I'm glad Craig Camp blogs. I have never met Craig nor have I ever spoken to the guy. But I've been following his blog for almost a year now and am better off for it. You see, I believe Craig is changing the way folks approach, drink, think, and talk about wine. He's a counter-balance to the ongoing trend of wine critics/reviewers/bloggers taking a glass of wine and distilling it into a number, usually on a 100 point scale, and just leaving it at that, a score.

I am a huge fan of Craig writing about wine in a broader context, of going beyond the bottle to share stories about the people and places producing what's in his glass. And there is probably no one more qualified to do it than Craig. Why? He's got decades of experience working in and writing about the wine industry. In fact, Craig is now president of Anne Amie Vineyards in Carlton, OR, a winery he joined several years ago. But his expertise is not limited to wine alone. Craig's writings place an equal emphasis on food, which is a more effective way to assess a wine's strengths and weaknesses.

Craig's writings have connected me to wines I would have never discovered. For example, by reading his blog, I encountered a 2001 Paolo Manzoni Barolo Serralunga that happened to be from a Piemonte village my wife, in-laws, and I visited that same year. We vacationed in the exact spot where the grapes that went into that bottle were grown. Thanks to Craig's recommendation, I found the wine at a local grocer and opened a bottle for Christmas dinner last December. See how wine can connect so many people, places, and events?

My only concern for Craig is that as his writings continue to spread far and wide on the topics of food and wine, so does his blog. The site is unwieldy at times, hard to navigate, let alone search (the Technorati site search tool is useless). I had the hardest time locating some of his previous posts on topics I wanted to include in this entry. Hopefully, he'll be getting some help soon to improve the user experience on his blog. It would be a shame for so many great thoughts on wine to go undiscovered.

Even still, please visit The Wine Camp Blog and continue reading. I raise my glass to Craig and hope he gains increased attention and a broader following amongst wine enthusiasts. The wine world will be better for it and I know you will too. Visit his blog, read his posts about people and places, try the wines he recommends, and you'll start to experience wine in a manner that goes beyond the bottle.

And Craig's winery is definitely at the top of my list of places to visit on my next trip to Oregon. Stay tuned for that winery review later this year. Cheers!