Killing Merlot: Why We Did It, How It ALMOST Worked
The condemnation of Merlot, when I started working in wine, was near universal. Many shops didn’t carry more than two. Some put it on the very bottom shelves. Nobody sat and drank it.
Category Archives
Archive for: Juice
The Two Worlds of Wine: A Long-Simmering Rant
The whole culture of wine is and always has been, at least in part, about exclusion, of an established pecking order in wine consumption and appreciation that is as old as wine itself.
Tacoma – and Your Hometown: A Metaphor and A Cautionary Tale
This future is something not that we have to create, it is something we get to create; a wonderful, limitless challenge and can be enormous fun and a good living, IF we have the guts and don’t let the knee-jerk naysayers drag us off the path, into their weeds.
Less Is More (I Hope!): Reds for Holidays
These are five iconic reds that have stood the test of time and shown reliable, remarkable skill in the winemaking, by a producer tight-focused on drinkability first and art down the list a bit.
The Holiday Bubbles: Less is (I hope!) More
I finally have three sparkling wines I can recommend with no misgivings and no second-guessing…’cause if I wake up tomorrow and think, “Oh, God, I forgot…”, somebody is going to have to talk me off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
The Pour Fool: A Brief History of Flaming
I sold my first article in 1967, to an old Chicago underground newspaper called The Chicago Eye. It was about student activism on high school campuses around Chicago. And I got my first angry letter a week later. As I recall, it started with, “You suck!”
Wine Beer Spirits: The Extraordinary Power of IDK
“I don’t know…” A lot – maybe even most – people will do almost anything to avoid saying those words. Continue reading
Sarah’s Vineyard Estate Chardonnay: Grace Amongst the Garlic
Sarah’s Vineyard Estate Chardonnay 2018 is a flat-damned marvelous bottle of white wine that avoids all the tired Chardonnay clichés and delivers California sunshine by the bucket load.
The Pour Fool 