IS WINE WRITING GOING THE WAY OF COAL MINING? In today’s fragmented, fast-moving media landscape, what is the value of serious wine writing? We asked two of the best in the business how they make wine journalism financially viable in Ep. 113 of The Four Top. Meet our guests: Author of the bestselling book The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil is creator…
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The most powerful people in wine are…
POWER, POWER, POWER! Who is the most powerful person in wine? In Ep. 110 of The Four Top, we ask someone who held that title for years, Annette Alvarez-Peters. We also hear from Erica Duecy, who unveils the secrets of the WINE POWER PYRAMID. That’s right: This episode is all about power, influence, and sway. Erica…
We’re so done with glass bottles
We want to re-use glass bottles. We hate glass bottles. We love glass bottles. SMASH THE GLASS Why do we use a carbon-intensive, 4,000-year-old technology to package wine? Heavy, fragile, and toxic, glass is ready for a rethink. And recent bottle shortages have caused winemakers to call for a reassessment of the glass bottle manufacturing…
The hills that Marissa Ross and Philippe André will die on are…
HOT TAKES, COLD WINE We usually speak to pressing environmental, social, or cultural issues on The Four Top, but Ep. 108 was just a loose session of unhinged, uncensored wine talk. What can we say? It’s mid-summer. We’re roasting hot. And we’re putting ice cubes in our wine. Which is TOTALLY OK. We’re also a…
The Four Top – How taboos & titillation sell wine
OOH LA LA! TABOOS & TITILLATION Selling sex… or sensory seduction? In Ep. 107 we talk irreverent branding, unconventional influences, and drinking wine in the bathtub. Our guest panelists have both garnered as much fame for their transgression and boundary-pushing as they have for building hugely successful wine businesses and public personas. “WINE CAN BE…
why you would have been pro-Prohibition
WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN PRO-PROHIBITION? The Supreme Court rulings this week have us thinking about Ep. 106 of The Four Top. It’s all about Prohibition, a constitutional amendment that the wine industry loves to diss. The U.S. ban on alcoholic beverages wreaked all sorts of havoc between 1920 and 1933, and its legacy continues to bedevil interstate wine…