Comments on: Dirty Jobs: Extreme Wine Edition

By: Ethan Alden-Danforth

Ethan Alden-Danforth — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:46:15 +0000

How about some examples of the more “extreme” wine-grape growing geographies?

By: Ken Bernsohn

Ken Bernsohn — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:35:01 +0000

If your boss is coming for dinner, you’re not going to serve Vin Plonk. but if the Chairman of the Board is dropping by, you’ll want something tht will impress him. So what wine wins The Flute-Snoot award for the most snobbish and over-rated wine?

By: Daniel Pate

Daniel Pate — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:09:16 +0000

You might consider ‘extreme’ countries that are the largest net exporters, net importers, or have the highest market share growth. You could even put it in terms of wine produced or exported/imported per-capita. That might be pretty interesting.

Also, ‘extreme’ barriers to trade such as, tariffs, trade distorting mechanisms (EU wine subsidies maybe?). Argentina charges a 5% wine export tax, but then reimburses them with a 5% export subsidy. Maybe that doesn’t qualify as ‘extreme’, but definitely counts as ‘quirky’.

By: Mike Veseth

Mike Veseth — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:15:11 +0000

Great suggestions, Christian. And that sounds like an extreme dirty job!

By: Christian Miller

Christian Miller — Tue, 03 May 2011 04:15:38 +0000

As an economist, you must surely seek out “worst investment” or “most insane rate of return”. Only problem in our business will be sorting through all the entries.
Given the worshipful press for low yields, how about “stingiest vineyard”? And don’t forget “most painful slippery fingers”, presumably the Forbes Jefferson bottle accident.
Dirty jobs? I had one (my briefest). One summer on temp labor, we were hired out to fix chicken coops in an egg-laying factory. Enormous coops, 100+ degrees, dodging robot feeders traveling up and down the aisles, working around tortured demented chickens 5-10 per cage, the smell was not to be believed. The cages were open-bottomed mesh, so all chicken droppings fell to a subterranean level below the flooring between cages. Last straw – we were told if we dropped any of the repair wire, we were supposed to go down to the subterranean level and retrieve it.

By: Mike Veseth

Mike Veseth — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:03:21 +0000

Ice Wine and Ice Cider are both pretty extreme. Thanks for the idea, Allan.

By: Allan Sapp

Allan Sapp — Mon, 02 May 2011 18:33:55 +0000

This may be so extreme that it does not qualify as ‘wine’ but Ice Cider certainly competes with wine, if only in a very small niche:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cider
http://www.edenicecider.com/
http://store.chwine.com/2008-antolino-brongo-cryomalus-ice-cider-375ml-p524.aspx