HoseMaster of Wine™

I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but come Wednesday, you’re history. I’m not trying to be funny. Word is you’re a goner, and ther...

One of my fellow columnists from Tim Atkin MW’s site, Peter Pharos, sent me this response to my previous post. It’s damned funny. I’ve ne...

Stuff I think about... The Paris Tasting of 1976: Who the Fuck Cares The Effect of Climate Change on BevMo’s Five Cent Sale Vineyard...

Dear Ms. Erin Brooks, In the most recent issue of Wine Advocate you rated my estate Pinot Noir 97+. Thank you, but that’s a stupidly h...

After reading the authoritative and exhausting report on 2018 En Primeur by Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW... For the 30th consecutive year, I...

During the service exam, you stuck your tongue into the neck of the wine bottle you’d just opened and moaned, “Oh, God, I love you, Letti...

Inspired by reading Karen MacNeil's commencement speech to grads of the C.I.A., a speech about "the last true things" (so, y...

This is a piece written as a reaction to Matt Walls' piece on TimAtkin.com about the tired old subject of corkage fees. Just wha...

Wine as natural as asphalt. Your wine tasting experience isn’t complete until you visit wine country’s only vomitorium! Our wines are...

There’s something interesting about writing satire. It’s a way to express a part of yourself that much of the time you suppress—the part ...

You never know when the next great wine will appear in your life. “Great” is one of those words that gets bandied about endlessly when it...

I must be out of my mind to still be writing HoseMaster of Wine ™. Another year has passed, and I still spend my drive time to work kicki...

Here’s what I’ve been feeling the past few weeks. We were on this large jet flying to somewhere beautiful, some sort of Paradise, we thou...

A number of people sent me a link to a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell called, “The Satire Paradox.” Richard Hemming MW also mentions the sam...

I find myself tuning out the news lately, and reaching for a book. A great book, not brain candy, a work of art. The news is filled with ...

You can’t be in the wine business and not know an astonishing amount of people with drinking problems. And yet I cannot remember ever rea...

I received an email a week or so ago from a Brit named Joss Fowler who writes a wine blog called Vinolent. Great word. For many years, Jo...

I always hated winemaker dinners. They were more often catastrophes than not. And so were the dinners. Early in my sommelier career, Joe ...