Feb 27, 2006
The reason you want to get into the wine business is not to enjoy the sun on your back as you walk through your vineyard, not to help educate people about wine from a well-stocked shop and not to produce wine in your own vision. The reason you want to be in the wine business is to be able to attend the "Premier Napa Valley Tasting and Auction".Held last Saturday at the Culinary Institute of America Greystone in St. Helena,…
Feb 24, 2006
There must be a number of managing editors at Indiana newspapers that are somewhat pissed off. By no fault of their own they are having to update the direct shipping story in their state in such a way that makes them look like they got it wrong. One day after a closely-watched and heavily attended committee meeting took place in the Indiana Legislature and a compromise on the direct shipping issue between Indiana wineries and the wine wholesalers was accomplished,…
Feb 24, 2006
The future of Television is certainly linked to the Internet. Is the future of the wine blog linked to video. I encountered my first Video Wine Blog today, produced by the Wine Library, an Internet-based wine retailer. While its production value was not on par with what you might find on cable TV, Wine Library TV certainly demonstrates that the technology is here to exploit video via the Internet to educate people about wine (and sell more wine). We’ve discovered…
Feb 24, 2006
Frank Prial, the venerable and former head wine writer for the New York Times, has an article running about the Internet that takes on the issue of Cliches in wine writing. To take his poke at the ever overused phrases that populate the wine writing genre he channels "Mr. Arbuthnot", the persnickety creation of Frank Sullivan who wrote for the New Yorker in the 1930s. As Mr. Prial explains, the creation of the cliche expert Mr. Arbuthnot was done to…
Feb 24, 2006
We’ve all known it would happen some time. Thirty years hence is as good a time as any, I suppose. Yet, I can’t help but think it’s being undertaken as a form of vengeance, rather than what it’s being called: "A Celebration". Decanter Magazine reports that the famed Paris Tasting of 1976 will be recreated, this time simultaneously on two continents and hooked together via video link. The original tasting, when French tasters choose California wines over French wines in…