The HoseMaster of Wine's™ Cover Letter to Wine Advocate

Dear Ms. Perrotti-Brown,

I thought I’d save you the trouble of contacting me first. I know with all of the recent defections from “Wine Advocate” you must be desperate for help. First, it was Jeb Dunnock thinking he could go it alone. Great decision, Jeb, it sure worked for Art Garfunkel! Next thing you know, Neal Martin goes and takes a new job with Antonio Galloni, which is pretty disarming—in the sense that he’s the new Vinous di Milo. Up on a pedestal, but essentially can’t go anywhere.

Much to my chagrin, the Wine Advocate decided to publish my cover letter to its editor, Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, on its Wine Journal site. I haven't heard back yet when I'm going to start working for her, but it shouldn't be long. If you want to read the rest of the note, you'll have to head to their site. They, wisely, don't have a comments section. Unfortunately, I do. Use it.

WINE ADVOCATE'S WINE JOURNAL

C.S.W. Like Me

I’m a C.S.W. There, I’ve said it. Certified Specialist of Wine. I am a member of a group that represents the most knowledgeable among us when it comes to wine. This isn’t bragging, mind you, this is simple fact. I took a test. My answers were found to be correct no less than 75% of the time. I have letters after my name now, and the great responsibility that comes with them. Let me repeat, 75% of the time I selected the proper answer to a question about wine given four answers to choose from. Knowledge is power. And I’m running at a guaranteed 75%. I’m a wine specialist. Certified.

Every now and then, a strange voice will appear in my head and I begin to write down what it has to say. Which is often not a good idea. I have always been offended by those who pass a silly test and then append letters to their names. It's unimportant, and probably says more about me than it does about them, but, nevertheless, it annoys me. Which is a good enough reason for all of you to keep doing it. 

The rest of this piece is over at Wine Advocate's Wine Journal. There isn't a comments section there, but feel free to read it, return here, and then tell me what a jerk I am for making fun of the folks who spend a lot of money to prove they know almost nothing about wine. I don't mind.

WINE JOURNAL

What to Buy Your Master Sommelier for Christmas!

If you’re like me, right about now you’re wondering what to buy for the Master Sommelier in your life for Christmas. There are 230 Master Sommeliers in the world. Though it’s possible the one in the Philippines was shot by the President. Oh, yes, it’s true. You always Duterte the one you love. One down, 229 to go. Those 207 men, and 23 of these other kind of people, not sure what they are really, but they smell good, how did they get their pins again?, can be difficult to buy gifts for. They’re picky by nature. For example, most of them will only put their nose in a fine Burgundy, a Grower Champagne, and Fred Dame.

Holiday shopping is coming down to the wire. I have a few ideas for you for what to buy for that persnickety Master Sommelier on your Christmas list. The catalog is over at the Wine Advocate's newish Wine Journal site. Grab your Apple pay and head on over there. No comments allowed over there, but feel free to return and leave your milk, cookies and automatic weapons here for good ol' Santa Hose.

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!  

Thank you for your support of my stupid blog throughout 2016. Perhaps in 2017 I'll get it right. Don't bet on it!

WINE ADVOCATE'S WINE JOURNAL

Flying the Friendly Skies

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 thought, when it was hijacked and now it’s headed toward a skyscraper. We had no idea there were even hijackers aboard, though we should have known, they’d been making a lot of noise back here in economy class. We certainly didn’t think they could overpower us, take over the plane and fly it into a building. If I’d known the pilot had orange hair, I’d have stayed at the airport. My mother always told me, “Never get on a plane with a pilot with orange hair. Nothing good can come of it.” What’s odd is that the hijackers seem exuberant about going down with us in a burst of inescapable flames. It will take years to clean up the wreckage.


