Nov 11, 2008
When was the last time you heard of someone thinking deeply over what brand of spirits to open for company or a significant other? Does anyone really ever take time to think about what would be the perfect beer for a quiet dinner for two? Is "self indulgence" ever more perfectly defined than when we choose a wine from our cellar that's meant to drunk just by the chooser? The answers are rarely if ever, no and no. I've been…
Nov 10, 2008
The issue and idea of faith has always confounded me. I envy those people who walk with faith like it's a natural appendage that is so fully a part of them they don't even notice it. I notice it though. It's really a beautiful thing. I possess only enough faith to radically notice it at every turn and to question it constantly, and thereby diminishing even more the small bit that I have. I write all this in advance of…
Nov 7, 2008
For anyone who concerns themselves with the future of wine in America or the future of the American wine industry; for anyone who involves themselves in the sales and marketing of American wines; for anyone who produces wine in America with an eye toward illuminating not only their hand but their land, then a new bit of required reading has been produced by Appellation America. Roger Dial, the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Appellation America has produced a two-part essay on…
Nov 7, 2008
In the San Francisco Chronicle today I was reading about the trio of gentleman who have started “Terroir”, a wine bar and wine shop in a warehouse on Folsom Street in San Francisco. “Terroir” is focused on “Natural wines” that are described by writer Wolfgang Weber as “a sort of catchall term for organic, biodynamic and minimal intervention” wines. You have to love a trio of guys like this, with so much passion for wine that they’d invest in opening…
Oct 31, 2008
If I got together some co-conspirators, huddled in a dark place with candles aglow and hatched a diabolical plan to destroy the French wine industry, one of the things at the top of my LIST OF DIABOLICAL THINGS TO DESTROY THE FRENCH WINE INDUSTRY would be to ban free tastings of wine. But since I don't know any dark places, have no candles and can't think of a single person who would want to conspire to destroy the French wine…