Name Jon Bonne | Role Writer | |
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Books The New California Wine: A Guide to the Producers and Wines Behind a Revolution in Taste Awards James Beard Award for Food Coverage in a General-Interest Publication Nominations James Beard Award for Writing on Spirits, Wine or Beer Profiles | ||
Sf chronicle wine editor jon bonn toutsuite pop up show the new california wine
Jon Bonné is an American wine writer, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle since 2006, and senior contributing editor for Punch. He has been a wine columnist for msnbc.com and Seattle Magazine, and has written for publications such as Food & Wine, The New York Times, The Art of Eating, Saveur and Decanter. Prior to his engagement as San Francisco Chronicle wine editor, Bonné published the now defunct wine and food blog, amuse-bouche.net since 2004. He received awards from the James Beard Foundation for his Chronicle work in 2011 and 2007, and was a Beard finalist for his wine writing in 2011 and 2009, as well as receiving several awards from the Association of Food Journalists.
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In March 2015, he left a full-time position as the Chronicle's wine editor, and joined Punch. He continued to write a regular column for the newspaper.
He published his first book, The New California Wine, in November 2013. The book was based in part on a 2010 article he wrote for Saveur and reflected his years of work at the Chronicle, as a transplant from the East Coast in 2006, confronting what at the time he found to be "the shortfalls of California wine: a ubiquity of oaky, uninspired bottles and a presumption that bigger was indeed better." It defined a new generation of California winemakers as those with "an enthusiasm for lessons learned from the Old World, but not the desire to replicate its wines; a mandate to seek out new grape varieties and regions; and, perhaps most important, an ardent belief that place matters."
The New California Wine was generally well received. The New York Times wrote that "“Mr. Bonné has been positioned perfectly to observe the profound pendulum swing in style and attitude that has occurred among California winemakers over the last decade." In the Financial Times, Jancis Robinson wrote that the types of wines in the book "presented a completely different and refreshing face of America’s wine state." One writer concluded that the book relied too much on broad, sweeping generalizations of the wine industry and that the trend had been an ongoing process for years. In September 2014, it won the Louis Roederer award for International Wine Book of the Year. It was also shortlisted for the Andre Simon awards for food and drink books, and for a James Beard Award.
In 2013, Bonné began writing a column for Decanter, and was named the USA Regional Chair for the Decanter World Wine Awards.
Bonné is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy (class of 1990) and Columbia University (class of 1994). He grew up in New York City and Pound Ridge, New York.