Oct 24, 2006
I don’t know what the traffic stats are for the wine blog THE ZINQUISITION. However, I do know it should be higher than it is, higher than most wine blogs in fact, given the quality of the posts that St. Vini puts together. EXAMPLE A: GALLIC SYNDROME TO STRIKE NAPA
Oct 24, 2006
Anyone remember that great scene in the movie "High Fidelity" in which Dick walks in on Rob (played by John Cusack) who is reorganizing his record collection? Dick: "Doing it Chronologically?"Rob: NoDick: Alphabetical?Rob: NopeDick: What?Rob: Autobiographical!!Dick: No Fucking Way. Pretty ambitious. Organizing a record collection autobiographically. Clearly it’s not how you’d organize a selection of records if you wanted to offer them for sale. However, there’s no reason the organization of the selection of records for sale couldn’t be done…
Oct 18, 2006
There is a temptation to believe that politics is corrupt, period. There’s even good reason to believe that one lobbyist and one lobbying organization is just like the other. They do their darnedest to pay for results. It’s just not true. Some lobbying groups and some industries are more powerful by many degrees than most other industries. The Wine Distribution industry is just such an industry. The Portland Oregonian has published a story detailing the corrupt relationship between Oregon’s wine…
Oct 17, 2006
"Everywhere you look in Napa County, you see what was once a farming and working-class socio-economic environment transformed into an upper-class enclave and tourist attractions, with baronial wine estates, hillside celebrity mansions, upscale shops and restaurants, luxurious inns, B&Bs, and hotels and extravagant cultural centers — all designed for the benefit of the “haves.” But beneath the genteel glitter, there exist harsh realities for those on the lower end of the economic ladder. While the local Hispanic population provides most…
Oct 16, 2006
I know it sounds strange, but it strikes me that the age of new technologies, "the communications age" if you will, seems to have had a fairly small impact in the wine industry. Yes, there is the annual Wine Industry Technology Symposium, but in general the convergence of technology and wine seems very much in the background. This makes sense, in a way. Wine is still and likely always will be an agricultural based pursuit. When folks talk about wine,…