We know it’s cold. We feel it everytime we go out (except for a couple hours between 1-3 p.m. when the gloom parts just long enough for the sun to come out). The Wall Street Journal wrote an article last week saying it’s the coldest summer along the West Coast in decades. Nearly every day, my local Weather Channel station predicts “near record cold” nighttime low temperatures. I’ve been saying this since March. Cold, cold, cold. 2010: the year without a spring or a summer. My TV weatherman just told us “The last time it was 80 degrees in San Francisco was on March 19. The last time it was 70 degrees was on July 4.” He is freaking out because he’s never seen anything like it.

The harvest looks particularly threatened in Sonoma County. I think growers there are legitimately concerned that the grapes won’t be ripe before the rains come. Early-ripening varieties — sparkling wines, Sauvignon Blanc — should be okay. It’s those thicker-skinned grapes that could be problems. Growers are cluster-thinning like crazy, hoping to speed up the ripening process. That’s one traditional intervention, but it’s not guaranteed. Michel-Schlumberger’s winemaker, Jim Morris, told me, “In 30 years we’ve never seen the weather this extreme.” They’re worried about rain, about mildew. At this rate, the grapes won’t be ready to pick until Oct. 22. That’s pretty late. Dry Creek Valley could have a lot of rain by then.

Napa may be in better shape. Being one mountain range further inland, it’s a little warmer and drier. But it’s not without problems. “Right now we need HEAT,” Tara Sharp, from Capture, told me. Gerard Zanzonico (Del Dotto) said, “At least two weeks behind.  More so on mountain fruit…Going to single cluster up on Howell.  It’s snip, snip here and snip, snip there and a couple of Tra, La, La’s. That’s how we work the day away in the merry old land of Napa Valley!”

In Paso Robles, this from Kevin Sass, at Justin. “We are about 2 weeks behind here in Paso Robles as well. We have not hit the panic button as we always have low crop levels. But if we don’t see some heat by Labor Day, we will have to evaluate a real HEAVY green drop.” On the other hand, just so you don’t think I’m reporting only bad news, this, from Jason Haas at Tablas Creek: “We’re most like 1999 or 2005 here in Paso, about 10 days behind normal out at Tablas Creek.  Definitely warmer than 1998, which itself was a pretty good Rhone vintage here.  We should be fine (even good) as long as we don’t get unusually early rain.”

Up in Calaveras, Scott Klann is “VERY concerned” about some of his blocks that are three weeks behind schedule.

I haven’t talked to anyone from Anderson Valley, but the average high for today (tomorrow, as you read this) in Boonville is 91, while today’s predicted high is 79. That comports with my experience of the rest of Northern Calfornia’s weather pattern this summer — anywhere from 5-12 degrees below average highs, day after day. Ditto for Sonoma’s Town Square: average high for today 86.5, while today’s predicted high is only 76.

Santa Barbara? How are you doing?

And this just in from the National Weather Service, for the 8-14 day temperature prediction. Check out the map. The blue color and capital B mean “below normal.” Meanwhile, the East continues to bake.

How much independence should a publisher give to an employee critic whose criticisms are hurting the publication?

That’s the big question raised by the case of a classical music critic in Cleveland, Donald Rosenberg, who was pressured by his editor to lay off his heavy criticism of the Cleveland Orchestra, which Rosenberg had been reviewing negatively for some time, according to this report in last Saturday’s New York Times.

Rosenberg sued his paper, The Plain Dealer, alleging he’d been reassigned to lesser roles and ordered not to review the Cleveland Orchestra anymore. The newspaper and its editor, Susan Goldberg, defended themselves in court, with the latter testifying that a “hefty chunk of the community was saying that Don Rosenberg was biased and unfair and that he was compromising our integrity.”

Both sides had expert witnesses testifying on their behalf. A jury last week ruled for The Plain Dealer, effectively throwing out Rosenberg’s complaint, which also included a charge of age discrimination. Rosenberg remains employed at the newspaper, but only as a music reporter (not a critic) and a dance critic.

As I read this, all kinds of questions popped up in my mind. What would happen if lots of readers of Wine Enthusiast started complaining about my reviews? Would my publisher reply, “Steve has every right in the world to express his opinion — that’s what we pay him to do” ? Or would he be concerned about a subscriber (and possible advertiser) backlash, and conclude that it was in the company’s best interests to rein me in?

Fortunately, the above has not occurred, and isn’t likely to. My magazine gives me wide latitude to tell the truth as I see it. I’m sure some of my reviews make my publisher, Adam Strum, wince; but he understands and respects the importance of employing unbiased editors, whose rectitude and incorruptibility in reviewing reflects well upon Wine Enthusiast.

For me, the most interesting and troublesome issue in the Rosenberg case is this: If The Plain Dealer thought highly enough of Rosenberg to hire him in the first place and then keep him onboard for years, how could they now question his objectivity, just because some people complained? It does look like management caved to outside pressure. The editor said (I’m quoting from the Times) that “Mr. Rosenberg had a closed mind about [the orchestra’s music director].”

