Last week, I had the pleasure of having my name added to the impressive guest list of those who’ve been interviewed by Lynn Krielow Chamberlain on her iWineRadio podcast. The short (for my run-on mouth, anyway), and relatively safe for work (by my standards, which admittedly are rather loose) interview is embedded/linked below for your listening pleasure.

I’ve not much more to say about it, apart from the fact that the interview mostly covers my entrance into the wine world, about which I am almost always brutally honest. I always find it odd that people want to interview me, since I am a family man who has a relatively boring life most of the time, punctuated by band gigs and trips all over the world tasting wine. There seems to be a preoccupation in interviews on the fact that I bootstrapped my way into the wine biz by starting a website, rather than having been anointed by a traditional print masthead or some other gatekeeping body, which I suppose is interesting (but only just) in an of itself.

This is almost invariably followed by a question about how/why I feel in love with wine, to which I invariably want to answer: “what kind of moron wouldn’t fall in love with this stuff?!??”

For a moment, let’s remove the beguiling aspects of wine from the equation, and put aside its intriguing complexity; its coalescence of art, craft, and multiple sciences and related pursuits (such as chemistry, history, and geography); its ability to connect us to a moment in time, and almost magically transport us to us to a particular place on the earth. Forget all of that for just a minute or two.

What’s left? A hedonistic, pleasurable beverage that lubricates life, begs to be shared, draws us together, enhances moments, gets us buzzed an occasionally gets us laid. Where I come from, those last few points alone are worth the price of admission when it comes to wine; the other stuff is just a bonus!

And so that’s those are the reasons I got into wine; there was nothing noble about it. The consumer advocacy type of stuff, and the desire to try to change the wine media world for the better, and to offer interesting alternatives to sharing and telling stories about wine… all of that stuff could be argued as being a little bit noble, but that all came much later. I’m still the guy who wanted something to taste great, to be shared, to maybe get me lucky, to make me and others feel good about life by drinking it. And here’s hoping I’m always at least a little bit that guy, because I’d hate to get so wrapped up in the intellectual side of wine that I forget to have good time with it, which is, after all, the purpose for which it was designed!

1Winedude on iWineRadio – August 2014

Cheers!

On a (very, very, monsoon-season-like) wet day in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago, I spent some time in the basement of Philly’s Jet Wine Bar on South Street, being interviewed for a podcast by owner (and archeologist – she was about to embark on a multi-stop tour taking her to Italy, Scotland, and Iraq) Jill Weber and Brit-turned-PA-local Philip Silverstone.

We had a good time, recording two shows that you should now be able to check out now over at Phil’s website, talking wine and my first booze love, craft beer. The wine portion is embedded below for your listening convenience, peeps. The Time Out With Phillip Silverstone show can be heard anytime and anywhere worldwide via the free TuneIn Radio app or at TuneIn.com (search for Phillip Silverstone)

Jet is a freakin’ cool, cool place for a wine geek. Jill prides herself on championing the obscure, and it is for sure the obscure that gets championed at Jet. Let me put it this way: when I visited, some of the more recognizable grape variety names on her list were Ribolla Gialla, Trebbiano, and Bonarda. She had included selections from Morocco and Turkey. It was a wine geek’s wet dream, in multiple senses of the phrase. The food at Jet is also pretty tasty, so if you’re South Street bound and want a break from hoagies, beer and cheesesteaks, you’d do well to check it out.

Talking Wine on Time Out With Phillip Silverstone

Jill pulled out a few interesting selections for us to taste during recording that day, and I’d like to introduce you to each of those, all of which run about $15 a pop (suck it, you Joe-only-reviews-crazy-expensive-wines whiney-pants complainers!)…

Read the rest of this stuff »

A couple of weeks ago, I rang in the new year with Laurie Forster, host of the WBAL radio show The Sipping Point.

This is my second appearance on TPS, the first coming around Easter of 2012. This time around, Laurie and I traded our (combined) top ten new year’s resolutions for the wine biz. Some of my 2014 wishes for the wine industry definitely qualify as entrants into the “broken record” category (such as “wine brands: get online, already” and “stop treating wine scores as if they were etched into Moses’ ten commandment stone tablets”), but others might come as a bit of a surprise (“wineries: you don’t need a mobile app; you need to align yourself with a good general-purpose wine app!”). In any case, I’m guessing that the 2014 resolution/wish list picks that Laurie and I came up with will ruffle a few (or more) wine industry type feathers (so what else is new, right?).

Anyway, it might make for some fun listening while you avoid doing something boring but important, like working.

You can check out the interview via iTunes, or listen/download via the embed below. It’s SFW, this being Baltimore radio and all that, so I was on (reasonably, for me) good behavior. If you’re really impatient (guilty!), you can read a Cliff Notes version of our lists at Laurie’s website.

The Sipping Point Radio: 2014 Wine Wish List

Cheers!