2011 Wine Highlights Part 2- Wine Community

Tweet When I launched WineZag in 2009, I did it under a founding motto of “wine is a lubricant for human connection that holds no bias.”  The essence of my wine appreciation has always transcended the juice, gravitating to the center of human bonding and relationships that are accelerated by shared wine experiences; either during [...]

Wine Crush, Knowledge, and Beauty

Tweet Two favorite wine writers recently teased at the distinction between sensual wine discovery and accumulated wine knowledge. Their words fanned a flame first kindled by my earliest wine crush back in the mid eighties. Not the press and juice kind of crush. I mean the ten-year-old-kiddie-kind-of-crush; when just the thought of that special “someone” [...]

Eric Asimov Sorts Out Wine Enthusiasm and Journalism

Tweet An ever present cloud of self doubt began lifting only ten minutes into Eric Asimov’s 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference keynote talk on responsible journalism, democratization of wine, and differences in generational paths to wine knowledge and appreciation.  I breathed easier as he weaved in and out of these centerpiece issues, connecting and comparing his personal [...]

Questioning the Sensibility of Bordeaux’s New Found Irrelevance

Tweet Eric Asimov helped me feel old, out of the loop,  and crusty today simply because I prefer Bordeaux.  Please do not crucify me en masse, and allow me to cling to a hard earned 51-year-old point of view that many of the world’s finest wines are products of Bordeaux as you join me on a [...]

WineChap.com: When Wine Lists Matter Most

Tweet I am guilty of choosing and patronizing restaurants with quality wine lists first, great food second.  Preferring  a reasonable level of symbiosis, my restaurant choices are disproportionately weighted by wine programs.  If this resonates and you are more jazzed by contents of a subterranean cellar than walk-in refrigeration, or you just need a dose [...]