Aug 15, 2021
I wonder how often the folks at Dry Farm Wines have had the opportunity to look winemakers in the face and tell them “your wine is poisonous”. Not take the cowardly route and state in Facebook ads that all wine but theirs is “toxic”. No. I wonder how many times the Dry Farm Wines people have had the courage to look a winemaker straight in the eye and tell them, “your wine is toxic”. This is just one of the…
Aug 13, 2021
The Center for Alcohol Policy, a front-group funded by beer wholesalers, recently issued a white paper on the important issue of Drunk Driving in America. The White Paper, entitled “A Legislative History of Drunk Driving in America”, examines a number of steps that have been taken over the years to reduce drunk driving. Measures such as the 0.08 blood alcohol level, the 21-year-old minimum drinking age, and open container laws are all examined. But what caught my eye was this:…
Aug 6, 2021
The ongoing Wine Media Conference (formerly known as the Wine Bloggers Conference) isn’t the worst place to consider whether “wine blogs” matter enough or are of such consequence today, that they deserve to no longer be segregated into their own separate space? This was the implied question when Cyril Penn, editor in chief of Wine Business Monthly and keynote speaker at the conference today, noted that his publication was in the midst of redesigning their popular morning Daily News email…
Aug 5, 2021
How do you create a career for yourself as a wine writer? This was the question a young, ambitious woman asked me on the phone yesterday. She wanted to reach out mainly to say hello in advance of the Wine Media Conference in Eugene, Oregon where both of us will be today. Our conversation turned to wine writing and the question was posed. I am sort of an odd person to ask that question of since I’ve only written a…
Aug 3, 2021
Over the past five years or so some members of the alcohol beverage industry have voiced concern that counterfeit alcohol is such a potential problem that increased vigilance is necessary to keep unlicensed and counterfeit products from entering the supply chain and eventually making their way to the consumer. While America’s wine, beer, and spirit wholesalers have been most vocal in warning of this potential problem, what has gone unsaid is that it is the wholesaler that is most likely…