My personal philosophy is, you can be sure of nothing.

My personal philosophy is, you can be sure of nothing.

From a wine critic's perspective, there are far too many innocuous, over-oaked, over-acidified, or over-cropped wines emerging from California. While those sins would not be a problem if the wines sold for under $20, many are in fact $75-$150. That's appalling.

I'm a common-sense kind of guy.

I've always followed the rule that anything worth doing is worth doing excessively.

Wine to me is something that brings people together. Wine does promote conversation and promote civility, but it's also fascinating. It's the greatest subject to study. No matter how much you learn, every vintage is going to come at you with different factors that make you have to think again.

Part of life is to live it, and enjoy it, and seize the moments that you find particularly pleasing.