Author Gary Thomas

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Gary Thomas
Gary Thomas is a longtime professional journalist and onetime senior correspondent at the Voice of America who spent much of his long journalistic career working overseas, including many of the world's wine regions. He served as wine columnist for the Austin American-Statesman, and has written about wine and spirits for Wine Spectator and other publications. Thomas now lives in Florida, where he continues to taste and write about wine and spirits for PalatePress.com. He describes himself as "ombibulous."

Walk down Gin Lane with these gin-centric books

Gary Thomas
Features
4 min read
GIN GLORIOUS GIN: How Mother’s Ruin Became the Spirit of London by Olivia Williams Headline Press, $14.99 (Paperback), available on Amazon “Gin was mother’s milk to her.” –Eliza Doolittle, “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw Is there a spirit both loved and reviled more than gin?  Many people cannot stand its

Book review: Eating Viet Nam

Gary Thomas
Wine Reviews
1 min read
BY: Graham Holliday, former Reuters correspondent, BBC journalism trainer, and author of the blog noodlepie WHAT: An English blogger/journalist goes on a culinary quest for the best street food in Vietnam. FOR WHOM: For foodies, world travelers (more adventurous ones) WHY: I loved this book, but must confess to a

Will We Ever Get Burgundy Back in Our Glasses?

Gary Thomas
About
12 min read
We’ve loved and lost – but is there a glimmer of new hope now? I. The Affair and the Breakup I have loved Burgundy wines since I was knee-high to a jeroboam. They were the wines of my first bloom of vinous exploration (once I got past my Boone’s Farm

Good Spirits for 2015

Gary Thomas
Features
2 min read
Back in my bartending days (many, many years ago) we rarely ventured outside of anything more complicated than a martini or a Manhattan, and we hated anyone asking for a blender drink. (“Sorry, the blender is broken. “)   But now we are in the grip of the craft cocktail craze.

French Malbec and Me: A new relationship

Gary Thomas
About
8 min read
French Malbec suffers from some deep self-esteem issues. It is the Rodney Dangerfield of the wine world, for, like the late, great comedian, “it don’t get no respect.” (Never mind the double negative.) And it has serious familial rivalry problems with its cousins in Argentina. Even a cursory glance at

From AVAs to Zinfandel, Jancis takes on American Wine

Gary Thomas
About
4 min read
British wine critic Jancis Robinson has something of a romantic debt to American wine.   Not only was her first British national wine story about American wine, but she met her husband, Nick Lander, when they organized a tasting of American wines in London. At the time, wines from the US

A Crazy Still After All These Years

Gary Thomas
Feature Stories
3 min read
If you have whiskey in your blood, that’s not a good thing if you are driving.   But whiskey as a genetic force – well, that’s another matter. Charlie and Andy Nelson have rediscovered their whiskey-soaked roots, and are reviving the long-dormant family business near Nashville in their home state of