Pulling The Cork

Taste & Talk With Budge Brown of Cleavage Creek - Part 2

If you're wondering why we are pink please click here.

It's National Breast Cancer Awaraness Month (NBCAM) and PTC has gone PINK to help raise awareness.  Throughout the month we will also be brining special posts, PTC TV episodes and special Taste & Talk's connecting wine, NBCAM and the fight against breast cancer. 

Today we are sharing the second part of our conversation with  Budge Brown of Cleavage Creek wines.  Budge is a very successful self-made businessman and farmer and, based on what I have learned and read about him, a fascinating man. He enjoyed 48 years of marriage with his wife Arlene.  When she lost her battle with breast cancer in 2005, he was devastated.  Devastation turned to anger.  Anger lead to action.  Budge Brown is mad as hell at breast cancer, and he’s determined to do whatever he can to help find a cure for it.  He doesn’t want what happened in his life to happen to anyone else and Budge agreed to join us on Pulling The Cork’s Taste & Talk so we can share his story to raise awareness about Breast Cancer.  Budge and Cleavage Creek donat 10% of their gross from sale of their wine directly to help raise awareness, help real women who are battling breast cancer and to research to help find a cure. 

In part 1 of our conversation Budge shared a little about his wife Arlene, her fight with breast cancer, his motivation for starting Cleavage Creek and some really great information about the nearly $56,000 he has donated in just two vintages.  Today Budge shares the uniqueness of the Cleavage Creek label which features women cancer survivors as well some information about his vineyards, wine making philosophy and future plans for Cleavage Creek.  Please join us for more of our special Taste & Talk with Budge Brown of Cleavage Creek. 

Taste & Talk With Jeff Miller of Artisan Family of Wines - Part 1

Today we are introducing our Taste & Talk series; an ongoing feature here at Pulling The Cork in which we will be talking to wine makers, winery owners, vineyard managers and others associated with a particular wine or series of wines leading up to video tasting notes on those wines. 

As we have been saying all along, and we know we sound like a broken record, tasting notes are rather incomplete without being placed into context.  Learning about the history of a winery, the region, the terroir, the wine maker, the winery owners, the stories and all of the other information about a wine is really critical to a full understanding of that wine and the subsequent tasting note. 

We launch Taste & Talk with several posts featuring excerpts from our conversation with Jeff Miller.  Jeff is the Owner Partner and Head of Winemaking Operations for Artisan Family of Wines.  We spent about an hour on the phone with Jeff and really learned alot about him, Artisan, his philosophy of winemaking, his wines and a ton of other interesting things.  We will be presenting parts of this interview in a series of posts leading up to our video tasting notes on four of Artisan's wines. 

Today's excerpt from our interview will focus on some basic background on Artisan, how Jeff became a wine maker, the origin of the Artisan name and how Artisan began.  Future excerpts will include our conversation about Jeff's wine making philosophy, his vineyard sources, unique challenges of being a small production winery, the economy, his fantastic wine blog and so much more.  Oh, and video tasting notes on 4 wines from Artisan.  So let's get started with the premier of Taste & Talk.

Pulling The Cork on Winerazzo - Tasting Room Mystery Shoppers

Ever been to a wine tasting room and had an amazing experience?  Ever had an awful experience in a wine tasting room?  Yeah, we have had both as well.

That is why when I stumbled upon Winerazzo.com not too long ago I was intrigued and wanted to learn more. 

I reached out to "The Founder", he has to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, to learn more and after chatting for a few minutes I invited him to participate in an interview with Pulling The Cork. 

Winerazzo is an online information site built to share information about the good, the bad and the indifferent of wine tasting room experiences.  They are mystery shoppers for wine tasting rooms.  They publish and maintain the information on their experiences online at their website and they invite anyone who visits a wine tasting room to log on (it's free), create an account(it's anonymous if you want it to be) and tell Winerazzo and others about their experiences in wine tasting rooms.  Or you can just reach out and contact Winerazzo to ask questions and learn more about how to get involved. 

So pour yourself a glass of your favorite wine, sit back and listen to "The Founder" of Winerazzo.com tell us a little about who they are and what they do.