The last word.

Besides being a fairly high scoring play in a game of Scrabble, the word zymurgy also has the distinction of being the final alphabetical entry in a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) that I own.  Zymurgy literally is the last word in my dictionary and it can be found on page 1666 (it is, after all, the concise OED containing a mere 240,000 words).  I only discovered this new (to me) word because, having no other particularly pressing engagement at the time, I allowed myself a moment to muse, "I wonder what is the last word in this dictionary."  And what exactly is the definition of zymurgy one might ask? The OED's definition is this: the study or practice of fermentation in brewing, winemaking or distilling.  Did not know that, but now I do.
This Scrabble game has been a dramatization: do not try this at home.

Roll on vintage 2012.

From a grape-growing perspective, I am glad to see the back of 2011.  Rain, rain and more rain.  Cooler than average temperatures.  Persistent marine fog.  Powdery mildew running amok through Vinoland.  Just one of these trying climatic conditions would have been perhaps a tolerable nuisance, but all of them in a single, abbreviated growing season?  One would have been forgiven for expecting a plague of locusts of biblical proportions next.  Besides all that, it was quite a good year.  But 2012 will be better.

A happy, healthy and fermented-grape juice filled New Year to everyone.