Why Write a Blog?

Someone asked me recently why I wanted to start a blog. I have enough to write about with magazine stories and other assignments as well as enough to do in my life outside of wine, food and travel writing, but I told them that I wanted to do something a bit different.

For instance, I’m tired of the predictable seasonal cycle of wine stories: I’m talking about the inevitable stories on rosé in the spring, Pinot Noir at Thanksgiving, Cabernet with chocolate on Valentine’s Day, and Zinfandel at summer barbecues. I think drinking good wines should be championed all year round instead of following this rigid – and unoriginal -- system that so many publications seem to embrace.

I also cringe at the thought that so many people follow a handful of wine critics. If a certain magazine or newsletter awards 90 to 100 points for a wine, there’s a stampede of customers into the local wine shop with a crumpled copy of that publication under their arms. At least that’s the way it used to be. I understand it’s changing and I hope so, because in wine, as in life, it’s important to think for yourself. Readers should be encouraged to experiment and discover their perfect wines instead of looking for gold medals or scooping up 95-point wines preferred by a critic who might be 20 years older or younger, or who possesses a completely different palate.

Quality is important, but a well-made wine may not be to your liking just because it's well-crafted and backed by a healthy promotional budget. A heavy, unctuous, 16% alcohol wine that you could stand a spoon up in may win a gold medal at some wine competition but it is not going to appeal to me most of the time, no matter who tells me it’s good. And I know I’m not alone.

As a wine writer, I believe it’s important to empower consumers to choose what they like --- from Two Buck Chuck to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti – whatever fits their tastes, their budgets and their comfort levels.

So I won’t numerically rate wines, but describe them in terms people can understand. I will not stick to predictable schedules of wine admiration but write about wines as I encounter them – a good wine is a good wine all year round, isn’t it? I will write about issues in the wine world and stories behind the wine as much as I describe what’s in the glass because I believe those stories give a fuller appreciation of the wine than what we call “tasting notes” -- those often obtuse wine descriptions that, while they may be technically legitimate, may also be meaningless to the untrained wine drinker -- which is to say most wine drinkers