Archive for the ‘Culture and Wine’ Category

Dec 16, 2020

Wine in the U.S. in 2020 — The Top Takeaways

I can’t stress enough just how unique 2020 has been. From a historical perspective, it’s arguable that this year is among the top two or three most eventful and impactful 12 months in 100 years. And keep in mind, those past 100 years included the 1929 stock market crash, the worst years of the depression, the beginning and end of World War II, the Cuban Missle Crisis, two presidential assassinations, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting acts, 1968,…

Dec 12, 2020

The Top 10 Wine Stories of 2020 According to Your Eyeballs

It’s always interesting to look back and see which posts attracted the most readership here at FERMENTATION during the year. As is has been in past years, 2020 readers were attracted most to those posts that touched on the current events in American culture. Below are the top 10 most-read posts of 2020 beginning with the most read. 1-Data Shows Wine Economists Are Wrong — Wine Industry Does Not Support Donald Trump This mini-controversy roiled the online wine world for…

Dec 10, 2020

Responsibility in the Wine Industry

“Our most protective urges are almost always saved for our family first. Blood relations or otherwise, our immediate family tends to be the folk we are quickest to rise up and protect and defend when treated unfairly, threatened, or intimated in wrongdoing.  “Why this is the case is unimportant to me. Why our protective urges are on greatest display when family is involved may have many explanations. All I do know is that I would leap into a boiling vat…

Dec 3, 2020

The Wine Vacation: Napa Valley vs. Willamette Valley

Napa Valley and Sonoma County may remain the premier wine destinations in the country. However, the recent exposure that Oregon wine has received has solidified it’s place as a significant destination for wine travelers…specifically, the Willamette Valley. So, the question arises, if you are looking forward to a post-vaccine wine holiday, which destination should you choose? Here, we compare the merits of Napa Valley vs Willamette Valley (north). In the context of wine regions, these are two very different placed,…

Nov 18, 2020

The Evolution of Social Justice Wine Writing

If you don’t think we are living in the Golden Age of Wine Writing then you just aren’t paying attention and you are certainly aren’t taking notice of James Sligh’s recent “The Myth of ‘Old World’ Wine,” recently published at Punch. This article just couldn’t have been written at any moment other than in the past five years when wine writing has not only continued to pursue stories about wineries and winemakers and varietals and wines from a myriad of…