Author W. Blake Gray

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W. Blake Gray
Staff Writer
Wine writer W. Blake Gray is Chairman of the Electoral College of the Vintners Hall of Fame. Previously wine writer/editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, he has contributed articles on wine and sake to The Los Angeles Times, Food & Wine, Wine & Spirits, Wine Review Online, and a variety of other publications. He travels frequently to wine regions and enjoys coming home to San Francisco.

In praise of the “mouth rinse”

W. Blake Gray
Features
3 min read
Kermit Lynch once described a wine he imported as "a mouth rinse." He meant it as praise. I saw this a decade ago and have never forgotten it. Nobody speaks well of simplicity in wine. It doesn't matter which side of the power vs. elegance debate you're on. Power fans

The 8 Wrong Ways To Drink, Serve And Enjoy Wine

W. Blake Gray
Features
3 min read
Is there a "right" way to drink wine? I'm not sure. But there are wrong ways. Some might want to deny this because we don't want to be exposed as wine snobs. But the prevailing American culture around wine is far more prescriptive than that. The food media constantly tells

Are millennials wine illiterate?

W. Blake Gray
Features
4 min read
Are millennials illiterate? Uninterested in where wine comes from? Or are they wine's Greatest Generation? My working assumption has been the latter: that people in their 20s are willing to spend money on wines from anywhere, and are more concerned with drinking something interesting than impressing their peers.   But

Old guys: Don’t like the wine list? Eat somewhere else!

W. Blake Gray
Features
5 min read
Update: Read Charles Olken's response: "Wine List Snobbism: Real or Made Up by 'Old Guys'?"  "Hipster sommeliers." "Dim somms." Oh no! Arrogant youngsters are forcing helpless diners to consume weird wines! Save us from this horrible trend! This is one of the top memes for ancient wine writers this summer. It's also

Putting Ontario wine on the map

W. Blake Gray
Features
6 min read
To understand wine in Ontario, Canada, you just need to look at two maps.First, let me answer what everybody outside Canada is asking: Why should you care? There are some world-class wines being made in Ontario that you can buy from wine shops in New York and have shipped anywhere
By Brian Sterling (Flickr: Vineyard on Montebello Ridge) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Do Lower Yields Mean Higher Quality?

W. Blake Gray
Features
3 min read
One of the main statistical canards about wine is that smaller yields equal better quality. This is so widely believed in Europe that wine seminars become predictable. If a winemaker is on a podium talking about a wine, the first question is never about philosophy or intention, but "What was

Blind Tasting: Unreliable but Necessary

W. Blake Gray
Features
4 min read
Blind tasting is an artificial experience. Consumers don't taste wines blind, except as a game. If you really want to enjoy a glass of wine, you need to know what it is. Where it came from. Who made it. Its story. But blind tasting is essential for critics. It's the