SIGNORELLO SEMILLON

[Jerry D Mead]

Two points of rebuttal:

1. I never smoked Camels! (And haven't smoked anything in 8 years...even a doobie.)

2. People should understand that our views are so radically different on wood that when you judge for me at the New World International, I don't let you taste serious vinifera wines...you get to taste the native American varieties, Vitus labrusca and Vitus rotundafolia(sp?), French-American hybrids and fruit and berry wines. You are a good and fair judge of these often unfairly maligned varieties, mostly because they don't have any oak. Can't let you near the Chardonnays, Sauvignon Blancs or Cabernets, because you'd throw out too many of the best wines for having even a moderate amount of wood.

As I've told you many times, Dan, if God intended wine to taste like grapes, HE wouldn't have invented oak trees.

Curmy