If You Don't Think 20 Years Goes Quick, Just Blink

On 20 Years of Writing Fermentation

There’s no use trying to tell anyone 40 years or under that two decades pass very quickly. They’ll tell you that “it was sooo long ago I was still in my teens” and they’ve changed so much since then. More importantly, they can’t imagine this life without them in it.

But if you want to show them just how short a time twenty years is, tell them to talk to a winemaker who has been making wine in the same region for a few decades. Have them hand over a bottle of the winemaker’s product from twenty years ago and ask what the vintage was like. If it was a good vintage, the winemaker will tell them why it was a good vintage and will likely relate what the weather was like the week they knew things were going to turn out well for the grapes. If it was a bad vintage, they will tell you the precise day they knew things had turned south on them.

It’s as though it was yesterday.

And so if you told me back in 2004 that in 2024 I’d be marking my 20th year writing about the business and culture of wine, I’d probably have looked at you with a blank stare trying to understand what sort of subtext you were attempting to deliver with that kind of cryptic statement. And yet, those 20 years and the 4000+ columns, articles, posts, and screeds that have poured forth in in that time, feel like a blip, not a third of my life.

In 2004 I was already 14 years into the business of wine marketing and public relations and a decade into consulting on my own. I lived in Glen Ellen, California in a small neighborhood. I had just started to get really good enough at this to think I should talk about it. And even write. Then along came this personal publishing platform called the Blog. That eventually morphed into this, the Substack. And here I am. Loving the view from here more than ever.

So, yes. This is the column that commemorates 20 years writing about what I see, hear, think and know about the wine industry. And you know what I can’t stop thinking about? What will I have seen, heard, thought and known about the wine industry when I’m writing the column that commemorates my 40th year writing about this stuff. Because I promise, that day is just around the corner. And if you don’t believe me, just go ahead and blink.

So, now I’m going to be indulgent. You can quit reading now if you want. But I need to name-check some folks who, over the past 20 years, have helped get me through happy, thoughtful, and better for it:

Bill MacIver
Sandra MacIver
Lew Perdue
Cyril Penn
Paul Mabray
Daniel Posner
Elizabeth Schneider
John Hinman
Steve Heimoff
Dan Berger
Bea Beasley
Jeffrey Mayo
Sandra Bernstein
James Marshall Berry
Robert Beuttner
Jeff Carrol
James Conaway
James Delaney
Bob Epstein
James Tanford
Jane Farrell
Stewart Dorman
Cindy Golnick
Alan Goldfarb
Debra Hill
Jimmy Kawalek
Julie Ann Kodmur
Rupert Murdoch
Jeff Lefevere
Karen MacNeil
Sean O’Leary
Axel Schug
Ben Sessions
Matt Siegel
Clark Smith
Stu Smith
W.R. Tish
Judd Wallenbrock
Lou Foppiano
Joy Caldwell
Ellen Cavalli
Tracy Genesen
Milla Handley
Gracelyn Guyol
Jancis Robinson
Michael Kinney
Federic Koeppel
Matt Kramer
Tracy McArdle
Charlie Olken
Karen Roberts
Ken Starr
Tori Wilder
Allen Wright

Thank you.