemaking to the populace. 

I did a post last year (found here) on the increasing activity I was seeing in consumer-based blending.  I thought then, as I think now, that the market is ready for a product –with bumper rails on it— that allows consumers to do blending to come up with a “Joe Consumer” proprietary blend.

I have my very own Fusebox blending kit awaiting my pick-up at a friend’s house in Ohio (darn Indiana is still six months to a year off from having a bunch of wineries shipping here) and I’m anxiously awaiting my chance to do a little blending project.

The kit includes (excerpted from the web site):

Blending is the highest art form in wine making, where good wine is transformed into great wine. It’s also a lot of fun.

Each Fusebox blending kit includes:
• Six 375 mL bottles of blending wine, made from some of Napa’s finest vineyards
Cabernet Sauvignon(2 bottles) , Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc
• One 375 mL bottle of Mystery Wine
You try to unlock the components
• Four pipettes
• Graduated cylinder
• Four wine evaluation cards
• Four tasting placemats
• Recipe cards
• Vinography aroma card
• Corkscrew

The one downside I can see straight away is that if you find a blend you like you can’t have Crushpad blend a case of it for you, but that will probably be alleviated in the future, once some success has been found.  They say that the real value Michel Rolland plays for the wineries he consults with is his palate in blending.  I’m looking forward to unleashing my inner Michel Rolland and I’ll write about the experience soon. 

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