Burning our FUSEBOX at Both Ends

It’s here! It’s here! We received our FUSEBOX blending kit and are all set for the big competition. But what we can’t quite decide is if we’re working together or against each other! What am I talking about? It’s a little kit put together by Crushpad. And who is Crushpad, you say?

…we’re a combination of wine industry veterans and technology industry refugees who want to liberate winemaking from the stereotype of the 5th generation wine family living on the chateau with the Golden Retriever. By bringing winemaking to the city, augmenting it with education and support, and taking care of the time-consuming parts, we want to enable anyone with a serious interest in wine to participate in the magic of winemaking. “About Crushpad”

Those grape-squeezing folks at Crushpad have selected 10 bloggers to participate in the first ever Crushpad Fusebox BlendOff. When I count the names in the e-mail Joe and I count as two! So do we submit two different blends? And what’s a Fusebox? Well for one, it’s not that thing you have to go mess with when your hair-dryer manages to blow all the power in one-side of your house! But you’d know if you’d read my article in Palate Press…

Crushpad’s Fusebox blending kit provides instructions, equipment, and four wines from secret vineyards in Napa, at a cost of $79.99. And if you like what you’ve blended, you can design your label on-line and order a case of your custom blend.

Here are the Rules of the deal:

Each participant will receive a Fusebox and will submit her best blend and label design to Crushpad by 8:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on November 2, 2009. Then the winemakers at Crushpad will select a Best Wine Blend. Our wine can be a traditional Bordeaux blend, or we can ‘get creative.’  The goal is to come up with a blend that will sell.

And, for the graphic arts creative types, the Crushpad design team will select a Best Label Winner. Of course this has to pass TTB (for the uninformed; the Alcohol And Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which remarkably does not have an “A” or “W” anywhere in the abbreviation!) approval for a COLA (not Cola, or un-Cola, or even a Cost of Living Index but a “Certificate of Label Approval.”)

In exchange for our talking about it to our readers, tweeting, and posting to whomever we think might care, we got a Fusebox and get to compete! So enough with the parentheticals – what do we win?

Each winner will receive one case of his, her or in our case, “their” customer-blended wine! And of course, bragging rights.  So, can I do it? Again?  Perhaps, but we’re going up against these bloggers!

- DirtySouthWine brought to you by Hardy Wallace, winner of the Murphy Goode Really Goode Job!

* Pulling the Cork

* A Good Time with Wine

* Windy City Wine Guy

* Purple Teeth Diaries

* SavvyTaste.com

* Cellarmistress’ Cellar Talk

* NorCal Wine

Now, to really date myself, I’ll quote from Wayne’s World… “Game On!”

Cheers!

The WineWonkette