Frank J. Prial

Frank J. Prial, who graduated from Georgetown University in 1951, was the wine columnist for the "The New York Times" for 25 years, writing the weekly "Wine Talk" column since 1972 until his retirement in 2005.

The writing of Prial was intended to illuminate rather than obfuscate with that “peculiar subgenre of the English language” that he calls“winespeak”. Prial stated that a person “should not have to be a budding enologist to enjoy reading about wine.”cite web| last= Oberdorf |first= Janna. "Bullpen" |title= Backgrounder: Frank J. Prial. |url= http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/bullpen/frank_j_prial/backgrounder ] Believing that what is in the bottle is much more important than what’s on the wine label Prial observed that “Shorn of their carefully constructed mystiques, their beautiful labels and clever marketing, many expensive wines are really not that much superior to their less expensive rivals.” The wine writer believes that “there’s enjoyment to be had of a glass of wine without making a fetish of it or paying a lot for it.”

Prial is the author of "Wine Talk" published in 1978, "Companion to Wine" published in 1992 and "Decantations" published in 2001.cite web|last= Wine Media Guild |title= Hall of Fame inductees 2007 |url= http://winemediaguild.org/hall-of-fame-inductees-2007/ ]

See also

*List of wine personalities

References

*Liu, M. L. "Bullpen" [http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/bullpen/frank_j_prial/lecture/ Lecture: Frank J. Prial]
*Prial, Frank J. "Decantations". NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.;Footnotes

External links

* [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/frank_j_prial/index.html Frank J. Prial "The New York Times" article archive]