Oct 2, 2018
After receiving two tweets accusing it of fostering fear among women due to a message on one of its wines, a British Columbia winery has pulled the offending wine from the shelves that had the following message on its label: “BOYS WILL BE BOYS”. This story intrigued me in part for what the winery in question, Church and State Winery, chose to pull from the market and what it chose to leave in the marketplace. Church and State has a…
Sep 15, 2018
There is a somewhat obscure field called “Future Studies” by some, “Futurology” by others. It’s not science fiction. The Wikipedia entry on the issue describes Futurology this way: “the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and parallel to the field of history. Futures studies seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change. Part of the discipline thus…
Aug 16, 2018
By Alan Goldfarb At a wine tasting many years ago, a man walked up to wine journalist Bob Thompson and stuck a glass in his face and exclaimed, “Do you like this?” Thompson, the wine columnist for the Hearst San Francisco Examiner at the time, went to the paper’s editor the next morning, and quit. The man with the glass, Thompson said, “Wanted me to tell him if he liked the wine. I wanted to be the guy who showed…
Aug 14, 2018
Andrew Jefford certainly ranks as one of the most thoughtful people to ever write about wine. If you need proof of this, simply read the transcript of the speech he gave to the conference of Wine Communicators of Australia in 2012: “Wine and Astonishment”. It’s a profound piece I’ve gone back to read over and over simply for its beauty, insight and humility. It’s because of the soundness and creativity I have long enjoyed in Jefford’s thinking that I was a…
Aug 8, 2018
The writer of this letter accusing me of exhibiting “toxic masculinity” and sexism did not want to expose herself to comments for reasons she states below. Her accusations are interesting but serve as a conversation starter rather than the conversation stopper she hoped to create. Dear Mr. Wark: I’m writing an email instead of posting a comment because I don’t want to be exposed to sexist comebacks and there is no need to embarrass you yet. Your recent article on…