Sep 25, 2009
For some time now I’ve lived in the camp that argues the 100 Point wine rating scale is non-sensical, reductive and counter productive. I think I’m changing teams. And here’s why: Wine Drinkers Like it. No, it hasn’t taken me 20 years to realize this. I’ve know this all along. So does everybody else. It’s just that recently I’ve come to have a greater appreciation for giving people what they want, rather than trying to give them what I think…
Sep 23, 2009
Sometimes I wish food and wine lovers had far, far fewer choices of content and information to sift through and enjoy just so certain information forums would get more attention. Every now and then something pops onto my radar that I'm positive has the potential to be far better than the rest, but I despair that it wont get the attention it deserves because the noise level and many choices of content for food and wine lovers are powerful deterrents…
Sep 10, 2009
Today Palate Press launches. This venture, called a blogazine by its editor W. R. Tish, attempts to coral some of the top blog voices in the business to produce not an aggregation of content, but a wine web site that delivers original content with a distinctly blog-oriented voice and perspective. This is an idea that I've been approached with or consulted on by various folks, most of whom have in the the back of their mind the idea that some…
Sep 8, 2009
The power of the Internet has not, to-date, been utilized efficiently to address the failings of the wine distribution system. The bottle neck that is called the "Three Tier System" whereby nearly all wines are funneled through a state mandated sale to a middle man is the source of most problems that exist where access to wine is concerned, be it access to wine by restaurants, retailers or consumers. A system that was devised over 70 years ago in an…
Sep 2, 2009
Reason Magazine, a bastion of….reason….has released a video interview with Jerome Tuccille, the author of "Gallo Be Thy Name: The Inside Story of How One Family Rose to Dominate the U.S. Wine Market". It's pretty interesting. I've not read the book, but it sounds as though what we have here is a social history of the rise of American wine and the evolution of American culture told from the perspective of the rise of the Gallo via the Ernest and…