“A closed mind.” Wow. Think about that. When I criticize certain table wines for having too much residual sugar, does that mean I have “a closed mind”? What about a wine I give a low score to because it smells like it came from the inside of a cat’s bladder? Is my mind “closed” to the pleasures of cat pee? For that matter, what about an eleven-year old Chardonnay that’s dead? Is my mind “closed” to dead Chard? You see where this is going: toward a slippery slope. Any negative critique of any kind can be attributed to “a closed mind.” But what does a publication hire a critic for, if not to praise things he likes and blast things he doesn’t? And shouldn’t a scrupulous editor stand by her critic?

I think The Plain Dealer caved in to outside pressure, but obviously, eight jurors who actually heard the case disagreed. What do you think?

Wednesday night, 9:10 p.m. Pacific time, right off the plane from NY – I have been virtually out of touch the last 3 days due to our meetings at Wine Enthusiast planning 2011. I feel hugely guilty at not approving comments. I just did. I apologize for not being able to do this sooner. I love and respect my readers who take the time and who deserve quick response. I just can’t always do it. Return to normal tomorrow, Thursday.

I’m not sure that an audience comprised of Masters of Wine was the right venue for an advertising man to call for a simpler, more consumer-friendly approach to marketing our favorite beverage. After all, there’s no wine club on Earth more elite than the MWs.

But it was at an MW event in Bordeaux that Sir John Hegarty told the crowd, “The [wine] industry fails hopelessly on accessibility. This market…goes out of its way to confuse the consumer. You’ve seen it – the way people in restaurants nervously pass round a wine list. It’s fear. You as an industry have encouraged that fear. The wine industry is the most fragmented market I’ve seen. Fragmented, confusing, impenetrable.”

It’s true, isn’t it? You and I, who know something about wine, go our merry little ways, making tasting notes, debating about Burgundy vs. New World Pinot Noir and speculating on the future of social media. But the average consumer, on whose shoulders the industry rests, indeed is totally confused and fearful.

Hegarty is creative director of an ad firm, Bartle Bootle Hegarty, which has worked on campaigns ranging from Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Finger Lickin Good to Levi’s Flatbeat TV ads that included a yellow puppet

to Johnnie’s Walker’s “Keep Walking” commercials,

which were credited with helping to revive that whiskey brand’s fortunes. I don’t think a single ad campaign is going to be wine’s salvation — and with per capita continuing to rise in America, things aren’t quite as bad as perhaps Mr. Hagarty painted them to be. But everybody knows that millions of adult Americans are scared to death about wine, or have negative attitudes toward it, or both, and we need to do something about it.

The snobbism factor is the main problem. I know people who are perfectly happy to get snookered on beer or cocktails, but when it comes to wine, they shrug their shoulders and say, with an embarrassed little smile, “Oh, I’m not really an expert,” as if you have to be an expert to like wine but not beer or liquor. The wine industry itself created this myth, although it did so unwittingly, in an era when the industry’s most creative minds thought that the way to sell more wine was to create an aura of aspiration.

For example, I remember a wine TV commercial from years ago that, I think, was from Gallo. As I recall, it showed a wedding couple, she in a white gown, he in a tuxedo, and they were riding in one of Boston Commons’ famous swan boats,

toasting each other with a glass of bubbly. I remember thinking then, and it’s even truer today, “OMG, the concept this ad is delivering is that the only time you’re permitted to drink sparkling wine is on your wedding day, on a swan boat in Boston Common.”

And then there was Orson Welles’ creative but fatuous “We will sell no wine before its time” commercials for Paul Masson,

as if Paul Masson’s wines needed to be aged. Those ads were pretty classy, but did they sell wine? I don’t think so. They just proved once again, to the average guy, that wine is too complicated to deal with.

Compare that with the Bud Lite TV commercials of the same era,

in which regular dudes had fun with each other, often with scantily-clad bosomy beauties. (Not defending that, no ma’am. No sexism at steveheimoff.com. Just sayin’.) That sold bottles of beer, by the billions.

Hegarty didn’t come up with any specific ideas for marketing wine, although the article did suggest he said something interesting: His “solution [according to the reporter] was to redress wine’s image as an accompaniment to food – which he suggested was a drawback – instead promoting it to stand alone with the slogan ‘wine flavours our life’.”

Wow. For years, we’ve championed the idea of promoting “wine with food” as wine’s greatest strength. Hell, even the beer people started copying us on that one. Now here comes one of the industry’s greatest brains saying “wine with food” has been a drawback! I’m not sure what to make of that, but I do agree with Hegarty that “Today’s market is a younger, more experimental audience. Invest in the future. Youth is the future.” Having just come back from the Bloggers Conference, I saw the future. It is indeed young and it is indeed experimental. However, it is also extremely interested in food, so I’d say that, rather than being a drawback, the “wine with food” message is only a part of the package. I do like the “Wine flavours our life” thing, although in this country, they better drop the “u” and spell it “flavors.”

Here’s the link for my keynote speech at the Wine Bloggers Conference. The audio is a little choppy.