Dan Berger: The curmudgeonly dean of American wine writers still keeps readers off-balance
By Alan Goldfarb
NAPA, Calif. — A winemaker recently told me about his trepidation about his upcoming meeting with the venerable wine journalist Dan Berger, saying that he was “very nervous.” Berger, a self-styled curmudgeon, is really a soft touch as a colleague and friend, but when it comes to tackling a wine-writing assignment, oy vey!
That’s because Berger — whom I’ve known personally for about 30 years — possesses a work ethic not often found these days among folks who write about wine. He has another quality I admire, too. Now 81, he is the last of a breed, a dogged journalist. I call him the dean of American wine writers.
Berger has been known to send wines that vintners hope to have him write about to a lab at his own expense just to prove the efficacy of the numbers on the tech sheets that he demands before writing about them. That’s because Berger is a world-class skeptic — a trait all good journalists should have in their quivers and at the ready. If your pH aligns with his findings, you’re off to a good start.
That measurement of acidity in wine informs Berger about almost everything there is to know about a wine. Alcohol percentages can be a telltale sign, but Doubter Dan knows all about the governmental fudge factor on that one. He might even add a spoonful of water to mitigate a wine’s alcohol. And he has been known to leave a bottle open for days to see it has staying power. The degree of Brix, the sugar measurement of a wine, also informs him as to what the wine might taste like.
But it’s the pH – the tell – that lights Berger up. Or not.
Which is why he sent messages back and forth over about a two-week span that seemed like an eternity asking about the aforementioned winemaker’s pHs — the real pHs, not something lacking veracity. And which is why that winemaker was shaking in his cellar boots before Berger pronounced the wines to his liking and acquiesced to taste them.
Berger, once a sportswriter (a beat on several wine writers’ CVs, including this one) for the straight-ahead Associated Press and The San Diego Union, began writing about wine concurrently, beginning in 1976. After learning about footwork from the acrobatic Padres shortstop Ozzie Smith and getting Washington’s John Wilbur to speak to him after the offensive guard got pummeled by the Dolphins in the ’73 Super Bowl, Berger began crossing over to that other blood sport, wine. He wrote wine for those same publications and then the Los Angeles Times. His weekly column was syndicated to papers that now include the Napa Valley Register, which may or may not be his last stop.
“I’m younger than I may be because I try to out-write myself,” he says, “but I have nothing left but enthusiasm.” Out-writing himself means he pens two drafts in case he doesn’t like the first; which he usually does not. That said, Berger admits that now he’s finding it harder and taking him longer to complete assignments because his wife and longtime editor, Julie Ann, resides in a nearby facility because of dementia. Editing himself is a slog for a man who has been writing about wine for nearly a half-century. Often after he writes a first draft he takes a second look and asks, “Who wrote this bullshit?”
In the end, after the tech sheet lab numbers come back and perhaps he has walked a vineyard to get a more complete picture of a subject, his M.O., is “Keep the reader off-balance a little bit.”
“The last thing my readers want from me is formula writing,” he says. “That’s such boring writing that I can’t stand it. I try to come up with something to keep the reader a little bit on edge. Ultimately what we’re doing is creating entertainment. Sometimes I make an allusion to a completely different artform. I’ll mention Mozart or Dali or a Ferrari — things that have absolutely nothing to do with wine.”
When I ask about what he thinks of the people who are the new generation of wine scribes, I can guess what his answer will be: “Plenty of wine writers fall back on the easy, simplistic, and that’s not how I write. I guess you could say I consider myself a contrarian, but with prices going up and up, I want to keep the readers empowered.”
I then venture out onto a thinner limb: Is wine journalism dead?
“In a certain way, yes, not because wine journalism is dead but journalism is dying,” he responds. “And wine journalism is suffering.”
And thinner still: What does he think of influencers?
“I don’t think wine influencers have any place in the business because most are not skilled enough to know anything about wine,” he says and then proceeds to call the play-for-pay self-styled promonistas “tub thumpers.”
“They’re banging the drum — calling attention to themselves for no reason except they’re getting paid to do it. It seems artificial. Wine writers owe it to the consumer to dig deeper, get the story beyond the story.”
But back to Berger’s raison d’être, pHs.
“They say, ‘Do you really care about pH?’ You bet I care about it,” he says without equivocating. “I say, tell me the pH and I’ll tell you if the wine will be alive in 10 years.”
The aforementioned winemaker who was dreading meeting Berger tells me in the aftermath: “He was really a nice guy. He was very interested.”
But it’s not easy for Berger these days.
He ends our conversation with this: “Every day is a challenge.”
I think he meant it in a positive sense. Here’s hoping Dan Berger keeps writing about wine for the next 10 years.
Alan Goldfarb has been writing about wine for about 35 years. He was the wine editor at the St. Helena Star and a contributor to The Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Decanter Magazine and Alta Journal of California, among hundreds of other publications. He also has an independent winery media relations consultancy, All Media Winery Solutions.
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