blog on wine blogs 2005

Posted on | January 3, 2006

A short uncritical look at some of blog au vin’s blog roll

I thought that a review of the different blogs featured in our blog roll on Blog au Vin (I hope that’s not too many ‘blogs’ for you) would be interesting from a number of points of view. First, if you’re unable to keep up with everything going on you may find some things here of interest which you might have missed. Second, it’s interesting to see to what extent any of us are thinking about the same things at the same time. Third, retrospectives are always interesting in my view and fourth - I just wanted to see what I had personally missed over the year as a result of being so occupied with other things. I’ve also selected a few of my personal highlights.

Michael Stajer’s blog claims to focus on the intersection of wine and technology. Interesting… but it must be said he’s been occupied with other things much of the year because he has only managed twenty or so blogs. However, they provide an interesting and novel perspective on the wine world. Such as the couple who managed to bankroll their business by contacts they made on the bulletin boards - taken from the Wine Spectator (Friday, February 04, 2005). Unfortunately, running any kind of web service requires constant updating and a few of Stajer’s links now turn up error 404 pages which is a bit frustrating. This included a reference to the Virtual Restaurant which I was keen to explore - I’m trying to lose weight and it seemed the perfect solution. His assessments of the online value of wine sales was very interesting (Monday, May 09, 2005) and his heart seems in the right place as there are several appeals for those who are less lucky than ourselves. Stajer promises more in the New Year and I look forward to it.

Newcomer on our blogroll is Josh over at pinotblogger.com. As if starting a winery isn’t enough Josh Capozzi has decided to reveal all to those interested in reading his blog. I like his style - not just for having the guts to start a new winery but for giving us all the vicarious pleasure in joining the vicissitudes of the project. And it’s not all about the winery either - we can learn that his wife is pregnant - only 5 weeks though, and I really hope for him that it goes well. We are proceeding through the choice of wine names, label design, winery construction, clone selection and so forth. It should be a great read in the future and I’m looking forward to seeing how Josh and his family get on.

Professor Stephen Bainbridge’s main blog keeps him busy enough - as if his day job wasn’t sufficient. So how on earth he finds the time to make another 10 or more blogs per month is a complete mystery. He must email them from his ‘Blackberry’ or is it ‘Grapeberry’? Actually Bainbridge, and others, are doing everyone a favour by criticising some of the winemakers who seem to be pursuing a path of ultra-ripe fruit with the natural consequences that follow. He particularly singled out Paul Draper at Ridge (March 19, 2005). But Bainbridge isn’t just a UCLA Law Professor, and wine buff, he’s also a gourmand. Great… He happily shares with us some of his recipes (none of which I’ve tried), like the Cocoa and Paprika Rubbed Tenderloin with Blue Cheese Sauce (slightly avant-garde for my tastes) and even more thoughtfully gives us his wine pairing with the food - pretty essential for this dish. Every now and then we get a meaty, fleshy full-bodied piece such as his ‘Water into W(h)ine’ June 03, 2005. Every now and then we glimpse an insight into the life of a law professor as he takes off to Australia to teach a course in Corporation Law. Does Australia make wine? Does this have any reason for his going? From then on its a hedonistic three weeks of blogging for Bainbridge and his readers as he continues to blog his Aussie wine notes from Down Under. I’m not always in agreement with him such as his short piece on the Globalization of Wine (September 22, 2005). There is much to say on this subject but whilst he may be undoubtedly right about some of the ‘vin Ordinaire’ which came out of France in the past I think he’s short on the reasons for this. Much of the drive in quality for wine-making comes from the New World but it’s also because the customer has changed and demands a higher quality product - which also costs considerably more than it used to. Nor am I a fan of the term ‘globalization’ - which isn’t to say he is either: I believe it is meaningless, even worse, trendy, and it is also parachronistic. But what I most like about Bainbridge’s blog is being able to switch over into the world of politics at the click of a button - his main blog. He’s sceptical, and rightly so. And, just because I’m nosey, I’ll sometimes take a good look at his site stats too. Thanks Prof.

