LOS ANGELES (DEC. 8, 2010): Thank you for being part of a new chapter in my life – this website. I feel like I worked my whole life to get here. So I am happy that you are reading this and exploring the pages of jamessuckling.com.
James Orr and I filming just before the harvest last year on location at Château Canon in St.-Emilion, France.
When I began this project, I never thought it would be as difficult as it has been. And it continues to be a challenge. But I love it. I have spent many sleepless nights thinking about all I had to do to bring these pages to you, as well as everything other people had to do. The website alone has taken thousands of hours to conceive and finally build. And I am sure improvements and tweaks are still necessary. But I am getting there.
I am going to do my best to deliver. I have always tried hard to bring you the best I can do as a wine critic, whether evaluating young barrel samples from Bordeaux or bottles of aged Burgundy or Vintage Port. And I have always tried to communicate my impressions and experiences with wine in a clear and entertaining manner. I have always looked at the world of wine, and the world in general, with a journalist’s eye that looks for some truth and happiness in everything. And a lot of those views and observations are going to be in high-definition video!
It’s sometimes hard to believe that I became a wine critic. I was hell bent on bringing down governments as a badass journalist when I left the University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate program in journalism. It was post-Watergate and I was on a journalist mission from the moment I began as a cub reporter in undergraduate studies at Utah State University. And I worked my way through graduate school as a police reporter at The Wisconsin State Journal.
But I ended up here. I ended up with my own website where I can tell the world what I have learned in the past, present and future. And I am happy to be here with you and everyone else. It’s the beginning of something new and exciting for all of us.
Peace.
BuddyW