Erin Brooks

  • So You Want to Be a Beverage Director?

    These days, you don’t have to subscribe to Decanter magazine to read about the wine business. Even the pages of Vogue boast articles glamorizing the work of beverage professionals. Yet while these portrayals have improved readers’ understanding of the industry, they leave something to be desired. Counting bottles until the wee hours of the morning is not what most people have in mind when they imagine the work of…

    • Feb 8, 2017
  • Fraud, Counterfeit, and the Sommelier

    Headlines about the most recent high profile counterfeit wine scandal read like the chapters of a crime novel: A Vintage Crime; Wine Fraud Case Takes Another Twist; Counterfeiter Sentenced to Ten Years. Rudy Kurniawan, an Indonesian immigrant who at one...

    • Nov 14, 2015
  • Navigating Wine Certification in America

    I’ve been told that life is about the journey, not the destination, and I try to remember this when I’m up at 6:00 a.m. for a tasting group, or at my desk at midnight after work writing an essay about modern viticultural practices in New Zealand. When...

    • Jul 19, 2015