As a wine blogger I spend a fair amount of time looking through other wine blogs and not infrequently I leave a comment while I’m there. I don’t plagiarize, nor do I look to other blogs to be competitive or inspired by ideas. In fact many of the subjects I post on my blog turn up on other people’s blogs a few days later. Coincidence? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is.

Anyhow I’m not in this for any reason other than to encourage people to learn more about wine, regardless of what level of knowledge they may have. If someone is truly interested in the subject, there are lots of people, blogs, and sites out there with considerable wine knowledge and if someone happens to land on my site, great. If not, it doesn’t matter where such wine-knowledge-seeker-dude-or-lady lands as long as it’s reliable information that’s gleaned from the attended site. I know from looking around that levels of accurate and reliable information about wine can vary widely from site to site.

Which brings me to this: Steve Heimoff. If you’ve be around wine for very long, chances are quite good that you already know him, so to speak. If not, then you would do well to get to know him. So to speak. Steve began his illustrious career writing for Wine Spectator in the late ‘80s and became the West Coast Editor of Wine Enthusiast magazine by 1994, a position he still holds to this day. He is also the author of several well received wine related books published by University of California Press.

But for me, a huge chasm exists between a wine writer and a true wine aficionado that also happens to be able to be expressive through the medium of writing. A wine writer knows the language and vocabulary, and how to use words for maximum effect with the intent of selling the publication to its readers; their editors often take care of the rest in the backroom. But some of these persons (usually associated with newspaper-type columns) simply lack true knowledge or passion about the subject – it’s a day job with a paycheck attached, which appears glamorous to aspiring writer/critics but it can be a very difficult path to stay on for those not truly engaged. They may know a lot of people, how to write a compelling piece, how to rate wine for their publication, and a lot of stuff that helps them do their job, but maybe not so much about the real wine world at large. And this is where Mr. Heimoff shines well beyond the aforementioned.

He is really well equipped intellectually but takes a very balanced approach to the subjects he writes about, yet he will also take a stand about something he vehemently agrees with or disagrees with. There’s lots of that in the wine world incidentally. By all accounts Steve is considered a wine expert; he knows wine extremely well but considers all the angles and makes a fair, if not provocative, report. I like that he respects Bordeaux and other wine regions of the world although his professional world revolves around Cali-forn-eye-aye; besides I enjoy a number of CA wines too in addition to Bordeaux and most other regions. And even though there are two other wine critics I also respect and admire (James Suckling and Stephen Tanzer), I would be remiss in my responsibility to you, dear readers, to not let you know about Steve Heimoff. Mr. Heimoff’s blog can be visited without having to be a subscriber at: steveheimoff.com/ and he always has a lot to say.

Yes, I recall that fairly recently I made some rules about my blog roll in ‘It’s a Blog Eat Blog World’ post (http://blog.classof1855.com/2009/09/10/its-a-blog-eat-blog-world.aspx). And what I wrote in part was that I didn’t want to include a blog that was created by a professional publication. I’m not slamming professional publications – I am knee deep in them myself as a way of keeping current (and also sometimes as a means of discovery too); but this blog belongs to Steve, not his publication. And although he probably deftly avoids conflicts of interest with his employer, everything else is fair game and thus with his knowledge and experience, his blog is excellent because he very well knows how to use his own voice.

In any event I hope you at least check it out - I’m positive you’ll like being exposed to Steve’s stellar work and lucid outlook.