Monday, January 17, 2011

80% of your wine comes from 20% of your grapes

Heard this great little anecdote from a friend over coffee today.  He said he read somewhere (maybe in a book called "The 4 hour work week"?) that it's a well known fact of life in wine making that 80% of your output comes from 20% of your grapes.  So the real trick is figuring out where those 20% are sitting in your vineyard, prioritizing their fertilization, and keeping them watered above the rest of the crop.  Every year is different so you never know reliably where the 20% is going to be.

So are people and work just like grapes and wine?  I know that I like grapes, and people whine about work, so that lends some plausibility to the idea.

And whatever happened to the California Raisins?  I want to see the E! Inside Story.

2 comments:

  1. this one- haven't read it yet, but will soon.

    http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307353133

    He's also got a health book where he references something similar. He calls it the "minimum effective dose" (in reference to muscle gain or fat loss, but applies it to a lot of things) - which essentially means that you (the average person) should do the minimum amount to get the most results. Getting the additional 10% of results takes /significant/ more effort and your ROI isn't nearly as high.

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  2. another great point! thanks for the direct link

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