New page, next chapter

My friends,

Thank you, once again, for being kind and gentle readers of the chapters going into my upcoming book (knock on oak), working title Culinary Approach to Wine In Restaurants. I will continue posting on the Substack page of the same name, focusing primarily on wine spoken from the perspective of the on-premise industry. Most of the upcoming entries will be connected to my ongoing work with The SOMM Journal, for which I’ve been scribbling thoughts and prayers (there are many things we all pray restaurants would do better) since 2008.

As you might surmise from the banner above, I will also be starting a new Substack page veering away from the restaurant wine management theme, entitled The Wine Clarion. Official description: “A call to wine lovers who appreciate wines for what they are, not what they’re supposed to be… you know—things like artistry, terroir, originality, rather than sameness or predictability, the superficiality of ratings or status.”

The plan is to send out a first entry in The Wine Clarion as complimentary piece. After that, in the spirit of the Substack community, most entries will require a separate, paid subscription ($8 monthly).

Why the different Substack page? The story: Some of you may have heard that my freelance work with the Lodi Winegrape Commission soon comes to an end, at the end of this coming June. There is a good chance that I will remain in Lodi (to me, moving house is like pulling teeth), but my mind or even body might be elsewhere: Doing jobs for other regional organizations (not necessarily in California), helping chefs write cookbooks in Colorado or the East Coast—heck, I may even end up just jabbering away about wines on cruise ships until someone finally carries me away. I am considering several options as we speak.

Consequently I have been advised that a Substack page addressing multiple wine-related subjects makes sense. Those of you who know me well enough know that this will not be another tedious wine review. I have been publishing wine columns since 1981 and have never “rated” wines by numbers or by any other way, and am not about to start now. In The Wine Clarion, I am looking forward, as my ancient friend Chuck Furuya MS likes to put it, to simply “talk story”—particularly about wines that taste like where they come from, brought to life through the hands of conscious growers and aesthetically motivated vintners. And there’s lots and lots of them.

That’s it, in a clamshell. Thank you again! RC