Who Are Rick (left) & Paul (right)?

 

 

(tap-tap-tap) “this thing on?”

Rick Kushman is a New York Times bestselling author and an award-wining journalist who was a longtime columnist for The Sacramento Bee. He is the wine commentator for Capital Public Radio, Sacramento’s NPR affiliate, as well as a regular guest host for the station’s highest profile show, “Insight,” and he firmly believes that anyone who makes wine too complicated or snooty should be sentenced to drinking low-carb beer.
 

At the Bee, Rick covered politics, was the national television critic, and wrote about wine and food, which was a lot more fun. He continues to write for regional and national media and his writing has appeared in publications ranging from Time Magazine to Sommelier Journal to Daily Variety.  He’s in demand for his wine writing, which seems to be because he writes as if he likes wine—he does—and as if other people like wine, too, but don’t want a Church of Wine scolding. Rick is against scoldings.
 

He’s also the author of “The Barefoot Spirit,” the bestseller that’s the story of the founding and unique marketing of Barefoot Cellars, one of the top-selling wine brands in the world. His first book is “A Moveable Thirst: Tales and Tastes from a Season in Napa Wine Country,” which he says is the funniest wine book ever written—competition: zero.
 

Rick is the Co-Chief Judge of the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition and holds a Certified Wine Professional credential from the Culinary Institute of America. He has talked about wine and food on Northern California radio stations for years, teaches wine classes to professionals and regular folk, teaches culinary journalism, and trains wineries and restaurants on how to present food and wine without the gobbledy-speak.
 

Rick is also a periodic celebrity chef for Northern California charities, which, he says, seriously stretches the definition of the word “chef,” and he’s a longtime (translation: aging) competitive runner. He lives in Sacramento with his wife, Deborah Meltvedt, who’s a high school teacher and generally the grown-up in the household, and with their cat, Anchovy Jack, who, they’re convinced, used to be a pirate.


(tap-tap-tap) “this thing off?”

Tired of working for somewhat crazy people in the wine industry in Napa Valley, Paul Wagner created Balzac Communications & Marketing on April 1, 1991, so he could work for himself—a truly crazy person. His clients have included everyone from Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines and the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux to tiny wineries you’ve never heard of. Which is his fault.

 

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He’s been teaching at Napa Valley College’s Viticulture and Enology department for the past thirty-plus years, and also lectures at major wine conferences, is a guest lecturer at many universities around the world, and has spoken at more than eighty conferences. Amazingly, he is still getting invited to lecture at universities throughout the world on wine business, communications, public affairs, wine and wine marketing.

 

His first book, co-authored with Liz Thach and Janeen Olsen, Wine Marketing & Sales, Strategies for a Saturated Market by The Wine Appreciation Guild, won the Gourmand International Award in 2008 for the best wine book of the year for professionals. The third edition of that work was published in 2019.  His second book: Wine Sales and Distribution, with John Crotts and Byron Marlowe, by Rowman and Littlefield, won the Gourmand Award for 2019, and a third book, Artisan Public Relations, was published in 2020. In 2019 he recorded a series of lectures on wine for the Great Courses program at the Teaching Company: “The Instant Sommelier,” and in 2020 recorded a series of lectures on wine for Audible: “The Story of Wine in Ten Glasses.” His recent series of mystery novels set in the Sierra Nevada have won critical acclaim, and he recently released a new mystery novel, A Murderous Vintage, set in the Napa Valley. All of his books can be found here: https://www.albicaulis.com/books-etc

 

He has been a judge at more than 100 international wine competitions. He was inducted into the Spadarini della Castellania di Soave in 2005, and in 2009 he was honored with a “Life Dedicated to Wine” award at the Feria Nacional del Vino (FENAVIN) in Spain.  In 2018 he was given the American Wine Society’s annual Award of Merit, joining such luminaries as Robert Mondavi and Gina Gallo, and was named the winner of the McPherson Distinguished Teacher Award at Napa Valley College.

He now serves as Senior Advisor, Wine Tourism for Expedia Cruises. So it’s time for him to retire.