Temperatures have been rising in recent wine columns. A seemingly harmless piece on baseball stadia a couple of weeks ago incited one loyal SF Chronicle reader to write a rather extraordinary invective against a SF Chronicle columnist's percieved condescension. In a letter piquantly entitled "Get a life, you snot-nosed snob," Jerold H. Rekosh lambasts the writer's "snot-nosed, snoblike attitude toward the grape." He continues, "I do not know what you are other than a baseball junkie and an underpaid staff writer for the finest newspaper in the West." (And as if to redress Rekosh's searing missive, the rest of this week's Chronicle devotes its attention to the rather more tepid intricacies of AVAs -- focusing particularly on Paso Robles.)
Given the current swelter, it's not particularly surprising that high-acid Rieslings and austere Sancerres and Chablis are among the wines being touted by wine writers. The heat might even have gotten to one particular columnist, who feverishly suggests Campari mixed with soda as her wine of the week. Finally, a front-page article in the WSJ on the fervid cult of Screaming Eagle is also worth pointing out.