During one of my many recent Left Coast jaunts, I had a rather disturbing conversation with a California winemaker over dinner. It’s a conversation that haunted me for weeks afterward, until I could catch up with that particular winemaker (who needs to remain anonymous for reasons that should become obvious very quickly) and get more…
Category: commentary
Wine Doesn’t Sell Wine, Stories Sell Wine (Nederburg Auction 2013 Keynote Speech Recap)
I’m not-so-freshly back from Cape Town, where last week I delivered the keynote address at the 39th annual Nederburg Auction. Somehow, my back survived the jaunt (though the sciatica and disk issues did some relatively serious damage on my anxiety). Since the Nederburg organizers don’t invite keynote speakers back, I felt even less pressure than…
Does The Wisdom Of The Crowd Provide Better Wine Reviews Than The Experts?
[ WARNING: following is one of my lengthy diatribes. If you’re the lazy and impatient busy type, skip to the summary! ] Do you believe that fine wines are multi-faceted? What I mean is, do fine wines change over time, present different shades and complexities of aromas and flavors? Well… duh… If you agree that…
What We Learned From The Fulvio Bressan Debacle
Friuli winemaker Fulvio Bressan’s racially-charged political comments about Cécile Kyenge, Italy’s first African-Italian government minister (you can read the translation if you’re up for it, but fair warning: it will most likely disgust you) just caused a large crap-storm in the wine world. In my view, only an idiot (it takes a lot of stupid…