Introduction

This blog started as a journal that I began keeping in summer 2008 to track my venture into commercial wine production with the Ritual brand name. I enjoyed recording my thoughts and experiences and sent out chapters to a very limited group of people (usually just my girlfriend Adina and stepfather Joe).

Both my Adina and Joe enjoyed the chapters and in fact eagerly anticipated my regular installments. From July through early December I generated over 75,000 words, roughly a 150+ page book. These entries covered not only my nascent adventures as a wine negociant, but also my feelings about wine and past experiences as a wine drinker.

In January 2009 my family experienced a severe crisis, and we continue to struggle with its aftereffects to this day. This has put a severe damper on my writing efforts for this journal - there are only six entries in 2009 so far, and I feel their tone is less entertaining and perhaps darker than the 2008 chapters. The deteriorating economic situation and various other personal issues also conspired to drastically slow my writing pace. I plan to resume the entries on a more regular basis as of this month (10/2009).

There are certain entries that I have edited for this blog. In many cases I'm very free with my opinions of wines and people I like and dislike. I have removed any pejorative references to wines, wineries, winemakers, journalists, etc (I kept the complimentary ones) as I feel that's uncalled for in this story.

There is very little of my private life here, and what there is relates directly to my wine experience. I have two motivations for publishing these entries at this time. The first motive is that I'm proud of the writing; upon rereading it I find it entertaining, and the story is an interesting one. The second motive is much more base: any publicity I can get for Ritual Wine Company is welcome and maybe some readers will be inspired to pick up a bottle or two. The 2008 reds will be released Spring 2010, followed by a 2009 Viognier in the summer. They are in fact very good, so I'm confident that once the word spreads I can make this thing happen.

A final note: I throw facts and references around liberally and I realize some are not fully accurate I made a good faith effort to keep the wine facts (as opposed to my opinions) credible but upon rereading I now see some things I represented as fact were more just ruminations tossed off casually (one example is my assertion that Carignan was a staple of Cotes du Rhone in the past. I think I confused it with Cinsault). Hopefully that won't dampen the experience for those of you that know better

For best results start at the beginning: The Adventure Begins (the entries run latest to earliest)

Mike Stan

10/2009