Chateau Saint Pierre, Saint Julien

Chateau Saint Pierre, Saint Julien

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Classic shapes

Chateau Labegorce in Margaux, recently renovated from a pitiful state and is now beautiful. Bordeaux, Gironde, France.


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Ploughing down profits

A vineyard tractor ploughing at Chateau Giscours in Margaux. The plough (in this particular case) turns over the soil very closely around the vine itself... Another way of forcing the vine to send the roots down rather than along the surface (and remove weed)

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Bodega Plaza Vidiella, Canelones, Uruguay

A pile of demijohns of the popular rosado wine sold locally in plastic baskets and some stainless steel fermentation tanks. Bodega Plaza Vidiella Winery, Las Brujas, Canelones, Uruguay, South America

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Bodega Pisano

A view over the main winery building and a sign to the winery. Painted in ochre red and with a grass lawn in front. Bodega Pisano Winery, Progreso, Uruguay, South America

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Wine and strawberries

A bottle of R de Lucca Tannat Vino de El Colorado 2004 and a strawberry. Supposedly Tannat goes well with strawberries. Bodega De Lucca Winery, El Colorado, Progreso, Uruguay, South America.

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Bodega Castillo Viejo

Barrels for storing the wine in wood. Bodega Castillo Viejo Winery, Las Piedras, Canelones, Uruguay, South America

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Costers del Siurana/Clos de l'Obac

Consell Regulador de la Denominacio d'Origen Priorat, Celler Reconegut - all wineries seem to have this kind of sign showing that it is an official winery.

Costers del Siurana/Clos de l'Obac Carles Pastrana at Costers del Siurana in Gratallops was, together with Rene Barbier and Alvaro Palacios, one of the first to start making quality wine and realising the region's potential for high quality wine in Priorato in the early 1980s. He made his first red wine Clos de l'Obac in 1989 and a couple of years later he continued with other cuvees: the white wines Miserere and Kyrie and the red, sweet wine Dolc de l'Obac that comes from a one-hectare vineyard with a unique micro climate. The grapes ripen more and better there and are used to make this unusual sweet red wine.

Costers del Siurana/Clos de l'Obac in Priorato (Priorat), Catalonia, Spain

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Scala Dei

Scala Dei means God's ladder. The story is that a peasant had an apparition of a ladder up to heaven... Later, a monastery was created here. However, it is no longer a monastery

Cellers de Scala Dei, Scala Dei

One of the traditional wine producers in the small village Scala Dei. They use a lot of Garnacha (Grenache), slow fermentation and long maceration with the grape skins to extract as much colour and aromas as possible for the wines. One of their best wines, Negre Scala Dei, is made in a more modern style though.

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Castell del Remei

In the 1980s the Cusine' family took over this wine property and started an ambitious program of replanting. They planted, among other grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and other !"international" varities but also kept the traditional grapes such as Macabeo, Xarel-Lo, Parellada and Ull de Liebre (Tempranillo). The castle-like main building is surrounded by land with a very good micro climate where e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon makes very good wine.

The castell itself at Castell del Remei - it's not as old as it looks but it is an imposing chateau.

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Albet i Noya in Sant Pau d'Ordal

Grenache grapes in the vineyard.

The Albet family have been making wine in Penedes since the early 20th century. Since 1979 the two brothers Josep Maria and Antoni Albet i Noya run the wine business together. The same year marked their conversion to ecological agriculture. They make high class Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon wines and also experiment with almost forgotten and disappeared Catalonian grape varieties in collaboration with Torres.

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Tibor Gal, Eger

GIA Tibor Gal Winery in Eger is one of the leading producers in the region. G.I.A. stands for Gal, Marchese Incisa (of Sassicaia fame), and Alpina (the name of a German investor in the company). Tibor Gal was elected winemaker-of-the-year in Hungary in 1998.

This is the street where the winery is located.

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Thummerer

Thummerer is one of the leading producers of red and white wine in the Eger district in Hungary. Their wine cellar is decorated with rather unusual sculptures.

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Szepsy - Kiralyudvar

Isztvan Szepsy runs two companies in Tokaj, one that carries his own name and another that is called Kiralyudvar (the King's Court), and is in the process of starting a third. He has been named "best wine maker of the year" in Hungary. This is his Tokay wine cellar. Tokaij, Hungary.

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Tokaj - Royal Tokaji Wine Company

The Royal Tokaji Wine Company was the first company to be set up with substantial foreign investment in the early 1990s (including e.g. Hugh Johnson as investor).

A few demi-johns of pure eszencia from Mezes Maly, Saint Thomas and Nyulaszo. Eszencia (essensia, Tokay essence) is an exeptionally concentrated, extremely sweet (and virtually priceless) wine made purely from grapes with "noble rot" porriture noble. Royal Tokaji Wine Company, RTWC, Hungary.

