“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” said a very wise John Lennon and that’s exactly what has happened with me. My life has kept apace, even as I’ve made plans to be a respected wine writer.
By most standards, 2011 has been a very good year. I was a three-time finalist in the Wine Blog Awards, earning notice in the Best Overall Wine Blog, Best Industry Blog and Best Writing categories. I started contributing a wine column to Forbes.com. This site was named the 2nd most influential blog (and most influential wine blog) out of 4,000 blogs in a 2011 Wine, Beer and Spirits study by eCairn, a software company specializing in community and influencer marketing. I was a panelist at Vino2011 in New York City, I won a scholarship to the Wine Writer’s Symposium in Napa Valley, and I turned down enough worldwide wine trip offers to fill a two-month calendar.
Yet, wine writing has exacted a toll. I approach anything I do with a zeal and fervor that ensures me the success that I want and I’ve treated my wine writing as a full-time second job, to go alongside the job that I already have that requires 50 + hours a week.
Balance isn’t something that I’ve ever been very good at—possessed of an unassuming mien, a Midwestern work ethic, and a mental make-up whereby I cast myself as the underdog means that I am continually trying to prove something to myself, often times at the expense of real, true priorities.
Even more challenging is the fact that my standards for myself have been raised even as I’ve honed my writing chops. Instead of figuring out a system to find time shortcuts, the amount of time it takes for me to write has become more deliberate and expansive while my interest in writing has become more professional in nature – less blogging and more credible journalism requiring more work to exceed the bar that I’ve set for myself.
The net result of this, after full-time job plus wine writing, is the rest of my life has received scant attention for nearly seven years and I’ve created a nearly untenable situation for myself, a set of internal expectations that I can’t live up to, requiring a time commitment that I can’t manage.
However, most importantly, the expectations and time commitments that I have assigned to my wine writing isn’t fair to the other people in my life – notably, my incredibly supportive wife, Lindsay. She has been a saint the past six years, my blogging encompassing nearly the entire duration of our 6.5 year marriage. But, she is long overdue a husband that takes the trash out without prompting!
I’ll be around the Internets – commenting on wine blogs, doing the Twitter thing, staying connected on Facebook and I’ll probably start engaging more actively on CellarTracker and on the WineBerserkers message board, but I’m taking a hiatus from wine writing to recalibrate, shifting my time to the things that are the most important to me: Family and career.
Jeff
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/good_grape_goes_on_hiatus/
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Odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass…
Rex Pickett
If you’re not reading Rex Pickett’s (author of Sideways and Vertical) blog, you are officially remiss.
Pickett is a gifted writer who cranks out perfectly incubated long-form posts with turns of phrase that are both wry and rich, offering insight into the machinations of publishing, film and stage that few culture vultures grasp.
Pickett recently wrote an extensive (3900 word) post on the reasons why a film sequel to Sideways (directed by Alexander Payne) would not be made from Vertical, Pickett’s book sequel. In doing so, Pickett offered a discursive meditation on Payne’s artistic pathos and the factors that may be playing into Vertical’s stall on the way to celluloid.
Unfortunately, Pickett removed the post after re-publishing a second version that deleted much of the armchair psychologist rumination he originally channeled from Payne’s psyche. An email inquiry to Pickett on why he removed the post (in either iteration) has gone unanswered.
If I were a muckraker, I would publish the post because Pickett’s deletion of the post from his site did not delete the post from RSS feed readers like Bloglines or Google Reader. But, I’m not a muckraker…
Hopefully, Pickett will revisit the topic in a manner that is less confessional and more elucidation because it was worth the extended read time. Until then you can read the other posts on his site and gain tremendous insight into the vicissitudes of the publishing process, what the afterglow is like after capturing the cultural zeitgeist and how he’s helping bring Sideways to the theatre with a stage version.
It’s definitely recommended reading.
A Discovery of Witches
While we’re on the topic of books and authors (and with Halloween around the corner), a reinforcing mention goes to Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20. Earlier this year a little book she wrote called, “A Discovery of Witches” was published and immediately shot up the best sellers lists. The movie rights were acquired this summer by Warner Bros, likely securing Harkness’ financial future in the process.
While I read fiction infrequently (the last fiction book being Vertical by Rex Pickett), those that I know who can tell the difference between kindling and a classic call A Discovery of Witches “mad genius.”
Any conversation about a wine blogger doing good should begin with Deb Harkness who is now dabbling in rarified air. Pick up her book if you haven’t yet.
