Plugging Myself
My first article for Vineyard & Winery Management magazine is up. It’s a slightly wry look at winery development in the Bible Belt. Here’s a tasty morsel selected to convince you to go over there, read the whole thing, and send email to the editor telling her how wonderful it is:
The South is not monolithic, and despite its puritanical tendencies, it has changed. There remain hundreds of bone-dry counties, where the sale of alcohol is prohibited, but there are also more than 500 wineries scattered in 14 states along the Bible Belt. In fact, officials in most Southern states have come to see winery growth as economic development, as a tourist draw and as a viable option for farms previously dependent on tobacco. The result is broad public acceptance of a growing and vibrant wine culture, with pockets of disapproval.
“When we first opened 23 years ago, I was in a dressing room of a department store with a pastor’s wife,” said Louisa Cooke, who owns Beachaven Vineyards & Winery in Clarksville, and is president of the Tennessee Farm Winegrowers Association. “And she said, ‘Do we need a winery?’ She was the only person who questioned it.”
The article features a special guest appearance by the late segregationist governor of Alabama George Wallace. How can you resist that?
And I’m serious about the email thing. I’d appreciate it.
September 8th, 2010 at 5:04 PM
Just got our copy of it, so I will look for the article.
Since my husband has written for the magazine, I assume you are in good company…
September 9th, 2010 at 12:23 PM
Bible Belt and Wine? Is it satire?
September 10th, 2010 at 7:15 PM
tom..i called tina caput your editor at V&WM..whom I know professionally..and said she should use you regularly. unfortunately i had to leave that message on the answering machine. that was such a fine david brinkley-ish article on the south, i smiled and laughed out loud several times. i’ve done a dozen or so articles for the magazine,dating back to when it was published in the Finger Lakes nothing lately. please do not post this, but you really should have done that piece for spectator or enthusiast. have you tried there+ It would have added some life to dull pages. I contribute to the online section occasionally. anyway, reading the article drove me to checking our blog, which also , to use our word..is wry. nice work and i will read up on you as the mood hits . nice going. mort hochstein and in case you want to call and hear from an oldimer..212 420 1511…your article reminded me of when i first met a texas winemaker..bill bob something or other back in the early eighties. He made his wine in one county, but had to carry it elsewhere to sell it. Of course those were the days when you could not buy in drink in a texas bar or hotel unless you kept it in the establishment locker.mort