The rest of this week's sermon appears on Wine Journal over at the Wine Advocate site. The rest of the piece wanders about quite a bit, going from Asimov to Kermit the Lynch, and lands on a heartfelt wish that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

You can't leave comments there, but I'd love to hear your feedback here. Everywhere I go, friends, people remark that the best part of HoseMaster of Wine™ is the Comments Section. Oh, they're just flattering me, but it's true. Thank you, Common Taters, one and all.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

WINE ADVOCATE'S WINE JOURNAL

Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan on Wine

While it may have come as something of a shock to many people when Bob Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, it certainly wasn’t a surprise to those of us who have followed Dylan’s brilliant wine writing over the years. At least it wasn’t as much of a surprise as the announcement that Pete Rose had won the Nobel Peace Prize, or that Julian Assange won Miss Teen USA. Won her in a Trump for President raffle.

I'm not one of those people who thinks Bob Dylan is a great American poet. Now, Smokey Robinson, there's our generation's Emily Dickinson. But I do admire Dylan's wine writing, which, it seems to me, has been shamefully neglected. So I've collected a few of Dylan's best pieces of wine writing and posted them over at the Wine Advocate's Wine Journal. Wander over there and see what you think. I can hardly wait for Dylan's thoughts on 2016 Bordeaux. Though more than likely it will be his usual assessment, "Don't think twice, it's all right."


WINE ADVOCATE'S WINE JOURNAL

Alice in Naturaland, or Through the Isinglass

Lisa Perrotti-Brown was one of the panelists on a seminar about minerality I attended at the Napa Valley Professional Wine Writers Symposium last January, along with Doug Frost and Jeannie Cho Lee. That’s three MWs and an MS. Four for the price of three, like a BevMo Five Cent Sale, only not a ripoff. Seems like overkill, though I still walked out thinking minerality is to wine what sand is to bathing suits—it might be there, but it’s incredibly irritating how much it comes up.

I never had the chance to speak with Lisa at the Symposium. I never approach famous wine people I may have insulted. Many want to meet the HoseMaster of Wine™, and many really don’t. I am a recluse anyway, so I just wait for people to introduce themselves to me. But a few days after the Symposium, Lisa tweeted that she wished she’d said hello to me, so I tweeted back, and we met for dinner. A lovely friendship was born.

Of course, most of you know Lisa Perrotti-Brown as the Editor-in-Chief of the Wine Advocate. Recently, the Wine Advocate, under her direction, has launched a new website, with a great deal of free content. A few months ago, Lisa approached me asking if I’d be open to writing a satiric piece for the site once a month or so, the aim being to have something more cutting edge on the new site. We had a long talk about it.

My only concern was the obvious one. Nothing is more deadly to a satirist than becoming part of the establishment, or the appearance of same. Except, perhaps, abject poverty. I’ve long had a champion in Tim Atkin MW (what’s telling about the wine world is that the bigshot MWs tend to be very supportive of what I do while the bigshot MSs, now there’s an oxymoron, tend to hate what I do), and I am very grateful for all that Tim has done to promote the HoseMaster. I never expected that kind of support from anyone as famous and talented in the wine business as Tim Atkin MW. And now along comes Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, with the approval of Robert Parker EW (Emperor of Wine), asking me to write original material for the new Wine Advocate site. And pay me.

Lisa is a very talented writer, a woman who originally wanted to be a playwright, and no doubt has the talent to be a successful one. When we talk, she and I often talk about writing, and she’s very insightful and wonderfully funny. She was quick to assure me that she wouldn’t edit my work, something Tim has always adhered to as well. And that I could write whatever I wanted, and never worry about going after Parker, her, the Wine Advocate, or anyone who writes for them. In other words, don’t change a thing. So I said I would do it.

There isn’t much cutting edge wine writing. I love how Wine Spectator calls Matt Kramer “irreverent.” He’s about as irreverent as Perry Como, or George Will. I appreciate how much attention my raucous, ribald, often nasty brand of satire has been getting lately, not because it brings attention to me (anyone who knows me will tell you I dread the attention), but because the wine business needs satire, needs a skeptical eye, the more eyes the better.  That a publication like Wine Advocate, and critics of the status of Tim Atkin MW, Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW and Robert Parker EW (there isn’t any higher status than those three), endorse my work is acceptance that gratifies me enormously.

But enough. Here’s the first piece on the Wine Advocate site. Comments aren’t allowed there at the moment, so feel free to return here and give me a raft of shit for selling out.

ROBERTPARKER