Carolyn Tillie’s Ultimate Grape Vine Blog started in March 2005 but seems to have run out of steam before she even started harvesting her main grapes. So what happened? I particularly liked the copious photographs and the detail of goings on in her vineyard in Napa. But Carolyn is a busy woman - designing jewelry, writing articles, making wine… so her blog has to take compete with all of this.

David Caffaro’s similar wine-maker’s diary (sub-titled ‘The trials and tribulations, joys and tears that come from running a vineyard and winery!’) doesn’t stop at giving us much personal information too: the state of his teeth, drunken evenings, rows with Toyota dealerships… However, his most interesting entries are about wine (surprise, surprise!) and details of the winery’s capital outlay and his decision to switch to screw caps is all there and quite fascinating. Caffaro reveals quite a bit and I find his candour is refreshing. I enjoyed too a heated argument with a restaurant over corkage. Caffaro’s efforts at organising a Wine Club, his negotiations so his customers can pay with American Express all give a feeling to, well, just what he says…the trials and tribulations, joys and tears that come from running a vineyard and winery!’ There’s also plenty on wine-making too. And he has a pizza oven!

Wine Whys: Two Women Find A Place in the World of Wine are, namely, Mariquita & Sharon. These two have an impressive background and are, I suppose, what one might call ‘high-powered’. Clearly they feel the need to make a distinction - not just by virtue of writing a blog, but also highlighting the fact that they are women. Does this mean that their taste buds are particularly feline? Do they have a woman’s perspective so much lacking in the world? Well, there is a sense that the wine world is often run by men. It is written for the neophyte drinker with plenty of explanations. And whilst early in the year there was some discussion on calorie control I didn’t think this was too much of a female preoccupation even if later they were discussing removing household stains (OK, so they were made by red wine). But I am being flippant. I enjoy finding out how these two couples living in Manhattan (although one set has elected to now commute) spend some of their free time and the restaurants they visit along with their expectations and enjoyments. Oddly enough the blog peters out in August with the last entry by Matt (’the best life partner I could ever have imagined’ - Mariquita) - but hardly Two Women etc. Is there a drama here or is being part of the ‘bridge and tunnel set’ getting them down?

One of the mega wine blogs on the net is Tom Wark’s Fermentations. Wark is in PR and lives in California and it’s probably fair to say that his blog is part of his profession - which isn’t a criticism - just some kind of explanation as to how he finds the time to fill it up. More to the point, it is a daunting prospect just trying to keep up with him. The subjects he covers are wide-ranging, topical and, I think, fascinating. What’s more he’s a walking press agency for interesting articles in newspapers and magazines pretty much anywhere in the world. He even picked up on something written down in South Africa: ‘the word ‘linearity’ seems to be coming into vogue among professional tasters and winemakers for describing a wine…’. His area of expertise is the media and that is the strength of this blog. He is plugged into fads, news, reviews, marketing hype, events, pr stunts and winery attempts at product placing (it never occurred to me before that anyone in the wine world would or could do anything like this). Tom isn’t afraid to utter his opinions and that is often is what is most enjoyable about this blog: In ‘ Wines To Drink…Not Write About’ he refers to writers who spend their time writing copiously on wines retailing for $5 and concludes… ‘My experience as a wine snob and a former newcomer to wines tells me that while these arguments might make sense, they don’t overcome the problem that Supermarket wines are just plain boring. They should be drunk….not written about.’ Not only that but whilst re-reading his blog I noted that he wrote up a story we recently carried but, of course, he got there 6 months before us! Well, not quite. he was referring to something in the future and the report wasn’t published until many months later. We also provide a link to the paper. I’m feeling better. Of course, Wark is an avid blog reader too and if someone writes a good parody of a wine review you can be sure he’s spotted it (Best Wine Review of the Year: on Basic Juice for his review of the Lustau “Los Arcos Dry Amontillado Sherry). Thanks for pointing that one out to us. As you might imagine there’s plenty on selling and distributing wine in the US. Wark’s post in May 2005 ‘Cynicism, Money, Wine and no Conscience’ is a fascinating insight into the financial contributions of a trade organisation to the political parties leading up to the 2004 elections. One of Wark’s closing entries is a gem. It describes the efforts some British politicians made to impress their European counterparts. ‘Britain’s efforts to kick-start the talks with a banquet of traditional Scottish haddock soup and Northern Irish lamb, washed down by finest Tintern Parva Welsh wine, failed to impress its negotiating partners. Commenting on the after-dinner cheese, Chirac, apparently only half-joking, reportedly told Polish officials: “I hope I don’t have to go through that again.” ‘ In fact, so shocked were the participants that Silvio Berlusconi the Italian PM had to despatch 24 bottles of finest Italian Cabernet Sauvignon to the Swedish Prime Minister just to take the taste away. I do like a bit of humour and so does Wark. But with all that incredible information you might have thought Mr Wark would have a search facility. Next year?

