Archive for the ‘Wine Media’ Category
In the wake of the sale of a stake in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate to Singapore investors, the word on the street is that Robert Parker Jr.’s and The Wine Advocate’s influence (and usefulness) has declined considerably. What I’m reading from a variety of sources, many of them quite practiced and astute sources, is that Robert Parker’s decline is due to the fact that he and his Wine Advocate have outlived their usefulness; that American wine drinkers have matured to…
What issues will the wine trade and the more active wine consumers be talking about, be concerned with and be reading about in 2013? Predicting what is to come is not really that difficult if you read the tea leaves without splashing them around too much and stick with a concentration on the past. What follows, in no particular order, are my top ten issues that will rise to the top in 2013 by virtue of what has come before…
Press releases are interesting tools. They are, even within the wine industry, almost in every case a matter self-aggrandizement. One rarely sees a company issue a release informing the media that “XYZ Winery Sales Suck” or “Administrative Chaos Reigns at XYZ Wine Company”. Rather, press releases are almost always issued to point the media and readers to a virtual smiley face the company issuing the press release has drawn. What follows is a tale of one such smiley face and…
A Saturday night dinner with friends at Bravas, the new Tapas restaurant in Healdsburg in Sonoma County, drove home to me the poverty of trying to explain the nuance of matching food and wine. It is a subject to which a great deal of time is spent in books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and elsewhere. Frankly very little time should be spent on this topic, and for good reason. First, the Bravas experience. As usually happens at good tapas restaurants, the…
I’ve been, and will continue to be, a harsh critic of the “natural” wine movement for a number of different reasons. But now it’s time to give credit where credit is due. Alice Feiring has long been a darling of this small movement. She has championed its champions and its wines, defended it against criticism and been on hand nearly where ever necessary to discuss its trends and substance. And of course, she has written extensively about “natural” wine. Today,…
