Sacramento, CA (December 7, 2016) – Award-winning writers Rick Kushman and Paul Wagner are starting Season 3 of their war against wine snobs with a new snappier format for their podcast. The show is recorded at Capital Public Radio in Sacramento and includes questions from listeners, interviews, wine recommendations and an all-out assault on wine babble wherever it appears. Which seems to be everywhere.
“We’ve been asked to fit into a shorter format so that more people can listen,” says Kushman. “Frankly, we’re surprised that anyone listens to us. We barely listen to each other.”
Kushman is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Barefoot Spirit, the story of the founding and unique marketing of Barefoot Cellars. He is an award-wining journalist and the wine commentator for Capital Public Radio, Sacramento’s NPR affiliate.
“We’ve had a ton of fun working on this show,” says Wagner. “And amazingly enough, we’ve had quite a demand to bring it back in the shorter format. It just shows that people are still thirsty for our approach to wine. It isn’t complicated. All you need to know is which end of the bottle to open. After that, it’s all fun.”
Wagner teaches wine classes at Napa Valley College and the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone. With Liz Thach and Janeen Olsen, he authored a book: Wine Marketing & Sales, Strategies for a Saturated Market, which won the Gourmand International Award for the best wine book of the year for professionals and he’s is a regular contributor to Allexperts.com on wine and beverages.
Kushman and Wagner have earned acclaim for their friendly and light-hearted take on wine, and their good-natured attacks on wine snobs and bad wine writing. “We think we’ve broken new ground in the conversation about wine because we’re using a language we call Basic English,” says Kushman.
“We think of this as a wine show for normal people,” Wagner says. “Not that anyone has ever called us normal.”
“Some local wineries turn on the show in the cellar for the employees—and we think that’s a compliment,” Kushman says. “We also think the employees must be really bored to need us.”
About Bottle Talk with Rick and Paul
“Bottle Talk with Rick and Paul” airs a new segment every Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific time at http://www.rickandpaulwine.com/. Prior shows are available on the site, as is information about sponsorship.
