Next Monday (or June 11, 2018, at the time of this writing), will mark the final run of the Wine Mini-Review Round-Up posts in their current incarnation here on 1WineDude.

After that date, the corresponding “broadcast-only” twitter account associated with those reviews, 1WineDudeReview, will no longer be maintained. Mini-reviews will also no longer be posted to the 1WineDude twitter account, LinkedIn, or to the 1WD account on the Book of Face.

I originally began reviewing wines on twitter (and, as far as I’m aware, I might have been the first person to do so) about a decade ago, in an attempt to both a) provide an additional outlet for an increasing number of wine samples and tastings that came my way, and b) have some fun trying to cram something pithy, meaningful, and edu-taining about a wine in 140 characters.

Over the years, it’s become increasingly difficult to maintain those reviews across multiple social media accounts, automate the reproduction of the mini-reviews on to the “traditional” blog format here (hey, twitter: “thanks” for shutting off the RSS feeds years ago… for which you can totally suck my white ass!), and try to keep all of that content within manageable numbers while also providing links to finding those wines for the curious, and dealing with the advent of twitter reducing the fun in the exercise by increasing its update character count.

After all of these years, we are just way overdue for a change-up with respect to all of the above. Like, years overdue, at this point.

Here are how things will look moving forward with respect to the whole Mini-Review thang…

• A weekly list of short wine reviews (in Mini-Review format) will appear here on 1WD, with more direct and vintage-specific links to where the wines can be found for purchase.
• Like all 1WD posts, a link to the article will be cross-posted to twitter, FB, etc.; but If you want ’em, you’ll need to come here to get `em!
• I will finally be posting stuff to Instagram (probably just good old-fashioned wine recommendations, and not formal reviews).

So… hopefully this is all fairly clear, and those of you who are following the reviews at 1WineDudeReview won’t get too pissed-off (if so, refunds for your $0.00 outlay are available at any time).

In any case, there will be similar content, just probably more of it (which means more wines to talk about here!), and with extra wiggle-room on each wine for my bizarre commentary.

Cheers!

Normally for these year-in-review recaps, I start by going into some details about my life over the last twelve months.

F*ck that sh*t this time. I’m focused full steam ahead on the future, baby.

If you need a summary, 2015 was the year that I gifted myself my freedom. The results are much more positive than I’d expected: while far from being perfect, generally speaking my life is great. Most importantly, my kid is doing great. And what I do for a living is still, well, great (although, from here anything else would be a pretty serious letdown, unless I could finagle a paying gig as a hammock nap tester).

So this year I am skipping the detailed recap, and getting right to the good stuff (you’re welcome!).

Here are the top ten most popular 1WD articles published in 2015, as measured by visits (if I’m utilizing my website analytic skills correctly, that is… which is a seriously sizable if)…

Read the rest of this stuff »

As we come to the close of 2014… well, I’m kind of in a weird place looking back on it. The year has had a lot of ups and downs for me, but I’m happy to write that the professional side of things has been almost exclusively UP for me in 2014.

But that has not come without some serious effort, and right now, I just can’t wait for the f*cking year to be over!

And so, I might be taking a bit of an extended break (a couple of weeks, I suspect) from posting here. We’ll see if I can actually stay away; I’m not promising anything!

Anyway…

This seems as good a time as any to take a quick gander back on 2014 here on 1WD, and see what articles you all decided were worth reading the most. In some cases (ok, several cases), I am somewhat shocked as to what pieces of content turned out to have the most views. You might be less surprised, but I’ll bet you’re stilling willing to give me crap  express your well-considered opinions on the merit of each of the articles listed below.

Here’s to another year together, folks!

Read the rest of this stuff »

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!