The Wine Blog Awards Judges: Greg Walter

Posted by Tom Wark on Feb 9, 2007

Now here’s a career progression: bottle shop sales person to Editorial Assistant at the Wine Spectator to Senior Editor at the Wine Spectator to President of the Wine Spectator to Proprietor of his own publishing house.

Those are just the step by step highlights of Greg Walter’s career that most folks would raise their eyebrows at because the words "Wine Spectator"(where he spent 14 years helping to build it into the benchmark for wine publishing it is today) are located in that progression. But when you get down to it, Walters is all about delivering stories, wine ones in particular. There are few folks who have had their fingers in more publishing and information ventures in the wine business as Greg. This is the reason I wanted him as a judge for the American Wine Blog Awards.

It’s a crude way of doing this, but I want to highlight Greg’s background by listing the projects he’s been involved with over the years:

Pinot Noir Report (editor and publisher), WineCountry.com (editing and publishing consultant), Wine Country Living Magazine (consulting President and publisher), The Underground Wine Journal (publishing consultant), Winetasting.com (VP Content), Appellation Magazine (Publisher, Editor), "Chalone: A Journey on the Wine Frontier" (Co-Author/Editor), Wine Business Monthly (editorial and design consultant) Smart Wine Magazine (Editor/Publisher).

Today Greg is best known as the editor, publisher and reviewer at his The Pinot Report, a newsletter devoted to all things Pinot Noir in America and a recipient of a James Beard Award. But as the previous paragraph indicates, there’s a lot more going on behind The Pinot Report that takes Greg’s time.

So, when Greg looks over a set blogs and evaluates them, he’s looking at them with an eye that is among the most practiced in determining quality, value and utility of information and information delivery.

Greg operates everything he does from his Carneros Group. You can find more information about him and his projects at that site. This blogger is is VERY proud to have had Greg as a judge of the 2007 American Wine Blog Awards.