Archive for the ‘Rating Wine’ Category
Imagine the consequences of assuming—worse yet, believing—you had already tasted the best wines you'll ever taste. I've been thinking about the meaning of this disastrous state of mind. I've been thinking about the necessity of assuming the next day or next wine will be better than the last. I've concluded that despite past disappointments or even the experience of soaring wines and seemingly unparalleled moments, if we don't assume these things and moments can be eclipsed by what's to come,…
I love the movie "High Fidelity". In addition to being an examination heartbreak, busted love affairs and misery born of unrequited love, it also deals with music geeks—those people for whom the details and intricacies of music knowledge is so important to them it actually helps define their lives. This kind of obsession, not unfamiliar in the wine world, is best on display in High Fidelity when a co-worker (Dick) drops in at the home of the main character ("Rob")…
——————————————–Sponsored By: The Girl & The Fig Restaurant in Sonoma
Little revelations are always good because they tend to speak to principles to live by. Here’s my latest (and I’m embarrassed that I’ve only lately realized it): I don’t want serious restaurant critics to pay for their meals nor serious wine critics to pay for a drop of wine. Why? I don’t trust a restaurant or wine critic to accurately or honestly evaluate their experience when part of that experience is filtered through the dent their object of evaluation made…
Let us sit together and speak of knowledge as men do. Always ask: What does this reviewer know? We know what he thinks, but what does he know? This command comes from one of the smartest, most experienced and most knowledgeable wine writers/reporters/critics I've ever known: Dan Berger. He wrote it in his latest issue of his "Dan Berger's Vintage Experiences" in an article entitled Analyzing Marketing. In this article he lists a series of aphorisms and truths that he…
