HoseMaster of Wine

Actual Secrets of a Sommelier

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

THE HOSEMASTER'S BASICS OF WINE APPRECIATION 2 In this edition of Basics of Wine Appreciation we’ll focus on ordering wine in restaurants. Reading a wine list is an acquired skill, like using a napkin. But nothing impresses your date more than your ability to sniff out the best wine at the best price on a wine list. Unless it’s your ability to work your iPhone with your tongue. Let’s get started. What is the purpose of a wine list? Think of the wine list as a really boring...

On and On and On and On and On and On and On the Wine Trail in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Life is short. Like the finish of a cheap Prosecco. Like the memories of the young, and the time between an old man’s trips to the bathroom at night. But life is also long. From the time you begin to read this until the time you finish, life will have seemed to have dragged on forever, and you will have felt like Dante was your guide here and not me. Life is both short and long. A midget with a large dingdong. We straddle both lives, like a gymnast working the parallel bars—even for men, uneven...

My Questionably Funny Valentine

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Are you in love with a wine connoisseur? I’m sorry. Wine isn’t a hobby, it’s a disease, like the mumps, or scarlet fever, or professional football. Wine lovers make the worst lovers. They use condoms made by Riedel. Which always break. They think an Ah-So is designed for Her Pleasure. They rate their orgasms. “Sorry, Baby, that was 89—Highly Recommended but hardly Worth Seeking Out.” But you love them, and you want to make them happy on Valentine’s Day. Forget the prix fixe dinner (my prix fixe...

The HoseMaster's 2012 Top Ten Most Influential People in the Wine Business*

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Oh, I love a good list. Craig’s... Schindler’s…Franz. And making the list yourself gives you a feeling of power and expertise, even if you have neither. I was making a list of things I wanted to accomplish in 2012 and my number one entry was, “Make more lists.” Number two was, “Walk with a limp.” Recently, a nobody in the wine business published a list of the 100 Most Influential People in the U.S. Wine Industry. This is much like Kevin Costner making a list of the 100 Best Actors. Or Newt...

Quiddick the Critic

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Alone in his parlor, his nose at the ready Quddick the Critic can’t hold his hand steady. “I’ve spit and I’ve spit like a short-tempered camel I’ve got very few teeth that have any enamel. “My liver has grown to the size of Bulgaria And my blood vessels look like a map of Bavaria. My gut has grown huge, I’m immense for my genus, It’s been several years since I last saw my penis. “But I’ve got all these bottles, these bottles galore And with nose and with tongue I must give them a...

Smithsonian Institute's HoseMaster Hate Mail Wing

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

One of the great joys of being the HoseMaster of Wine is the accumulation of personal correspondences from folks that hate me. I’ve been asked by the Smithsonian to leave my collection of hate mail to them in my will, but it would mean having an entire new wing built just to house them. I’d like to have Frank Gehry design it. Like most of his buildings, it would look like Zeus puked. Sifting through some of my more recent mail, I chose these few to share. Honorable HoseMaster, Kim...

The HoseMaster's Basics of Wine Appreciation

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

With education in mind, I’ve been asked to begin a series of columns devoted to the basics of wine knowledge. OK, basically I asked myself. You're never too old to learn. What qualifies me for this daunting task, you may well ask. Like I care what you think. Like anybody reads blogs. Like I wouldn’t exaggerate my qualifications just like you did when you applied for that miserable job you’re doing now in this crappy economy that’s about to collapse like a travel agent school. But since you...

A Few Minutes Decomposing with Andy Rooney

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000

I’ve been in touch with the late Andy Rooney recently. It may surprise you to know that I speak with many dead people—Jess Jackson, Robert Mondavi, Robert Parker, Ron Paul, Gabe Kaplan, Richard Dawson… There is a wisdom in dead people that I find compelling. Andy Rooney was kind enough to allow me to publish his posthumous thoughts about wine and the wine business. So if you don’t like the opinions, don’t blame me. I’m just channeling the old fuck. Pardon me, dead fuck. ON BLIND...

