Wine Reviewer News

[Joe Riley]

David Schildknecht, a longtime contributing writer for Steve Tanzer's International Wine Cellar is going to be writing for The Wine Advocate.

David is well-known to a number of longtime Washington wine consumers - he used to be the wine manager at Pearson's until about ten years ago or so. He has been living and working in Cincinnati, working for an importer/distributor company called Vintner Select, and writing for various periodicals part-time.

David is argueably the foremost english-language authority on German and Austrian wines in the United States, and his grasp of French wines and many other kinds is tops in his field as well. He has a keen intellect, a clinical detatchment when he needs it, an insatiable curiosity about wine and the people who grow it, and he is a firm believer in terroire, soil and microclimates.

I admire David's palate and I personally place his analysis of any given wine among the most thoughtful and considered that I could possibly read.

His writing is VERY engaging, and I respect his professionalism and even-handedness.

I'm somewhat shocked by this, because David never embraced the 100-point system so promulgated by The Wine Advocate. I wish him nthing but the best, and I hope he can provide more food for thought for subscribers who are simply looking for easily-digested "sound-bites" on wine, plus a score.

In other news, which I mentioned in the dedicated thread, Michael Franz is soon to write his last column for the Post. I'm guessing that he's going to be concentrating on the WineReviewsOnline website.

I'll miss his columns in the Post, but I'll follow him online.