Category:Wine Curmudgeon

Wine writing: Does it make a difference?

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

George Taber, who does this wine writing stuff about as well as anyone, and Ron Saikowski, a top Texas wine blogger, sent the Wine Curmudgeon an email: "What is your perception of your influence in people selecting wines based on your recommendations?"

The email is part of a study about whether consumers pay attention to what people like me write. It's a subject that comes up a lot among those of us who do it; sometimes, writing for the Internet seems like sending a message in a bottle. Even if anyone finds the bottle, you have no idea whether they paid any attention to the message. Or, as my pal Alfonso Cevola put it the other day, "I have tilted at windmills for years."

I'll try not to do too much navel gazing here. After all, if I feel unappreciated, I can always find something else to do. But whether anyone reads me is part of a larger and much more important issue — can the wine business get out of the niche that has strangled it for the past 25 years? Is the Internet the key to a future that isn't about scores, cult wines and buying labels to impress people? Can it be used to teach Americans to drink what they like, to educate them about wine and how it works, and give them a sense of how much fun wine is? I think so, and that's what I told George and Ron. More, after the jump:

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Competition update: Denver and Indianapolis

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The two competitions couldn’t have been more different. The first, in Denver, was to pick the wines to be served at a major event for the governor. It was the first year for the tasting, and was much less formal than many I’ve judged. The second, on the campus of Purdue University, is one of the most important competitions in the United States — complete with lab coat.

You can read my reports for Denver and Indianapolis (results here). Generally, the quality of all the wines was quite good. It has been several years since I tasted in Colorado, and the wines are getting better. The state’s winemakers are figuring out which grapes work best with the area’s high altitude and unpredictable weather.

Indianapolis was, well, Indianapolis. I was in Wine Curmudgeon heaven for 2 1/2 days, sifting through flights of things like seyval blanc, steuben, and sparkling honey wine. How much fun was it? It was so much fun that I hope I get invited back next year. I should also note that chief judge Christian Butzke does a nice standup act, and that it is apparently quite an honor when he comes over and fusses at you during the judging. It will serve me right for tweeting.

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One can never judge too many wine competitions

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The Wine Curmudgeon will spend much of the next 10 days sipping and spitting in the interest of wine. I’ll be at the Colorado state competition this weekend, helping to pick the best Colorado wines. And next week is the biggie — the Indy International Wine Competition, the be all and end all for regional wine, weird grapes and all of the things that I love about wine.

If there is an obscure grape that is used to make wine, then we’ll be judging it at Indy. Yes, there will be chardonnay flights, but there will also be chardonel, vidal blanc and seyval blanc flights. That I was asked to judge is quite an honor; the list of judges includes some of the biggest names in regional wine, including Missouri’s Doug Frost, New York’s Jim Trezise, and Indiana’s Richard Vine.

My schedule is so hectic, in fact, that I had to turn down another great competition — the International Cold Climate Wine Competition, which allows only wines made with grapes that can survive a Minnesota winter. Frontenac, anyone?

I’ll have reports on each competition when I get back, and the blog will roll along while I’m traveling with the usual features.

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Todd Kliman and local wine

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Todd Kliman has been taking a lot of heat for his recent article taking restaurants to task if they serve local food but mostly ignore local wine. I'd repeat some of the comments, but this is a family blog.

The criticisms, though, generally revolved around two things: Todd knows nothing about the restaurant business and local wines stink. I'm quite familiar with these arguments myself, since I hear them all the time. And the truth of the matter? They're excuses, not reasons, and neither is true. If you don't want to serve local wine, then don't serve local wine. But don't shoot the messenger — especially when it's a message that needs to be heard. More, after the jump.

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The Wine Curmudgeon: A Top 100 wine blog

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Dancing_people Believe me, no one is more surprised about this than I am. The Wine Curmudgeon has made the alawine.com top 100 blogs list, which ranks blogs by readership and is about as definitive a list as there is for this stuff. And there I am, with all the big boys (and they're mostly guys) — Heimoff, Yarrow, Wark, Gary V. and all the rest.

I'd like to think that it's my incredible palate and immense writing ability that got me here, but I know better. The credit goes to everyone in the cyber-ether who reads the blog. You have made the difference, because you share my vision of wine: That it should be fun and not intimidating, and that we should drink what we want, and not what people tell us we're supposed to drink. Knowing that so many of you feel that way is enough to make a cranky ex-newspaperman more than a little sentimental.

I started writing the blog on Nov. 16, 2007. That first month, the audience was smaller than at a restaurant on a Tuesday night. These days, I'm at chain restaurant levels. Frankly, that's an amazing achievement in less than three years, especially since I'm all I have doing this. There are no flunkies or minions — just me and my keyboard, five days a week, and for more than 800 posts.

So thank you. Ironically, I gave up my Fort Worth newspaper wine writing gig last week — there just wasn't enough for me to do any more, given the changes in the newspaper business over the past couple of years. I guess there must be something to this blog stuff after all.

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You know you’ve been writing about wine a long time when. …

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

One of the most important parts of any wine writer's job is reporting — which does not mean sitting at home, drinking the wine samples that are sent to you, and then passing pontifical judgments. Rather, it means talking to distributors, restaurant types, and retailers. It means visiting stores. And it means asking lots of questions: What's new? What's interesting? What do I need to taste?

I was doing just that at one of Dallas' leading retailers the other day, visiting with the woman who runs the wine department. "I need some summer wines," I said. "What do you have?"

She gave me a completely serious look. "Jeff," she said, "you've tasted more wine in here than I have."

Whoops. I just hope she doesn't ask me to do inventory next month.

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Cheap wine, consumers, and good reporting

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Confused about all of the statistics that show Americans are drinking cheaper wine? Or that we aren't drinking it? Baffled by the contradictory studies that show wine is out of the recession, or that it isn't?

A reporter at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Traci McMillan, has written a story that goes a long way toward making those questions less confusing. It's accurate, it's well-written, it's concise, and it provides a broad overview of the problem with specific examples. In other words, it does almost everything that most wine writing doesn't. More, after the jump:

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