Hello World
June 10th, 2008
After much consideration and encouragement from other bloggers, I am launching my own blog to complement the content of redwinebuzz.com.
This venue will allow me to provide more frequent, running commentary on the world of wine. It will give a forum to those topics not directly related to the Central Coast but which impact all wine lovers and have a more indirect effect on the Central Coast wine world.
There is little doubt that I have some firm opinions and constantly challenge the accepted wisdom of wine as a culture and as an industry. I wanted to create a name for this blog that would reflect both its wine focus and my philosophical stance and my style. It was with this in mind that I sought the advice of Alder Yarrow, Tyler Colman and Tom Wark and I am grateful for their counsel.
Some fancy French wine making terms were tossed about and of those, one seemed to initially stir some interest:
Bâtonnage: Stirring the lees as a way to enhance a wine’s body and flavor.
Tyler felt this was a good word as, in his words, I like to “stir things up”. However, I took Tom Wark’s advice and eschewed esoteric French terms. And so winesooth.com was born.
This blog will be incorporated into the new redwinebuzz.com site - look and all. Until that time, I’ll keep it clean and simple.
The definition of “sooth” is: “truth, reality, or fact” and a “soothsayer” is a person who “professes to foretell events”.
The global wine landscape is changing. While I do not claim to possess special powers of prognostication, I think global wine culture and industry are at some crossroads and not all choices before us will lead to optimal outcomes.
It is my belief that a commentator should be less of an ambassador of an industry or spokesperson for the preferences of the masses and more a thinker who challenges beliefs, warns of consequences and points to less obvious options. This has been the more real role of soothsayers in ancient times.
Now, I am not setting out to be a misanthrope, a nihilist or an agitator. Like that ancient cynic Diogenes, who carried a lit lantern in daytime through the streets of ancient Greece in search of an honest man, I embark on a search for truth in wine.
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