Archive for the ‘Mr. Grumpy’ Category
The Downside of Spring
April 13th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Rosé is back.
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How Not To Be a Wine Bore
March 8th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Because you want to get invited back, right? Don’t complain about the wine glasses. If someone invites you to choose a bottle from her cellar, choose something that there is more than one of. When you take a bottle of wine to a dinner party, do not insist that it be served with dinner. That’s [...]
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I Prefer Highly Extracted Wine With a Taste For Miles Davis
March 2nd, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Markus Bachmann, who is described in media coverage as an “innovator” because reporters aren’t comfortable referring to people they’re writing about as “goofballs,” has invented and patented a system of loudspeakers that is designed to be placed into the tank with fermenting wine. The sound waves (from classical as well as Polka music) get to [...]
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The New Totem of Sophistication Being, I Believe, Cheap Bulgarian Cabernet
February 16th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
David J. Duman is a writer/producer/importer/negociant/playwright/blogger, and, apparently, not a big believer in the Alexander the Great’s theory that those who try to do everything accomplish nothing. In The Huffington Post he pronounces the 100-point scale dead, killed in its sleepwalking dotage by Millennials who are unconstrained by the limited worldview of their elders. The [...]
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My (Wine) New Year’s Resolutions
December 28th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Come to grips with Riesling. I resolve to do this every year — along with losing weight and keeping the garage clean — and fail utterly. My problem is with the something-less-than-mellifluous German language. Who thought it was a good idea to convert whole paragraphs into single, polysyllabic words? When did the Germans decide that random word order was a [...]
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Pennsylvania Experiments With New Wine Delivery Machine
December 21st, 2010 by Tom Johnson
After declaring their experiment with wine vending machines a success, Pennsylvania alcohol regulators began experimenting with mechanical bartenders. The goal, they explained, was to replace fallible humans with dependable machines. “We’ve had tremendous problems with bartenders serving underage drinkers and continuing to serve people who have had too much to drink,” explains state Liquor Commissioner [...]
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10 Things to Keep In Mind If You Want to Survive the Office Christmas Party
December 9th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
First of all, if you think your goal at an office Christmas party is to have fun, you need to re-think. Fun is what you have when what you’re doing doesn’t have a potentially devastating impact on you career. Office Christmas parties, on the other hand, are a ritual that has developed to accomplish three [...]
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Millennials as Wine-Buyers Discovered Again
December 7th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Ad Age declares Millennials to be “the great white hope” of the wine industry, and introduces discerning buyer Meghan: “I liked the label,” the 30-year-old Los Angeles resident said, recalling her purchase of Layer Cake Primitivo. “It’s really clean. It’s really modern and it’s not super-traditional. It doesn’t have a chateau on it. It has [...]
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How to Write About Beaujolais Nouveau: A Primer for Lazy Winewriting
November 19th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Start things off with a sentence explaining that Beaujolais Nouveau is released the third Thursday of November. Then say that the release of the first wines of the previous vintage is a day of great joy in France. Insert a sentence that gives Beaujolais Nouveau a sense of place and that will point the copy [...]
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We Must Stop These People
October 6th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Andy Spade, husband of Kate Spade, designer of overpriced and derivative handbags, is getting into the wine business. And, it seems, he’s working the overpriced and derivative angle, too. Bad enough is his branding of apparently non-vintage wines with labels like “Thrilled For You!” at a $25 price point. While I, personally, bear great prejudice [...]
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