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Liquid gold

Hungary-Tokaj-Oremus

Oremus was created by the Alvarez family that also owns Vega Sicilia in Spain. It is located a bit north of the town of Tokaj, in a village called Tolcsva.

A stack of golden glowing bottles of Tokaj.

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File names

For a change, a post on a different subject: intellectual property and copyright - and file names and naming conventions.

I want to share with you a tip that I picked up from Peter Krogh's excellent book The DAM Book (you can read my review of the book here - I highly recommend reading it).

If you are selling/licensing pictures commercially, have you ever seen your pictures used without your knowledge and agreement? And have you ever heard the explanation "oh, I'm awfully sorry. I thought it was our own archive picture. We won't do that mistake again" followed by the editor assuming that he will not have to pay any fee for his mistake...

Well, I have.

So here's the tip:

Name all your image files with a prefix that shows where it comes from. Examples:

• bkwine-070312-341-4189 (my file)
  
• krogh-051226-1223 (Peter Krogh's file)
  

One tweak to Peter Krogh's principle: He suggests that you name all your files in this way. I only do it for files that I send out from the house. In other words, internally I only use e.g. 070312-341-4189.tif but as soon as I send that file to someone else I rename it bkwine-070312-341-4189. (Very easy to do with a batch renamer).

I find it makes less clutter in the file lists.

If you follow this tip (as I do now) I will have a very hard time believing the editor who says "oops, I though it was our own file"! And I will be in a stronger position to negotiate a fee from that illicit usage.

While on file naming, here are a few other principles that I think you should follow:

• make sure you have unique file names
• use a date (shoot date, download date,...) as an initial part of the file name
• use the international standard for date code, for 11 March 2007 you should use 070311. Do NOT use any other format, e.g. 110307 or 11mar07 ...
  
• use a sequence number to give unique identities
• do NOT use any descriptive parts in the file name (e.g. do NOT use "jungle" as part of the file name for pictures you've shot in a jungle, or "portr" in the file names for portraits etc.). That will only lead to problems.

You can read lots of more things on file naming in Peter Krogh's book

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The famous "organic" tractor garage

There is an architectural style in Hungary called "organic". One such building is the winery (actually, the tractor garage) at Disznoko in the Tokaj region.

(Hungary has a long tradition as a wine producing country. Winemaking has evolved over many centuries. Today, the most famous Hungarian wines come from Tokaj, the luscious, sweet, white Tokaji made from botrytised grapes. But red and white wine is made all over the country, for example in Eger and Villany.)

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Tokaj - Chateau Dereszla

Hungary has a long tradition as a wine producing country. Winemaking has evolved over many centuries. Today, the most famous Hungarian wines come from Tokaj, the luscious, sweet, white Tokaji made from botrytised grapes. But red and white wine is made all over the country, for example in Eger and Villany. Château Dereszla is a property that is undergoing substantial renovations following its acquisition recently by a French group (linked to Edonia (previously GAM Audy) in Bordeaux).

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Bodega Valle Perdido

The Patagonian vineyards stretch over a vast area of essentially flat and dry almost-desert land.

View over the vineyard. Bodega Valle Perdido Winery, Neuquen, Patagonia, Argentina, South America. The winery was previously known as Bodega Arquen. It is now owned by Virginia Almonda and her husband. They are undertaking a substantial project to develop a resort in connection with the winery. The winery is now finished and operational but the hotel is under construction. It will be opening by year end 2007

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Drip irrigation

Drip irrigation is sometimes used in vineyards. It is frequently used in New World wine regions which without it could not grow anything at all, but less so in Europe. In France, for example, it is allowed only under very strict conditions or in exceptional circumstances.

Detail of black rubber or plastic tube on the vines for drip irrigation shoeing the hole where the water seeps out and a drop of water that will fall down soon Bodega Del Anelo Winery, also called Finca Roja, Anelo Region, Neuquen, Patagonia, Argentina, South America.

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Domaine des Verdots, Bergerac

The barrel aging cellar, with a hole in the wall and a hole in the floor to show the soil and rock type and to give humidity from the underground river that flows beneath the cellar, at Vignoble Tour de Verdots in Bergerac, owned by David Fourtout The very dramatic newly built underground barrel aging cellar under the winery, with rows of barrels. In the walls and in the floor there are oval openings that show the soil structure and the underground river that flows underneath the winery Domaine Vignoble des Verdots Conne de Labarde Bergerac Dordogne France

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Château du Trignon, Sablet (Gigondas)

A view over the vineyards and the 'Dentelles de Montmirail' mountains.

Chateau du Trignon: The wine estate Chateau du Trignon was acquired in 1895 by Joseph Roux. It is still owned by his descendants. Today, it is Pascal Roux, a passionate winemaker, who runs the domain. The wine is made from 53 hectares of vines in three villages: Gigondas, Rasteau and Sablet. they also make Cotes du Rhone wine.

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