Today's Terroirist Blog: Fantastic Read

The Terroirist wine blog is the first wine blog I view every day. It's primarily a blog that has links to other wine blog commentaries. When I find a particularly interesting blog/article, I will often post the link here (with attribution to Wine Terroirist). And I particularly like the articles on it that IssacBaker writes.
Today's Terroirist blog is probably the best one ever:
March27Terroirist .

Instead of taking my afternoon nap (something us old folks particularly need) today, I spent over an hour reading thru all the blog entries.

Today's blog was in response to last week's NYTimes article by BiancaBosker (who she?):
IgnoreTheSnobs/DrinkTheCheapDeliciousWine ,
an article that doesn't seem to have drawn much reaction on the various WineBoards. The article is a thinly-veiled attack on the "natural" (what that?) wine movement. She did a visit to TreasuryWineEstates who makes low-end wines targeted to wine-drinkers w/ little sophisticated tastes (what that?) but know what they like. The wines are "engineered" to achieve those particular tastes. That is, wines made by the marketing department, not by the winemaking department. She argues that these engineered wines have their place and might very well serve as a gateway drug to better/more sophisticated wines that these idiot wine-drinkers might move on to.
My original reaction to the article was "meh". So what? These are not wines I (knowingly) drink and it won't matter to my wine choices. Plus...the article was clearly designed to be rabble-rousing/stir-the-pot/controversial/attention-getting (something I would never be accused of doing...never/ever/no-siree) article in order to sell/peddle her new book "CorkDorks". One that I'm not inclined to buy now.

As designed/expected, the article got the WineBlogoSphere all up in arms and stirred up. The blog/article by MarkoKovac (who he?) was so hilarious that it actually made me laugh by the degree to which he was frothing at the mouth. He is apparently a guy firmly entrenched in the "natural" wine movement. He rails against the use of powdered eggs whites as a fining agent to remove tannins in these industrial/manufactured wines (but no doubts approves of Ridge's use of egg white fining because it is somehow more "natural"). Conveniently overlooking the fact that we don't actually consume these powdered egg whites once they've done their job of taking out the tannins. His other points against these industrial wines are equally stupid. He goes on to praise the response of AliceFeiring to the article. I did not bother to read SweetAlice's response...so entirely predictable.

The other blog entries are not nearly as amusing. AlderYarrow/Vinography gives a very open-minded response, I thought. JasonHaas' TablasCreek blog is particularly good and most thoughtful, exactly what I would expect from Jason.

The RachelSigner blog entry is also amusing as she gets all worked up and her knickers in a knot over the original article. ClaudeKolm's response is particularly worth reading as he criticizes the "natural" wine movement. And BlakeGray's response is particularly good and, for once, I am in agreement w/ Blinky. He takes Rachel to task for her narrow-mindedness and actually praises the writing and the point of the article...that Bianca went and tasted these industrial wines w/ an open mind. The descriptions she writes of these does not want to make me try these industrial/manufactured wines. But she did...and now we know.

Anyway, it's very much worth taking the hour or more and reading thru all the stuff linked to on today's Terroirist blog. It's a tough slog...but very educational. Jeez...you might even have to give up your afternoon nap!!
Tom

I just ordered the book from my local library..Hope it is as good a read as your post, Tom

I just ordered the book from my local library..Hope it is as good a read as your post, Tom

Well, Jon...let us know your thoughts after you've read it. I'm not inclined to order it.
Tom

The RachelSigner blog entry is also amusing as she gets all worked up and her knickers in a knot over the original article. ClaudeKolm's response is particularly worth reading as he criticizes the "natural" wine movement.

I don't especially buy a lot of "natural wines", and the ones I do I buy - it's not because they are "Natural".
And I used to subscribe to Claude and truly respect his views. But this is not the most convincing critique of the "movement." Aha, employees at a store selling natural wines smoke (outside)! And I'd love to hear the science of unsulphured wines causing kidney issues that require antibiotics? I do agree that some retailers with natural wines aren't careful enough with storage.

Tom...natural wine? This piece from Jamie Goode will get some reaction, stirring the pot. Check his blog .

http://www.wineanorak.com/wineblog/

I'm agnostic when it comes to "natural", "organic" and "biodynamic" wine and that very fact means that the religious type zeal of many their advocates is a big put off for me. However, I can't help noticing that many of the practitioners of the last two at least make very fine wine and that some of the best, like Noël Pinguet and Olivier Humbrecht, have a very pragmatic approach to the "faith".

The Treasury approach is obviously at the other end of the scales. Their manipulative approach certainly has commercial validity and nobody is compelling me to drink their wines. However any writer, like Bianca Bosker, who encourages people to buy them by writing about how delicious they are will no longer be on my read list. Indeed, any wine article with "snob" in its title line is likely to remain unread by me.

[David M. Bueker]

The "Ignore the Snobs" article resulted in a thread on Berserkers. The reason the thread did not stay on page 1 for long is that the article is stupid, and generally not worth the comments.

The SFChron's EstherMobley weighs in:
Esther

with a very well-reasoned response to all the foaming at the mouth rants in the BlogoSphere to Bosker's original article.

I find I like Esther's writing more&more as she settles into her job.
Tom

And W.BlakeGray chimes in w/ a well-reasoned take on the original article:
BlinkySez
Tom