Let’s make a bold assumption here: Those who come to read Fermentations like stimulating wine talk. I do to. For years now, the very best, most stimulating, collection of wine talkers have been gathering on Wine Forums across the net. I remember the Wine Forum at Prodigy. Then came the AOL Wine forum. Then the wine forums started to appear across the Internet. Today there are a number wine-related, internet-based wine forums where everything about wine is discussed, argued about,…

Wine Writing Ethics. It’s a topic that comes up now and again in the blogosphere as well as in the real world. Some go as far as to suggest that writers who accept press samples are violating they kind of ethics that should govern wine writers. Below is a reprint from the "WINE FLASH" an email newsletter written by W.R Tish. Tish (as nearly everyone calls him) is an accomplished wine writer who has worked on staff at the Wine…

On the whole, popular wine and food writing is pretty light fare. As it should be. While most readers like the articles in the Wednesday Food Sections, in Bon Appetit and in Food & Wine to take them away for a moment, or give them inspiration for the evenings meal, there are few people who use food and wine writing to broaden their intellectual horizons. But were a curious and ravenous mind to seek out intellectual stimulation in the form…

My last entry, about what kind of coverage the wine industry needs, as well as the comments that have come in, got me thinking about the type of wine writing that has been lost. The greatest loss to the American wine writing genre came in 2000 when the industry’s greatest advocate and greatest critique died. Jerry Mead Through his syndicated column, one of the longest ever such writings, his "Wine Trader Magazine", and with his New World International Wine Competition,…

Wine writing needs some new media outlets. Why? Because there are some media that present a style and content that are so fitted to wine we (wine lovers) should be so lucky to explore it through their eyes and words. The New Yorker Surely America’s best mass distributed periodical of criticism. The New Yorker’s always ironic, educated, in-depth critiques of choreography, film, literature, music and more make you think, rather than observe. These long form critiques/articles tend always to solve…