Category:Wine Curmudgeon

And the Wine Curmudgeon is there, with an article about a proposed federal regulation that would require wine bottles to have nutrition or ingredient labels, just like light beer or chicken soup.

Palate Press is edited by the great W.R. Tish and boasts more top-flight contributors than I have cheap bottles in the wine closet. The idea is to offer an on-line wine magazine that does more than give scores, write about toasty and oaky, and, as Tish notes, ?act as if there are no perspectives worth considering other than their own. ?

Hey, they asked me to write for them. If nothing else, that shows Palate Press is serious about being different.

A new permanent feature in the left-hand rail (as we cyber types call the column on the left side): Seven tips for buying wine when you ?re in a strange store, you aren ?t sure about what you want, or you ?re just generally confused.

Because all of us get confused, if only because wine buying is confusing (and yes, the industry likes to make it so). These are tips and pointers that involve more than reading the back label and wondering what anyone could possibly mean by ?complemented by currant and wild berry. ?a hint of spice and anise. ? earth tones are indicative of the mountain soil. ?

Use them to water your plants, of course. How about this, from CBS ? Early Show via Lifehacker? And my favorite part? William Moss (the fellow who isn ?t Harry Smith) says this is actually more work for the gardener — who has to empty the wine bottles. The bit about the wine bottles is toward the end, the final 40 seconds or so. It's actually pretty clever.

On Monday, a report from the DrinkLocalWine.com conference, and I think we ?re even going to have video.

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The Wine Curmudgeon doesn’t much believe in rules when it comes to wine, other than the only one: If you like a wine, then it’s good and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

But I have finally had enough of wine and health stories. It was OK, all those years ago, when the first news of the French paradox reached these shores. But since then, the stories and studies and research findings have gotten sillier and sillier. Just today, I saw three more — red wine fights inflammation (whatever that is), too much alcohol could lead to cancer (no kidding), and that red wine may lead to improved sexual function in women (big surprise). What’s next, that spammers will push wine instead of foreign lotteries and Viagra?

So here it is — no more wine and health stories. Ever. If you want wine and health news, go here. But you won’t find any on my blog.

From my pal Gil Kulers, trying to help his readers get through another miserable Atlanta summer:

?I declare this weekend High Alcohol Wine Weekend. Everyone should turn off their air conditioners, do some vigorous housework and reward yourself with a big, bad red wine with a name along the lines of Apocalypse Redux. You should serve this wine at room temperature, of course. With such a holiday, all the right-thinking people out there who drink low-alcohol, lighter-bodied wines during the hot summer weather can see what they are missing.

?And for those of you who are chortling over your over-extracted, over-priced, over-done, highly allocated red wine from a well-known winemaking region, raise a glass to your sense of adventure. ?

Nicely phrased, Gil. The Wine Curmudgeon is a big fan of sarcasm — wish I had written that.