Weaners

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:30:00 +0000

Damned Weaner They ignore our laws, our borders, our boundaries, our whistles and clickers. They take jobs from unemployed Americans. They breed relentlessly and resist any form of birth control. They congregate in large numbers in parks and on street corners begging. They urinate in public. Yes, we depend on them. But at what cost? They never bother to learn the English language. They tax our abilities to feed them, take food from the mouths of our grandmothers. They smell. They have...

Best New Wine Books

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I am always asked to recommend wine books. Each year hundreds of new wine books are published. Taken together, they provide more than 15 original thoughts and more than 25 things worth knowing about wine! With some foresight, a novice wine enthusiast could spend a year reading these books and emerge with more than six minutes of insight. Which is more than one can say about reading the collected works of Glenn Beck, which would more than likely produce brain hemorrhaging and the desire to tithe...

Dept. of Lame Premises

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

MY CRYSTAL BALLS The beginning of the year brings out the prognosticator in all of us, and since I’m over 50 I had to have my prognostate checked. Everything came out fine, if slightly sulfurous around my fingernails. I have an amazing ability to predict the future of the wine business. Most of you will remember I predicted that HoseMaster of Wine would fold. That Jess Jackson would also fold. And that Constellation would sell off its Australian wine portfolio because they found out there...

PARKENSTEIN! Part the Last

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Monkton, MD, 23 October 20__ My Dearest Sister, I had a hard time believing all that Parkenstein told me. Only a madman could believe himself a God, and then believe he could pass along His Doctrine of Infallibility to monsters of his own making, thereby making each of them a sort of Pope, emissaries who speak the word of Parkenstein and have direct access to that almighty God and his insane system of Numbers—they were Parkenstein’s Howdy Deuteronomy. And, though he was clearly insane,...

PARKENSTEIN! Part the Second

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Monkton, MD, 22 October 20__ My Dearest Sister, Parkenstein had been the most powerful critic in his field, feared as a man fears his God, his every proclamation a Judgment Day on a 100 Point Scale, his commandments followed assiduously if not asininely. Thou shalt not filter, nor fine, nor covet thy neighbor’s bunghole. Thou shalt not worship false Gods, Tanzers and BurgHounds of Hell, for their palates are the spawn of Satan, and that spawn is slightly salty, with a creamy texture,...

PARKENSTEIN!

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:45:00 +0000

Monkton, MD, 20 October, 20__ My Dearest Sister, And so it was that I made the acquaintance of Robert Parkenstein on my stop in Maryland. He was washed up on shore, but, then, I was later to learn that he had been washed up for a very long time, a victim of his nefarious scheme to defy Creation and play God himself. And as we were marooned in the God-forsaken shithole that is Monkton, my ship awaiting better weather, the storm blowing harder than a Michelle Bachman speech, I heard the...

Dysfunctional Family Winemakers

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:45:00 +0000

If there's one tasting I look forward to the most eagerly each year, it's the American and International Dysfunctional Family Winemakers tasting ("AInt Dysfun?, as it's known in the trade). There's an electricity in the air unmatched at any other event in the wine biz, except maybe the annual Capital Punishment affair held by William Foley in the majestic ballroom at San Quentin when he executes the staff of a new winery he's purchased. And he spares no expense on the food--it's Last Meal for...

Ethics? Ethics? We Don't Need No Stinking Ethics

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Ask any wine blogger what the biggest roadblock to success in the wine business is and he'll undoubtedly answer, "Ethics." Stupid, useless ol' ethics. And not because he believes in ethics, that's clearly a waste of time, much like reading wine blogs published east of the Mississippi, but because there are not guidelines to these imaginary ethics. Just where are the lines that one isn't supposed to cross? And where are the lines one is supposed to obey? And the ones they promised me I could...

