Archive for the ‘Culture and Wine’ Category
Despite his claims, Matt Kramer is not a Journalist. This should be clear within the first few moments of cracking his new book, a retrospective of his columns from various venues entitled: "Matt Kramer on Wine: A Matchless Collection of Columns, Essays, and Observations by America's most original and lucid Wine Writer." Matt Kramer, best known for his long-running column in the Wine Spectator and his classic "Making Sense" series of books, is an essayist. And he's the best one…
I'm going to offer a contention I think might piss off a few people: A liberal arts education is the best foundation for a life of enjoying wine and working in wine. Yes, I have one; an education grounded in the study of History. But I swear, I'm not defending my choices here. I was reading a book review in the Times this weekend of a new book by Martha Nussbaum entitled, "NOT FOR PROFIT: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities"….
Gallup's annual poll of who drinks and how many drink alcohol was released today. It turns out those who claim to drink alcohol is up, while those that claim to drink wine is slightly down. What' most interesting is what can be gleaned from the poll on who the most likely drinkers are. It appears that if you want to identify a likely drinker, what you are looking for is someone with the following characteristics: -A woman -Between 21 and…
If, when you travel, you don't ask yourself, "Could I live here?", then I suspect you aren't traveling with your head, but rather just with your feat. And that's no way to travel. I was recently sitting at a window seat on a bus, watching McMinville, Oregon move past me as a returned to Linfield College from a Winery luncheon at Lemelson Vineyards as part of the Friday festivities at the International Pinot Noir Celebration. McMinnville is a small town…
Amazon reports today that over the past three months it sold more "Kindle" e-books than it has hardcover books. Undoubtedly this announcement will make its way into future accounts of the transformation of publishing and reading. And undoubtedly wine books will, like books on every other subject, eventually be purchased primarily as electronic documents, rather than printed, tree-killing, ink-stained artifacts. But what interests me more is how long it will take for wine magazines to jump on the electronic bandwagon,…
