I’ll be asking for your patience over the next couple of weeks, as I continue the trend of upping the travel here on 1WineDude (hey, you told me you wanted more travel pieces, after all!).
This jaunt is going to feel bittersweet for me: for one thing, I’m stoked to be heading to Chile and Argentina (although I am not sure how warmly I will be greeted by the Chileans after my little mention here of their greener wines last October… let’s hope they have a short memory…); for another, it’s still time away from my family right on the heels of previous travel to the Left Coast for the Pro Wine Writers Symposium and Premiere Napa Valley.
The trade-off for your patience in indulging a bit of inconsistency (I’ll still be trying to connect and post from Chile and Argentina whenever and wherever possible) is that things might get quiet here over the coming weeks, which not only is blogging anathema in general in that it breaks some of the fundamental rules of playing in the blog-o-world, but it also means that we mess around a bit with part of the contract that I have with you out there reading this blog: namely, the publication schedule that I’ve been rigorously (and not without some pain – especially the borderline-carpal-tunnel-variety) following since October…
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The Scarecrow becomes Mrs. King of Napa Cult Cabs at Premiere Napa Valley Auction 2011, and you get to see the action in today’s vid. The record-setting winning Scarecrow bid is featured, as is a compelling one-of-a-kind wine story by Casa Nuestra (and lots of purple teeth)!
Some of my tasting notes are featured below after the jump, so stick around and check them out after you watch!
(reviews after the jump)…
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1) It is the darkest of times for wine writing. The general decline in the consumption of real journalistic reporting has resulted in immensely talented people being out of regular wine-writing-work. The black cloud enveloping the wine writing sphere is actually the dark cloak of the grim reaper; that silver lining you see is his scythe, gleaming against the available light, raised to the apex of its arc in his cold, bony hands, beginning its inexorable path to cut wine writing down at its haunches.
2) It is the brightest of times for wine writing, for those who are comfortable with ambiguity and have an entrepreneurial bent. Since information about wine is now being consumed in almost an infinite array of forms on-line (with no-to-low-cost barriers to entry to almost all of them), those with passion, drive, talent and business sense can earn a comfortable living – if they’re able to market themselves and build their own personal brands. Success stories include new and traditional media types (and those like Dominique Browning who have successfully leveraged both).
3) Apparently, I have fooled a good number of people into thinking that I know what I am talking about. I think there might be a good book idea in there somewhere, but I won’t bother to pitch it because the traditional publishing industry has 14 billion levels of checks and bureaucracy and is (almost) hopelessly broken.
4) Everything positive that you’ve ever heard about the legendary Gerald Asher is probably true. His keynote speech seamlessly wove together wine writing history, wine sales, insight into the human condition, and prostitution – and that was just in the first three minutes.
5) Please stop telling me that Napa wines are never Bretty, or that their ripe fruits will outshine any Bretty stank even after years in the bottle. Because I sampled some older vintages at the post-prandial (does anyone not love that word?) tastings at the Symposium, and while most were NOT Bretty, those that were displayed way more fruit-of-the-barnyard than fruit-of-the-vine, if you catch my drift.
(more after the jump…)
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This jaunt is going to feel bittersweet for me: for one thing, I’m stoked to be heading to Chile and Argentina (although I am not sure how warmly I will be greeted by the Chileans after my little mention here of their greener wines last October… let’s hope they have a short memory…); for another, it’s still time away from my family right on the heels of previous travel to the Left Coast for the Pro Wine Writers Symposium and Premiere Napa Valley.