Vinography is just another West Coast blog… hardly. It’s got tons of information and has many entries on specific wines. Alder Yarrow keeps it all moving along with an eclectic interest in all things vinous and many entries of a good palatable length. Yarrow searches far and wide for his reports on new wines, new news and new ideas. He isn’t without a sense of humour either (thank goodness) and is often at his best when discussing the pros and cons of a new wine called, for example, ‘Big Ass Cab’. There’s even a picture of it! We learn how to value a wine by the ‘dimple in the bottle’, his notes on wines tasted are long and informative, and he has a social conscience too - when asking why we condone the behaviour of Miles in Sideways (basically he’s an alcoholic… or is he?). It’s a film isn’t it? Sometimes Americans can get way too pc. But, having said that, I always wondered why American Beauty was never castigated for its shocking morals. He’s not squeamish either. In ‘The Dangers of Eating Winery Food’ he recounts the story of a client who was tucking into a sandwich when his wife noticed that is was, in fact, a rat spread-eagled under the mayonnaise. Yarrow keeps his nose to the ground for a good article published elsewhere, such as ‘Wine Vocabulary Examined, er… Chronicled’. His restaurant reviews are savvy and fun. But I’d like to know his policy when eating out and its great to get some additional endorsements from his blog readers. In fact, as any bloggers know, the best thing you can get is a comment or two posted. It’s good to feel the messages are being read even if the statistics prove they are. It’s also good to know if someone disagrees. I also enjoy his reviews of wine culture - such as ‘Mondovino’. Worth reading the comments too. I suspect he had many of you running around wondering what to do with yourself when he went on his honeymoon in May. In short, I could write all day summarising the great things in Vinography. And, you know the saying - the best things in life are free! Never truer.

Hervè Bizeul, wine-maker, who translated much of his French blog for Blog au vin portrays not just his life in what is fast becoming the war torn Languedoc Rousillon, but his ruminations on his life as a ‘vigneron’. Bizeul was once a sommelier (in fact, one of the best in France), then a journalist and he has lost none of his passion nor his gifts for communicating. He is perhaps more than anything a philosopher. I think alone amongst all the blogs I read Bizeul struggles with his soul - out loud. He combats what he sees are the injustices to the wine-maker. He seeks purpose. He tries to unite humanity to being a simple ‘homme de la terre’. Bizeul is not happy unless he is looking for answers to the most difficult questions, as here: ‘What’s more, sometimes the notion of the «sensitivity to incipient conditions» seems to me to be the only explanation possible, in order to understand, retrospectively, why a wine is so good. One did something, at a given moment, sometimes at the beginning of the year, in trimming for example, perhaps even the year before, to the plant and it is this mysterious and miniscule action which without doubt, months or years later, gives rise to a magical wine-’ I like it.

And whatever happened to Huge Johnsons World of Wine? It seems to have undergone a major transmogfrication… so I’m afraid I deleted it from our blogroll. It’s lucky I checked… All the postings (both of them) seem to be by some love starved fellow named James…. Has it been hijacked? Very curious….

Fabian Cobb

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