Archive for the ‘Wine Media’ Category

Nov 3, 2019

Wine Education Gets the Normal Treatment

Elizabeth Schneider is an extremist moderate in the wine world. She is emphatic that one ought not to be dogmatic about what you drink. Rather, she is a disciple for sensory and intellectual pleasure in wine. She is a fanatic when it comes to taking a rational perspective on what wine means, how we ought to appreciate how it is grown and made, and how we ought to evaluate wine.  And I like all that. Schneider is coming up on…

Oct 28, 2019

“Wine Country” Is Not On Fire — A Message To The Media

If I didn’t know better, I’d assume the entirety of Northern California “Wine Country” was on fire. But I do know better. And so should the media. I’m not the most obsessive stickler for accuracy. However, when I constantly hear the media inform the world that “Fires Burn California Wine Country” I cringe at its severe inaccuracy. It’s a bit like claiming that “snow comes to California” when in fact there is only snow on the mountain peaks. It’s not…

Sep 9, 2019

Orange Wine and the State of Wine Writing

Have you ever noticed that the best writing about wine isn’t really about wine? The New Yorker’s Troy Patterson Jr. is proof. His most recent critique of a niche culture comes at the expense of Orange Wine, “distinguished by what are conventionally considered imperfections: astringency, bracing bitterness, earthy funk.” Ouch! This is not the conclusion of, but rather a sidebar to, Patterson’s article entitled, “How the Orange-Wine Fad Became an Irresistible Assault on Pleasure” in the latest issue of the…

Jul 2, 2019

Honor Your Icons

Honor your icons. Do it consistently. Recognize individual contributions. Never minimize pioneers. Accentuate your history. All these important, but too infrequently recognized, principles are on wonderful display today in the honor being paid to Charlie Barra who recently passed at the age of 92. Organic Wines Uncorked has a really lovely tribute to Mr. Barra who spent more than 70 years working in the California wine industry, primarily in Mendocino County. Among the things reported in Organic Wines Uncorked’s tribute…

Apr 15, 2019

Study Has Nothing to Offer Winery Hospitality—So, Keep Smiling

Maybe wineries ought to encourage their tasting room hospitality workers to tell customers exactly what they think of them (and not smile so much). According to a report on a study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology researchers found: “a link between those who regularly faked or amplified positive emotions, like smiling, or suppressed negative emotions — resisting the urge to roll one’s eyes, for example — and heavier drinking after work. Alicia Grandey, professor of psychology at…