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North Alabama Chapter
By Karl Starkloff
2011 Grape Harvest at the Collier’s
On Saturday, September 10, several couples from the North
Alabama Chapter spent a wonderful day at the Collier’s picking
their 2011 harve st and stomping the grape s for ne xt
year’s wine. Walt and Therise Collier have a beautiful plantation-style
home and v ineyard close to Huntsville, in Mooresville,
AL. Needless to say, this magnificent late 1860’s home
with its adjacent vineyard provided a picturesque and romantic
setting for the work to be done. We should also m ention
that the Collier’s are building a pavilion to hold weddings and
receptions.
Besides the Collier’s friends and f amily, three AWS couples
tried their grape-harvesting skills: Steve and Beth Young,
Karl and Judy Starkloff, and Edwin and Marisol Núñez. After
receiving instructions, shears and bins, the “workers” divided
into several groups and sta rted picking grapes on different
sides of th e vines rows. There were many beautiful Norton
(aka Cynthiana) clusters, but Judy Starkloff got what appeared
to be the largest bunch of the morning.
By noon we were all done with the picking as the “workers”
became more nimble at cutting the grape clusters. Once the
harvesting process finished, everybody moved to the house
where Therise had prepared a delic ious lunch for the group.
Walt toasted us with great wine from last year’s vintage. The
good food and wine enhanced the conversation.
After lunch, we moved to s tomping the grapes. Only lad ies
volunteered to try this process. After a thorough cleansing of
the feet, several ladies took turns crushing the grapes with
their feet. Initially they were timid, but after a sho rt time
they became quite enthusiastic. The famo us “I Love Lucy”
episode, where Lucy stomps grapes, was mentioned several
times and served as a inspiration for the ladies.
If you asked the participants, they all got great enjoyment
from the a ctivity. Great surroundings, excellent food, g ood
wine, and enjoyable company: can anybody ask for more?
On-Line Wine Classes
Coming
To provide ad ditional benefits to AWS members, the Bo ard
has approved the development of a seri es of on-l ine
"classes" available to he lp members with their understanding
of the world of wine. The goal of these self-paced classes
is to provide well researched, authoritative information on
the world of wine. The information will serve to expand the
knowledge of both wine novices as well as more experienced
winos. Each topic will include text, graphics, multi-media
and on-line resources to expand our understanding of various
topics, as well as su ggested practical tasting s. These
classes can help individual members develop their understanding
of the wine wor ld, as well as h elp chapters with
background information and ideas for their local tastings.
We are looking for volunteers to help with wr iting these
educational materials. Most of the ar ticles will be a few
pages on a sp ecific topic, so no one is expected to wr ite a
thesis or be a the next Hugh Johnson or Jancis Robinson. If
you can use email, a word processor or a manual typewriter
(remember those), we can use your expertise.
The initial focus will be on the 100-Series introductory materials.
The 100-Series is meant to provide a basic u nderstanding
of t erminology, wine growing and making, a nd
grape varietals. The 200-Series courses focus on the New
World, with 300-Series covering the O ld World. The 400-
series features a variety of more advanced topics related to
other aspects of the wine and beverage world. The purpose
of these classes is not to replace the Wine Judge Certification
Program or make you into a award winning amateur
winemaker, but help the membership improve their ability
to be a knowledgeable consumer.
We are looking for exper ienced wine tasters from d ifferent
regions, certified win e judges, wine travelers, and w ine
makers to help in write these informative articles. If you are
interested in h elping with this project, please email me. A
few people vo lunteered to help during the Chapter C hairman's
Breakfast at the Rochester Conference, but we a re
looking for a b road cross-section of the membership to help
share their knowledge and t he workload. You will be co n-
tacted with more specifics about the particular classes needed,
topic outline, etc. We are planning to have th e initial
series of cl asses available through the AW S website b efore
next year's conference. We expect this to be an evolving,
growing source of wine k nowledge useful to all members of
the AWS community. No co mputer website or formal train -
ing is required. We will take care of the formatting and web
issues. If yo u have any q uestions, please
contact me. Thanks for your help.
Dennis Hall
dennishall59@sbcglobal.net
937-233-6152
Obituary
Jeff Hondo, a member of the AWS Kylix (NY) Chapter,
passed away on Oc tober 19, 2011. He was also member
of the Dionysian Society International and was to be elevated
to Tastevin member status at the March 2012 gathering.
He and his wife, Tula, were very well liked and active
in local, regional and national wine groups. Jeff lived
in Absecon, NJ and worked in New York City.
AWS News—December 2011
Page 13