Bargain Wine Books
There’s little doubt, in the prolonged US economic malaise we’re experiencing, that “value wine” and “bargain wine” are hot topics. Heck, an entire channel of business has been defined with “Flash” wine sale sites. Given that, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a couple of wine books would be published with this specific focus.
What is a surprise is that the books are authored by wine writers with real chops engaged in offering a deeper narrative than the slapdash compendiums of wine lists that has passed muster in years gone by.
Just in time for the holidays, Natalie MacLean has Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines publishing on November 1st and George Taber, a wine writer on a tear with his fourth book in six years, has A Toast to Bargain Wines: How Innovators, Iconoclasts, and Winemaking Revolutionaries Are Changing the Way the World Drinks publishing on November 15th.
An Idea worth Duplicating?
Celebrity deaths come in threes and new wine ideas come in twos.
We’ve seen this duplicative market entry in recent years with winery reservation systems CellarPass and VinoVisit and now we’re seeing it with quasi-wine search engines.
WineMatch and VinoMatch are both in the early stages of launch purporting to help a consumer match their likes with wines they might enjoy.
Meh. The problem with these sites isn’t that consumers don’t need help finding a wine they like, the problem is that most wine consumers don’t understand what kind of wine they like. Yes, it’s the tannins that dry the back of the mouth and its residual sugar that makes that K-J so delectable…
By the time consumers figure out their likes and dislikes graduating beyond the “go-to,” they don’t care about having somebody help them “match” their wines to their tastes because they’re on their own adventure.
It’s just my opinion, but these sites face looooong odds of finding consumer success and short of the slick willy seduction that happens with some wineries who haven’t been bitten and as such aren’t twice shy, they won’t find *any* success. But, I’ve been wrong before, at least once.
Pictures and Pithiness
While we’re on the topic of online wine services, I’m not sure whether I should be happy or aghast that I’ve been a habitué of the online wine scene for long enough to see a derivative – it’s like watching a remake of the movie Footloose when I was saw the original in the theatre.
There’s a new wine site called TasteJive that takes the concept of a wine blog called Chateau Petrogasm, popular in 2007 and 2008, to new heights.
Around the premise that a picture is worth a thousand words even if that picture has nothing to do with wine, they have created a site that provides nothing but visual metaphors with a 140 character description for finding wines you might like.
I loved the idea of Chateau Petrogasm, I like the idea of a perfectly crafted 140 character slug, but I’m very uncertain about the community aspect of TasteJive—the users who control the uploading of pictures and descriptions.
As noted mid-20th century photographer Diane Arbus said, “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”
Not exactly a recipe for success in bumping into a wine.
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/field_notes_from_a_wine_life_media_edition/
Odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass…
The Power of Intent in Biodynamic Wine
I wrote a heady post in September about Biodynamic wine. The story is too complicated to summarize here (link to post), but one of the things that I touched on (and that interests me on an ongoing basis) is the notion of “intent” in the vineyard particularly as it relates to viticultural quality and Biodynamic preparations.
They say that you can taste “love” in a food dish, so, while not scientifically quantifiable (at least not yet), it stands to reason that extra attention and loving preparation with BioD preps. might have a positive benefit on the vines and subsequently the wines.
This notion of intent isn’t my idea; I culled it from Voodoo Vintners, Katherine Cole’s Biodynamic-related book published earlier this year (she has a different supposition about ‘intent’ than I do). A passage from the book notes, “The belief is that the preparations aren’t merely herbal treatments for plants; they’re carriers of the farmers’ intentions, which have been swirled into them through the powerful act of stirring. While it isn’t a requirement for Demeter certification, intention is that little bit of witchcraft that separates the most committed practitioners from the unbelievers.”
My point in September and my point now is that “intent” isn’t witchcraft, its science – science that is still emerging and not completely understood.
To that end, I read an incredible, eye-opening, mind-bending article in the current issue of Time magazine about a new technology device called the BodyWave. An iPod sized device, the BodyWave is based on electroencephalography (EEG), the study of how brain activity excites neurons to emit brain waves that travel the central nervous system and can be measured.
So, here’s the thing. Not only can this BodyWave device measure the fluctuations in the brain’s electrical activity, but when connected to a computer it can perform functions based on brain waves.
It’s a holy crap moment to realize that by focusing brain activity somebody can shut off a valve in a nuclear power plant, via computer, with the power of their mind, as elaborated on in the article.
The full Time magazine article is subscriber-protected (darn publishers that try to run a business…), but the intro. to the article is available here.
