Collision of Titans: Wark, Koeppel & me

From a recent interview on Fermentation by Tom Wark with Fredric Koeppel: 

20. What advice would you give to someone considering starting a wine blog?
Keep an audience in mind. Don't write about everything that happens to you every day (nobody cares). Don't be scatter-shot: learn from every wine you taste and write about. Taste wines all the time and read about wine, where it comes from and how it's made. Go ahead and pay a designer to do your site, unless you're really experienced. And ALWAYS include the price of the wine. Holy crap, it pisses me off when people don't do that!

(Emphases mine.)

In my perennially depressed state, I of course internalized all this to be a criticism of me and of my postings.  And I wondered, should I change my ways and not publish so many off-topic ramblings?  Must I go back and supply missing prices, almost two years' worth?  Should I be less "personal" and more detached, Olympian even?  Ought I to introduce a point system?  Do I dare to eat a peach?  ("There he goes again, LL.")

After much rumination I decided that 'twere a far far better thing than I've ever done before to provide a sort of sample post to wineblogging newbies, a template, a model, something to aspire to.  For I believe that blogging should be a highly personal, even intimate form of communication.  It stimulates the same level of curiosity and recognition that must have excited the readers of Defoe when the English novel was being born. 

If it's voyeurism, it's not the pathetic kind.

Read on, McBloggers (and you too FK)...

Rosy-fingered Dawn caressed the erect glassy towers of Manhattan as I woke at 6:15 to feed and walk the dog.  She peed, we returned, I took my pills and then fell fast asleep on the living room sofa for an hour.  I dreamt of yet another delicious meal at Barbone last night.

I got up and made coffee, read Jancis Robinson's newest entries and checked to see if Eric Asimov had posted a day early.  No.  I made toast from artisanal bread and rather loose blueberry jam from Trader Joe's, whose merchandise reminds me of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players when Nora Dunn was there.  The antibiotics I'm taking are causing me to break out in hives (must watch out for anaphylaxis) so I took a benadryl, which immediately sent me to dreamland for an hour.  While there I dreamt of Domaine du Castel and Lirac. 

I woke up, filled out some paperwork and paid a bill, read some of the New York Times and hit a few wine blogs, notably the aforesaid Fermentation and Koeppel's.  Like so much these days, they depressed me with their limitless energy and verve.  I decided to eat some leftover bresaola from Barbone.  I had a glass of Lirac and one of the kosher wines from the other night.  They had held up well, the Lirac floral and graceful next to the power of the kosher Rothschild.  They cost somewhere in the range of $10 - 35.  I guess.  Whatever.

I dozed by the open high window and heard, over the oceanic roar of the city, that somewhere a dog was barking. 

Comments

[fredric koeppel]

Ha, v. funny, old boy. I particularly like the haiku-like description in the last paragraph. Please gear your paranoia generator back to neutral. In that interview would I have recommended your blog had I intended any criticism? Keep being personal, s'il-vous plait.

[Terry Hughes]

Yes, that old dog barking somewhere got a NY magazine first prize for bad writing back in the 70s. Yet how could you forget it?

As to the paranoia, it's not really paranoia, it's "humor", humorous exaggeration.

Still I confess ye old Black Dog is dogging my steps these days. As always he is somewhere a-barking.

[Fredric Koeppel]

Well, thank you anyway for including me among the Titans.