The Tweet Smell of Excess

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

I am frequently asked why I don't have a Twitter account. I don't have any use for Twitter. Twitter is like an Ionesco play--140 characters searching hopelessly for meaning. Twitter is hundreds of thousands of minds without a single thought. It's the viewing audience for the Super Bowl with keyboards. Twitter fills the universe with mindless chatter, allowing everyone to be Maury Povich or Jerry Springer or a troop of baboons. It reflects the culture in ways that aren't especially flattering;...

The Faint Aroma of Goat Bladder

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:57:00 +0000

v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in;...

A Healthy Brown Movement

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Interest in the fabulous wines of Carbon Footprint (Wine Enthusiast, for example, recently scored their 2008 "Offshore Oil Spill" Chardonnay at 96 points, though no one reads Wine Enthusiast except the proofreaders and people in waiting rooms at psychiatric hospitals) has also spawned great interest in the fledgling Brown Movement in wine. (And it's easy for a consumer to actually smell the Brown Movement in a wine--so many wines proudly do.) The tiresome histrionics of those who would have us...

Wine Bloggers You Can Trust

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

I was under the apparently false illusion that I had discovered Carbon Footprint Wines. I got suckered into publishing some of their marketing material because I believed I had scooped the wine blogging community. Foolish me. As if I could outwit the parade of brilliant bloggers the Internet has to offer, those titans of wine journalism. Oh, the hubris, the hubris, my aching hubris. I was surfing the blogs, if one can surf in what amounts to a Poodle puddle, and, lo and behold, everyone is...

Introducing Carbon Footprint Wines

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

It certainly seems like every winery on the planet is jumping on the Green band wagon in an effort to sell wine. Organic, BioDynamic, Vegan, Techron, OxyContin, Martinized, Fleet--these are the words now commonly found on bottles of wine and in winery marketing brochures. All in an effort to convince wine buyers that not only will the wine get you trashed, but you can get stinko with a clean conscience. And, really, it takes so little effort on the consumer's part, requires virtually nothing...

My Mentor Vin Dispenses Wine Wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:00:00 +0000

No matter what your line of work, almost everyone has had a mentor, a person who freely and generously gave you advice and guidance on your career path, perhaps even in your every day life. I thought I would introduce you to the man who has guided me on my wine journey, a man who has taught me as much about life as he has about wine. Perhaps in reading about him you too will benefit from his wisdom for he has much to teach everyone who loves wine. His name is Vin. I met Vin at one of the...

The HoseMaster's Honest Guide to Grapes Volume 7

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Volume Seven takes us back to the world of white wine grapes. If white wine had never existed, would anyone really care? Sort of like white soul singers. Who'd miss them? If every variety of vitis vinifera were red what would we be missing? Why I simply can't imagine my life without those two bottles of Riesling I drink a year. And who wouldn't miss Chardonnay? We need a grape to badmouth like we need Barry Bonds or Glenn Beck or Mel Gibson (who, ironically, only drinks white, really white,...

Karen

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:00:00 +0000

A career in the wine business is fantastic and utterly selfish. For 30+ years I've been paid to learn about wine, drink excessively, talk about wine to everyone I meet, and accept countless free rooms and trips and hats and polo shirts. And for this I earned admiration and unwarranted respect. Walk into a party and announce you're an accountant, no one cares. Walk in and have folks discover you're a sommelier, everyone seems to want to talk to you about wine. It's shameful, really, our...

House at Spew Corner

noreply@blogger.com (Ron Washam, HMW) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Chapter 1 We are introduced to Winnie-the-Spew and our story begins So here comes Christopher Robbin and his precious Bear kerplunking and headthunking down the stairs, bump, bump, bump, one at a time, having awakened Daddy, MS, from his sound, bearlike slumber. One swift kick and Christoper Robbin and Winnie-the-Spew are already downstairs for breakfast, all of their arms bent in funny and unusual ways. "Oh, look at this, Spew, I can point in two directions at the same time with only one...