In another life, before I cared about wine, before I had ever seen the Golden Gate Bridge, before I cut my hair, I was a copy editor.
And I edited a wine writer named Laurie Daniel every week for the Wednesday food section. (My paper at the time was a sister paper to the San Jose Mercury News, hence our connection to Laurie.) I made very few changes to her stories. The spelling and grammar were good. And if I had to touch anything at all, it was usually just adjusting paragraph lengths and spacing and widows to make the column fit on the page. Laurie knew her stuff.
A few years later, I started to write about wine. This time, I found myself turning to Laurie again -- not to check her comma placements or her "their" vs. "they're" -- but for advice. I was looking for background info about the wine industry, which varietals certain regions are best-known for, who the major players are. (Can you tell I was writing about the business end of wine?) Once again, Laurie knew.
And today's column in the San Jose Mercury News confirms Laurie's fabulousness. Hooray for recognizing that not all wines from the 2000 vintage suck! Hooray for the great use of the terms "humongous" and "exaggerated"!
And, yes, hooray for voting for us!
Laurie Daniel knows, man.
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