The New York Times gives its seal of approval to regional wine

So now we can all take a deep breath, pat ourselves on the back, and enjoy the warm glow of a job well done.

Probably not. But we ?re a lot closer to that point then we were when Drink Local Wine took its first steps almost six years ago. That ?s what happens when perhaps the world ?s most important news operation writes this in a front page story in Sunday ?s business section:

As American palettes have evolved from Budweiser to Brunello di Montalcino, wineries have popped up in all 50 states, from the shores of Lake Michigan to the Texas Hill Country. While California dominates, accounting for 90 percent of the country ?s production, state governments nationwide are looking to wine to drive tourism and bolster agriculture.

Even more important is that the story was in the business section, with its hard news slant. This was not a ?Gee, isn ?t it cute, someone is making wine outside of California and France ? story, but a money-focused, results-oriented piece in a part of the paper where Gretchen Morgenson (who deserves about 20 Pulitzer Prizes for her work) tell us how Big Banking is playing fast and loose with our tax dollars. Can ?t get much better validation than that.

And the Times ? piece will make it OK for editors at newspapers, magazines, TV stations, and other news outlets to do regional wine stories ? even, and especially, if they had dismissed them before. That ?s the way the news business works: If the Times says something is a story, then it ?s a story. I can hear assignment desk bosses now: ?Say, isn ?t there a winery around here we can do something on

Yes, it would have been nice if Drink Local Wine had been mentioned, but who am I to quibble at a time like this? This spread, combined with Times wine guru Eric Asimov ?s enthusiastic endorsement of New York wine in 2011, reinforces what we have been arguing since 2008: That regional wine is both economically and critically viable, and that the wine business and its consumers ignore local wine at their own risk.

Like Texas, where the Perry administration sacrificed wine (as well as education and highways and green energy) to the governor ?s presidential ambitions in 2012, slashing the budget to establish his conservative credentials. We saw where that went. Hopefully, it ?s not too late for the state to restore the pittance it spent on wine research and marketing so that Texas isn ?t left behind as regional wine joins the mainstream.