Author Archives | Jonathan Russo
Jonathan Russo is the publisher of the Organic Wine Journal.
It Takes A Celebrity
Hillary Clinton’s famous book It Takes A Village set out to explain how important it was to have a whole community involved in the rearing of a child. In our ‘now’ culture that book would be retitled It Takes A Celebrity. Lisa Abend’s Time Magazine article Kitchen Gods was about… what else? Celebrity chefs. What [...]
Continue reading...The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves
May 18, 2010
The Authenticity Hoax is the most infuriating of all reads. The reader suspects that author Andrew Potter is either fundamentally cranky and unhappy, a boorish contrarian or clever at coming up with a manuscript that will be published by Rupert Murdock (Harper) and reviewed by him as well (Wall Street Journal). This book is the [...]
Continue reading...Shinn Estate Takes The Right Fork
March 8, 2010
New York’s Long Island breaks into two at Riverhead, some 80 miles from Manhattan. The South Fork encompasses the Hamptons, with its super-fabulous lifestyle astride the magnificent beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The North Fork has always been quieter, more agricultural, with its bay front coves and more easy-going people. In the last decade, the [...]
Continue reading...Kuma Inn
January 15, 2010
The first week of the New Year is the slowest one for restaurants. We eat out then to show support and take advantage of the lower crowd levels. We also wanted to ring in the year with a toast to one of our all-time favorite wine makers Tony Coturri. We made our way to Kuma [...]
Continue reading...2009 – Thanks From The Organic Wine Journal
December 30, 2009
This last decade in wine has been one of polarization – two trains speeding down the rails with different destinations in mind. The world of branded image-driven corporate wine got bigger. The top brands consolidated their stranglehold at the distribution and retail level. Mega corporations with thousands of employees pressed and sold billions of gallons [...]
Continue reading...Tishbi Winery – Israel
December 7, 2009
To understand Israel’s Tishbi Winery, it helps to know the history of winemaking in Napa and Sonoma. California’s wineries were started in the last quarter of the 19th century by visionary European immigrants, hard-working farmers. They grew grapes they were familiar with in the “old country” and prospered slowly; enduring droughts, market disruptions (prohibition), changing [...]
Continue reading...Odeon Gets It Right
October 28, 2009
I love this restaurant. One of Keith McNally’s first successes, it’s been a fixture in New York’s Tribeca for 29 years. I lived four blocks away from 1975-1985 during a wild and crazy time in New York so it’s a real trip down memory lane just to step in the place. Odeon is now owned [...]
Continue reading...Send Monsato The Bill
October 4, 2009
According to the Associated Press, congress has granted $350 million in aid to struggling milk producers. It seems there is an oversupply of milk, and the price paid to farmers is so low they are losing money on every gallon sold, hence the needed rescue by taxpayers. What wasn’t written about is how the farmers [...]
Continue reading...A Tale Of Three Rosés
September 9, 2009
A Tale Of Three Rosés One of life’s unfortunate characteristics is limited choices. In August one cannot lounge about in St. Tropez and hike Oregon’s Cascade Mountains at the same time. Bicyclists must choose to go touring or trail riding. People lucky enough to have a horse or a boat know that there are other [...]
Continue reading...Judging The Judges
August 10, 2009
The recent announcement that Wal-Mart will be evaluating the environmental impact of the products sold in its stores was more than a little weird. As the biggest of the big box stores worldwide, a merchant that made “we sell for less” the gold standard in retailing, this new obsession with “sustainability” and “traceability” gave us [...]
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June 18, 2010
Editorials