Jan 8, 2013
Filed under “Arrival of Common Sense”: “I have to ask you, if you are trusted to vote, trusted to carry a weapon in the service of your country, why can’t we trust you to buy a beer at the bar?” This is one of the perfectly valid and obvious arguments that is being made by Colorado State Senator Greg Brophy in the service of a bill he will introduce in Colorado that would allow parents of 18-20 year olds to…
Dec 31, 2012
Without hope, there is no sense in going on. Hope sustains us. Hope motivates us. With hope there is no action. Hope is the seed that grows into a wish. MY WISHES FOR WINE IN 2013 1. The Natural Wine Movement Reforms Itself I wish 2013 is the year that those who self-identify with and promote the “Natural Wine” movement finally give credit where credit is due and recognize all the artisan producers everywhere who have for years (decades, really),…
Dec 18, 2012
What issues will the wine trade and the more active wine consumers be talking about, be concerned with and be reading about in 2013? Predicting what is to come is not really that difficult if you read the tea leaves without splashing them around too much and stick with a concentration on the past. What follows, in no particular order, are my top ten issues that will rise to the top in 2013 by virtue of what has come before…
Nov 30, 2012
Reading a story today about golf in the Sonoma wine country reminded me of something I’ve been thinking a lot about since my recent vacation in Kauai: The wine lover organizes their understanding of wine in very similar ways by which the golf fanatic organizes their understanding of the game of golf. I started thinking about this while playing a round of golf on the Makai Course in Princeville, Kauai with a young doctor from India with whom I was…
Nov 29, 2012
In France, still I think the undisputed center of the wine world, per capita consumption continues to drop. A new report out of France shows that the the average French adult now consumes not more than 1 glass of wine per day. This amounts to an annual per capita consumption level of roughly 53 liters. To give you a sense of the on going and historic decline in French wine consumption, consider that in 1965 average per capita consumption of…