In my last post, I showed you a photo I took of a wine bottle that was being tasted at the local Whole Foods (Chapel Hill). I decided to investigate a little more.

The winery behind Educated Guess (the one I saw is a Cabernet Sauvignon, but there are others) is Roots Run Deep in the Napa Valley of California.

Image of Roots Run Deep Winery from their website.

Here’s what the vineyard has to say about the art of choosing (& making) wine:

The name Educated Guess came about during a lively, second bottle of wine conversation about winemaking styles, vineyard sites, and the progressive escalation of wine prices without comparable increases in quality. The discussion then proceeded to the “art vs. science” aspect of winemaking and after a few more glasses of wine Educated Guess was born!!!

So ask yourself this question: Have you ever found yourself in a wine shop or restaurant perusing the wines and wondering how do I choose the best wine for the money? You may admire a label, recognize a name, or recall a great review…in essence you making an “Educated Guess.” This is exactly what goes on in the vineyards and wineries around the world. Should we pick the grapes now or wait? How long should we barrel age our wine? Should we use French or American Oak, or both?

We use our knowledge, intuition, and years of experience to make the best possible decisions; however at the end of the day it still remains an “Educated Guess.” At Roots Run Deep we have done all of the Guesswork for you, and produced the richest, ripest, and most complex wines you can buy for the money. So when you won’t settle for less, Buy Educated Guess.

Oh, and everyone wants to know about our unique label. Our label was designed to tell the story of how you can make an educated guess in winemaking, not to give you nightmares about your high school chemistry class. It shows you actual winemaking formulas that are either induced or naturally occur during a specific winemaking process.

If you want to know about the chemistry behind the 5 formula strings on the label, they have provided some more info in this PDF.

Awesome. Go visit their site and poke around some more.

I’m thinking we need to convince the winery to provide some of their wine for the next ScienceOnline conference (report on blog and media coverage of ScienceOnline2011 here; program plans already being discussed for ScienceOnline2012 here)!