Archive for the ‘Culture and Wine’ Category
If I'm not mistaken, we are seeing the development of a strong cultural aversion to the now notorious "1 Percent". Put another way, there appears to me to be a strong and still developing cultural and political zeitgeist that includes diminished respect, and even distaste, for financial elite, their demonstrations of wealth, their political power and the issues they care about. (Before someone mentions that I've used the term "zeitgeist" incorrectly by making observations of the present, rather than a…
In a recent post concerning New Jersey and the State of Direct Shipping, I concluded by writing, "There is a great deal to do across the country to make consumer interests paramount in the alcohol regulatory world." This kind of vague pronouncement doesn't actually layout the conditions that would result in a consumer-centric wine marketplace. I should have been much more clear. There are in fact a set of specific conditions that would reflect a consumer driven wine marketplace. What's…
There appears to be a nascent move among public health advocates and government consumer protection agencies to much more carefully monitor how alcohol is advertised and marketed in the digital world. The Sunday Baltimore Sun Article, "Review Shows Alcohol Companies Reach Youth Online", demonstrates that alcohol companies may soon be targeted in an effort to diminish the capacity of alcohol to market its products, particularly in the social media world in order to reduce minors' exposure to such efforts. What…
Any wine pundit worth his syrah must at some point make the effort to evaluate the quadrennial crop of presidential candidates for their potential to promote American wine. Who would be most likely to push American-made wine front and center not only with visiting dignitaries, but in front of the American people? I’ll grant you, most presidential candidates don’t exactly make haste to be identified with the elitist, effeminate, non-beer drink that is wine. And it’s likely that the 2012…
I don't like the idea of taking issue with Jamie Goode. He's smarter than me. He's a better writer than me. And he's better looking than me. But on this issue of "Authentic Wine", the topic of his latest book, Jamie gets it wrong. In fact, it's the very premise of his and Sam Harrop's "Authentic Wine: Toward Natural and Sustainable Winemaking" that can't be justified. In their introduction they write: "Wine is now at a metaphorical fork in the…
