Archive for the ‘Rating Wine’ Category
The assumption of the American Viticultural Area (appellation) program is that there is something unique about those areas that are granted AVA status—that there is something about Oakville, Anderson Valley, Finger Lakes and Green Valley that make them distinct. However, the subtext of this quasi-appellation program administered by the federal government and completely embraced by the American wine industry is that the wines the emerge from specifically designated American Viticultural Areas are themselves unique because they somehow contain identifiable characteristics…
Having reconciled myself to the idea that there is no such thing as an objective criteria for quality in any category of wine, I began deliberating on what I think we all must do to bring reason to our palate and preferences; to put our preferential house in order, so to speak. What I began looking for were other artistic (yes, artistic) creations that might serve as a model for my personal beliefs about wine quality. What I was looking…
Depending on your spiritual and moral disposition, there may not be anything too wrong with beating a dead horse. This post might reveal my spiritual and moral disposition. I wonder if the critical establishment surrounding wine is too unforgiving. I wonder if the predilection among the reviewing class is that it tends to oversubscribe to the notion that a wine can be too wrong, rather that right enough for those who will put up with its character. Oddly I was…
A variety of academic studies seem to have determined quite convincingly that the non-wine expert and even the non-wine interested don’t like the same kind of wines that the "experts" and those who have had wine training tend to like. The corollary to this is that the ratings of wine experts and wine critics seem may have little value for those who are not trained in wine. The most recent confirmation of this comes from a Working Paper published at…
Those of us who are regularly looking for evidence that the online world of wine is able to reach into the physical or non digitized world of wine need examples to that effect. We have a new one. Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV has been published…ON PAPER. The publisher is Rodale and the book, "Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines: Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World", I schedule for release on May 13. This is good news…
