Jun 25, 2010
Beginning today the third annual Wine Bloggers Conference begins here in Walla Walla, Washington. I'm 3 for 3. I date the advent of wine blogging as an active pursuit to 2005 when more than a few got their start. It only took three years for bloggers to determine they needed a place to gather once a year and confer. What strikes me is that in the nearly 100 years prior to the first wine bloggers conference, there was never a…
Jun 21, 2010
Five years in to the wine blogging revolution and five days out from the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference, it's time to assess the things I now know and think about wine blogging and wine bloggers. 1. Given the number of new and compelling voices that make up the wine blogosphere, it's clear to me that prior to the emergence of this self-publishing revolution literary-minded wine lovers were denied access to what must have been a host of fascinating voices who…
Jun 1, 2010
Is it possible to judge a wine without ever having laid foot in the region where it was produced? I've been wondering about this really fascinating question ever since reading this comment by MW Tim Atkin, made at the opening of Fine Wine 2010 in Spain in April and published in Wine Business Monthly: "Critics who judge wines without visiting the country they come from are insane and insulting….Our interpretation of fine wine regions and grape varieties has barely evolved…
May 27, 2010
I've revisited "The World of Fine Wine" magazine of late and come away still believing that for the wine collector, the connoisseur, the Europhile, the wine investor or for those who crave forceful opinion about wine and the wine world couched in carefully rendered prose, this is perhaps the only publication you need. Word of Fine Wine is decidedly not a consumer magazine in the vein of The Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast or Decanter magazine. Published quarterly, given over to…
May 25, 2010
The finalists in the 2010 American Wine Blog Awards were announced today and they include a variety of nominees who are new to the finalist round. Having been involved in these awards for quite some time and having watched the world of wine blogs for longer, I've now come around to the position that wine blogs are indeed members of the "traditional" or mainstream media. For many, including myself, wine blogs have seemed to live outside this idea of the…