Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category
Hello, my name is Tom Wark and I'm a binge drinker. I think I'm also a binge candy eater. It's also likely that I'm a binge golfer, but I can't find any support groups or studies to confirm these latter two problems. Binge drinking is, according to the Center for Desease Control: "a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume 5 or more drinks,…
You look at the news out the Mosel ("Hailstorms Decimate Mosel") and you must be reminded once again that if you make wine or grow grapes in California, your life is pretty darned good, relative to so many other wine growing regions. The hail storms in the Mosel were reported to consist of tennis and golf ball sized specimens. Grape crops and vines were reportedly destroyed. This kind of thing simply is not common in California. Nor does California usually…
There is something exhilerating about standing up in front of a classroom filled with students and leading a discussion. I had forgotten about this thrill before having the opportunity to guest lecture at a UCLA Extension class on The Business of Wine Management. I was at the UCLA class led by Patrick Comiskey and Shelby Ledgerwood on Wednesday. The topic of my time in front of the class was the Three Tier System and Wine Politics. I provided a terribly…
In crafting the FERMENTATION Reader Survey, I gave those taking the survey the chance to say and write in anything respondents wanted to about this Blog. Many readers had something to say. I thought it only fair that I take the time to respond to a few of these comments. After all, readers took the time to to write the comments. AND BY THE WAY, THE READER SURVEY IS STILL UP AND RUNNING FOR ANOTHER DAY. PLEASE TAKE THIS 2…
———————————————————————————— When I entered the wine business in 1990 at the PR firm of Gracelyn and Associations, Gerald Asher was an "A" Writer. It was the term we gave to those writers and journalists that carried weight or an audience. As the wine writer for the esteemed Gourmet Magazine, Mr. Asher carried both. More important than anything else when I joined the fraternity of flacks was to learn as much as I could about the wine writing world. Not…
