In a recent post here at Fermentation, I attempted to warn the Oregon wine industry that Portland’s tarnished reputation due to regular violent protests for the past year and a highly visible homelessness problem could impact visitation to the state’s wine country. It was pointed out (see comments on the post) that in writing this warning to the industry, I may have inadvertently added to the problem of the state’s wine industry being impacted by these circumstances. It was suggested…

Edward Slingerland, writing in the Wall Street Journal and exploring the question of why human beings have developed a taste for alcohol, composed one of my favorite sentences of the year so far: “Evolution isn’t stupid”. Besides being an obvious title for a Ricky Gervais comedy, the phrase is an apt description of Slingerland’s conclusions to the question of why humans drink alcohol, despite it being a dangerous neurotoxin. This question is addressed in his recent Wall Street Journal essay…

This is part two of my investigation (see part 1) into the claim of one Wine Influencer that Wine Influencers have been around forever, but they were different in the past. The public claim was this: “The wine Influencer isn’t new – the first ones were old white men without pretty pictures who wrote about wine in inaccessible language meant to stave off the common public- but they got the prestige of ‘critic’.” Who were these the wine influencers of…

Oh, the questions a blogger gets… Most questions posed to me based on my status as a blogger/publisher come in the form of questions posed in the comment section of my posts. But others come via email. Boy do they run the gamut. Here is the post where I answer them publicly. Enjoy… _______________________________________ Tom, Thank you for your blog. I’ve been reading on and off for years. But it seems you never review wines, but here you are in…