Archive for the ‘Culture and Wine’ Category
The 75th Anniversary of the Ratification of the 21st Amendment (the end of Prohibition) arrives on December 5th. Guess who's celebrating the hardest? Yes, America's alcohol wholesalers and they are celebrating the end of Prohibition not because it allowed them to open their doors and start businesses. They are celebrating for the reason laid out so clearly by Tony Mauro, writing for Law.com: "the 21st Amendment led to creation of the three-tier (producers, wholesalers, retailers) state-regulated system for purveying wine,…
What makes a wine blog credible? What give a wine blog an authoritative voice? Does it matter? Can it be measured? These questions and other similar to them have been bandied about the wine industry of late in a variety of forums. I think the issues are under greater scrutiny for a number of reasons, not the least of which are 1) the fact that there are more wine bloggers than ever and the issue of credibility and authority is…
Do you recall the experience of being on the receiving end of a message so beautifully rendered and conveyed that it moves you; that it moves your mood and disposition to another key—up or down—and forces an audible awe from the depths? The message delivered by the greatest wine you've ever tasted, spent time with and even shuddered upon tasting can't do this. And this is the limitation of wine that makes it a voice of accompaniment, not a standard…
A few notes from my current sojourn in Chicago… Note #1: Illinois Wine Consumers RockIllinoisans tend, in general, to appreciate, be connected to and understand politics better than other city dwellers. This was most certainly brought home to me as I've met a number of wine-loving Illinoisans who are not only irked by their recently reduced access to wine in the state, but seem to understand the nuances of why they were stripped of their access to wine recently. And…
I've been at serious risk for quite some time of being accused with good reason of being an Alice Feiring stalker But I'll risk the additional chance of solidifying that perception in the minds of many by pointing you all toward something that I'd never seen before today. It's a beautiful and revealing piece Ms. Feiring wrote in 2007 for the New York Times to which she so very subtly links in a recent blog post of hers at Veritas…
