Women Wine Critics Board

Appellation America Selects Two WWCB Writers

We are pleased to announce that two WWCB writers have been selected as regional correspondents byAppellationAmerica.

AppellationAmerica is a new online publication devoted to promoting appellation consciousness across North America. In addition to articles and reviews, the Appellation Discovery Program seeks to identify threads of commonality and pinpoint terroir-based signatures in the wines of each appellation, if such commonality exists, or is developing.

Mary Baker will be covering the Paso Robles appellation with articles, wine reviews, roundtable discussions, and Discovery Panel tastings. Laura Ness is the regional correspondent for the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Appellation America is a comprehensive online wine portal providing access to every winery, grape varietal, and appellation on the North American continent. Its mission is to have the best wine writers in the wine business working in each region to discover and develop distinct wine region identities, and then build appellation consciousness in the broader wine consuming culture. From coverage of the bold, fruit-forward wines of Paso Robles to the elegant, complex style of Long Island wines, Appellation America provides relevant, useful information.

The regional correspondents also organize Discovery Panel tastings, designed to identify specific wine characteristics associated with the terroir and cultural traditions of each region. Wines that are determined by the Discovery Panel to best express the characteristics of their appellation earn AppellationAmerica’s "Appellation Signature" distinction.

A current Roundtable Discussion is open to everyone. The question on the blackboard is:

"Paso Robles is three times as large as Napa, geographically. Are there distinctive regions within Paso Robles?"

We encourage you to post your thoughts, observations and comments in the Appellation America Roundtable, and join this team in a journey to discover the individualistic stamp of our North American wine regions.

Alternative Voices and Thirsty Readers

Like most adventures, this one was born in a moment of tipsy braggadocio. In June, I attended a women winemakers’ night at Jan Manni’s wine shop, The Wine Attic, to pour my own personal production of sangiovese that I produce (almost) every year. As the weather was beautiful and everyone was headed to the beach, the event was lightly attended. So later in the evening there were only five of us—the shop owner and four women winemakers. The topic drifted around to numerical scores and critics’ tastes, and winemaker Elaine Villamin said that although she felt there are quite a few excellent women wine writers, she didn’t feel there were enough women wine critics, and that women’s tastes are still poorly represented. I think at that point I said something stupid, like, well, why don’t we try it?

The loosely but enthusiastically conceived idea originally included wine tasting activities (of course) and reviews, but as we are all winemakers, the peer review issue is a difficult one for us, so the concept has morphed into an online center where winemakers, writers and bloggers can explore alternative methods and voices in wine writing.

We hope this blog will become a center for intelligent and friendly discourse on a range of wine topics, and a place for alternative voices in wine writing to reach thirsty readers. A place where we can explore the uncharted wine territory between a linear land of point scores and pithy reviews, and a wine marketing boudoir of pink websites and labels. Wine writer Daniel Rogov has written a well-researched piece on pregnancy and wine which we’ll be publishing shortly, and we’ll also be hearing from other winemakers, wine writers and bloggers.

Welcome

Welcome to a new era in wine writing and review. 

We would like to invite you to join us in seeking out the best in alternative wine writing, wine articles, and wine journals. 

As women wine producers, we will be selecting some wines that we feel are carefully produced, excellent quality, good value, and versatile with food.  You'll also be seeing articles here by wine writers, winemakers, winery and vineyard owners, wine retailers, and wine critics. 

Some of the topics we will be exploring soon are:

• Restaurant wine selections
• Versatile wine choices for food pairing
• Starting a wine tasting club
• Identifying vineyard and harvest character in a wine
• How to identify a cellar-worthy wine

We invite you to leave questions and comments (see the little link below this article) and suggestions for future articles.  If you would like to contribute to the WWCBlog, please send us an email and proposal.