Archive for the ‘Wine Education’ Category
I often wonder why the issue of "wine writer ethics" seems to raise its head on such a regular basis. Most recently a highly respected and accomplished English writer, Fiona Beckett, broached the subject. Fiona reiterated the obvious: Critics shouldn't take gifts from the folks who's products they are critiquing. On the other hand, she notes, traveling on the dime of trade associations to wine regions and accepting wine samples from producers doesn't cross the line. The great writer Jamie…
Somehow the conversation strayed into "wine and literature." A crew of us wine geeks were gathered for the purposes of enjoying our geekishness when one of our gathering was provoked to ask: "Can someone tell me why there is not really good literature that has wine as its focus or at least as its setting?" This led us to think if the premise was correct and we decided it was. But the answer to the question couldn't be that it…
A damned interesting event occurred recently that has nearly slipped under the radar. "Damned interesting" may seem hyperbole to most of you but to those who gravitate toward the historical, political and regulatorial (that's not really a word), this event is pretty interesting. Not long ago, the good people at the Center for Alcohol Policy (a National Beer Wholesaler of America creation) took it upon themselves to see to the re-printing and re-release of what might be the most influential…
My first serious encounter with the Petite Sirah grape variety and the varietal wine that it is made into came when I was working public and media relations for historic Russian River Valley producer Foppiano Vineyards back in 1990. To this day, that encounter remains among the most interesting of my career. I knew very little about Petite Sirah except that there was very little Petite Sirah produced. At first glance it seemed like an archaic variety of grape, but…
Looking over the agenda at the 4th Wine Bloggers Conference set for July 22-24, I came across a pretty interesting looking session: "Ignite Wine". It's described this way "At an Ignite show, volunteer presenters each have five minutes to enlighten the audience on a subject of his or her choice. The key is the format: each speaker must bring 20 slides, each automatically set to advance every 15 seconds" Sort of a well-organized, well-wired soap box dipped in wine. However…five…
