2015 Vintners Hall of Fame Inductees

Just noted the 2015 Inductees into the CIA's Vintners Hall of Fame:
2015 Vintners HoF

CesarChavez
MerryEdwards
RobertMParker, Jr.
FrankSchoonmaker

I'd always been a bit puzzled as to why Parker had not been nominated for this prestigious award. He, singlehandedly, is responsible for the heights & prestige that Calif wines enjoy on the world stage. His incessant preaching against filtering and Calif's attempt to make wines in an OldWorld style finally turned that huge ship around. By use of his widely-adopted 100-pt scale, and awarding many wineries perfect scores, he lifted many wineries to the cult status they now enjoy.

A well-deserved honor, I say. He joins such nobodies like CaroleMeredith/DarrellCorti/RandallGrahm/VernSingleton/DickGraff/LeeAdams/etc, whose contributions to the Calif wine industry pale in comparison.

I've ordered my tickets already for this April 26 event.

Tom

I guess your post was meant to solicit a plethora of remarks Tom. We'll only say that he was singularly responsible for ruining many brands by demanding that they make over ripe blockbusters that are only good for throwing at losers at the track.

[Robin Garr]

Let's not give short shrift to the other nominees. Each in his/her own way has made major contributions, not just to California but to the world of wine. I'm a big fan of Chavez, but then I'm a leftie and a liberation-theology kind of guy. As for Schoonmaker, I credit his encyclopedia and Hugh Johnson's books as the primary tools that helped me get serious about wine, perhaps not quite as close to the very start as TomHill but pretty well back there. '70s, anyway.

[David M. Bueker]

None of them has 300 wins, 3000 hits or even a single MVP award.

I don't get it.

Let's not give short shrift to the other nominees. Each in his/her own way has made major contributions, not just to California but to the world of wine. I'm a big fan of Chavez, but then I'm a leftie and a liberation-theology kind of guy. As for Schoonmaker, I credit his encyclopedia and Hugh Johnson's books as the primary tools that helped me get serious about wine, perhaps not quite as close to the very start as TomHill but pretty well back there. '70s, anyway.

Yup...very good point, Robin. The Schoonmaker book was one of my early bibles.
Tom

I used the Schoonmaker book too the first time I purchased a Burgundy wine in a French retail wine shop (a Savigny les Beaune as I recall.) And I am honored to have had several conversations with Merry Edwards both in the Triangle area and in Sonoma County. She was one of the early female graduates of U of C at Davis wine course. I went almost a whole year not eating grapes because of a Cesar Chavez-led boycott of the grape industry in California (labor and pesticide issues.)

What are the inductee criteria for the Vintners Hall of Fame? From the title, one would have thought only winemakers would be eligible for the honor.

-Paul W.

[Robin Garr]

What are the inductee criteria for the Vintners Hall of Fame? From the title, one would have thought only winemakers would be eligible for the honor.

Errr ... actually, only wine sellers would be eligible. The use of "vintner" for "wine maker" has come about only in the modern era, probably late 20th century when good wine became a Thing in the U.S. It's so commonplace now that it may have even worked its way into the dictionary, but it abuses the original idea.

“And much as Wine has played the Infidel, And robbed me of my Robe of Honor Well, I often wonder what the Vintners buy One half so precious as the stuff they sell.”
―Edward Fitzgerald

Vintner
Vintner \Vint"ner\, n. [OE. vintener, viniter, OF. vinetier,
vinotier, LL. vinetarius, fr. L. vinetum a vineyard, fr.
vinum wine. See {Wine}.]
One who deals in wine; a wine seller, or wine merchant.

ORIGIN late Middle English: via Anglo-Latin from Old French vinetier, from medieval Latin vinetarius, from Latin vinetum ‘vineyard,’ from vinum ‘wine.’

Vintner, Grocer, Greengrocer (but fishmonger...)

USA use of vintner as a winemaker puzzled me at first, then justified it because they do go out and sell the wines by promoting them. And some winemakers do own their own wineries and are responsible for selling their wines.

Winemaket is a specific and rather ugly word. But I don't myself use vintner except as a wine merchant.

Whatever. My question still remains: What are the eligibility criteria for the Vintners Hall of Fame?

-Paul W.

Whatever. My question still remains: What are the eligibility criteria for the Vintners Hall of Fame?
-Paul W.

Paul,
Beats heck out of me what are the elgibility criteria. Probably works on the usual good-ole-boy network
as these things usually do. They probably send out an e-mail to hunners of folks in the wine biz for nominations,
they compile these nominations into the top 100 nominees. Then they have a committee of folks who select the
final 5 inductees based on who's buddies with whom. The members of the selection comittee are probably based
on who's made large donations to the CIA. There's no mention on the CIA Site about committee members or what
criteria they use. The only one I know is is PaulWagner of Balzac Communications, whoever he be.

I'm not at all impressed w/ the CIA wine program, primarily based on some of the faculty they have.

Tom