I’m a liberal arts guy, as far removed from science as one can get by education, vocation and lifelong learning interest, but I do have the ability to suspend my disbelief and it seems likely to me that in 10 years’ time the Biodynamic conversation is going to be around an entirely different set of conversational conditions than the current ‘bunkum vs. belief’ precept that we have now.
On Knowledge
I’ve never reconciled the “demystify” vs. “knowledge frees you” debate as it relates to wine. Many will say that wine is needlessly overcomplicated for the average consumer and the arcane aspects act as a barrier to entry.
Well, sometimes you find defining wisdom in the unlikeliest places.
Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon Dilbert, noted in a blog post recently what I’ve thought, but have never been able to say quite so eloquently.
Indeed, you are what you learn. You don’t have to know much about wine to drink it, but it sure makes it that much more enjoyable if you lean into the door…
Thanksgiving Wine Recommendation
Thanksgiving is the wine world’s national holiday. I get that. It’s my favorite holiday, too. But, the attendant wine pairing articles are exhausting. Does it really matter what you drink with Thanksgiving dinner? Nope. If it did, somebody, anybody would care that I’ll be having Sparkling Rose, German Riesling and New Zealand Pinot, but, really, nobody cares. At the end of the day, the below picture encapsulates what really matters when picking a wine for Thanksgiving (Hint: Focus on the food).
It Was a Good Week for Lot18
My eyes bugged out like a virgin at a nudist camp when I saw that Lot18 secured $30M in additional funding. That money coupled with clarification from the California Alcohol Beverage Control (CA ABC) on some wonkiness in legalities, means the first week of November 2011 will go down as a watershed moment for Lot18.
Perhaps equally interesting to me is a passage noting, “Radical Transparency” in an email sent to Lot18 members from Lot18 (ostensibly founder Phillip James). The email noted:
As Lot18 moves into its second year of existence, our goal is to ensure that, with more money in the bank and compliance questions behind us, Lot18 can continue to deliver on its responsibilities to our suppliers and to our members alike. We must hold ourselves accountable to ensure we maintain trust with everyone who produces and consumes goods offered by Lot18.
We do this through a policy called Radical Transparency, which simply involves sharing more than was once considered wise. We believe in this because it drives our focus and ensures that all of our employees and our members feel that they have a role in shaping our future. Together we can create a service that will not only help you find great value, but also encourage you to spread the word to friends and family so that they may also share in the delight.
We’re all aware of “transparency” as an online buzzword the last several years. It’s a word that has been co-opted, commoditized and rendered meaningless, as well. It seems, transparency is really code word for faux sincerity and empathy and that makes adding the modifier of “Radical” to transparency all the more interesting.
These days, every new business success story comes with hagiographic mythologizing and I wouldn’t be surprised if, in this area, “Radical Transparency” is where Lot18 stakes their claim. After all, culture and customer service is already taken by Zappos.
Yet, radical transparency isn’t a new concept either. If you’re interested in seeing how a hedge fund called Bridgewater Associates (founded by Ray Dalio) has codified a brutally honest feedback loop see this profile piece from New York magazine and Dalio’s 123 page “Principles” document (worth the read).
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/field_notes_from_a_wine_life_autumnal_equinox_edition/
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Boston-based Drync started as a CellarTracker-like service in 2008. It offered a way to keep track of the wines you consumed and what you thought of them so you buy them again.
Thank you for your Drync order!Question of the Day: What do you think of the Drync app?
I am writing to confirm that we have procured the Cigliuti Barbaresco Serraboella 2007.
We have also sourced the Merry Edwards Pinot Noir "Meredith Estate," but the available vintage has changed. The current vintage is 2010. It is a weighty pinot with ultra-ripe dark cherry, raspberry, plum and loganberry with floral undertones, comparitive in style to the 2009.
The Gary Farrell "Hallberg Vineyard" Pinot Noir 2011 is not currently available in the Massachusetts market. However, we are able to obtain the Gary Farrell Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2010. The cost for this wine is $44.80 per bottle and we will adjust your accordingly if you choose to purchase it.
Unfortunately, the 2005 Castano Yecla Casa Cisca is a discontinued item in this market and no longer available. We really hunted for this one, but it is simply no longer available and we have updated our record accordingly. We would be happy to offer you a recommendation of a wine similar in style and price, if you are interested.
Please let us know how you would like to proceed. Be assured that if you would like to remove any of these wine from your order, we will honor your free shipping and 20% off of all the other wines in your order.
We would also like to offer you a $10 discount on your next order. (promo code redacted)
Thank you for using Drync! Please contact us if you have any questions.
All the best,
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