[ WARNING: following is one of my lengthy diatribes. If you’re the lazy and impatient busy type, skip to the summary! ] Do you believe that fine wines are multi-faceted? What I mean is, do fine wines change over time, present different shades and complexities of aromas and flavors? Well… duh… If you agree that…
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What We Learned From The Fulvio Bressan Debacle
Friuli winemaker Fulvio Bressan’s racially-charged political comments about Cécile Kyenge, Italy’s first African-Italian government minister (you can read the translation if you’re up for it, but fair warning: it will most likely disgust you) just caused a large crap-storm in the wine world. In my view, only an idiot (it takes a lot of stupid…
Blinding You With Wine Evaluation Science! (VineSleuth Data Show That Expert Wine Tasters Are Actually Consistent)
Piling onto so-called expert wine evaluators has become all the rage lately. Remember when the California State Fair commercial wine competition judges got steamrolled (again) by data showing that blind tasting medals are awarded in a random distribution? So expert wine evaluation is all just donkey-bong bunk, right? Not so fast, Jerky. According to data…
The Fast Track To Wine Authority That Nobody’s Taking
While I was in Portugal in May judging at the 2013 Wines of Portugal Challenge, I met a well-spoken and well-studied former Luftwaffe pilot named Axel Probst, who now provides one-on-one Port consultations (seriously, there’s a business for this in Europe, apparently). Axel looks every inch like an air force pilot: well-mannered, calm, fit, nice…