For political science Lecturer Tyler Colman, wine is not only a drink of the gods.
“When you talk about wine you have to talk about politics,” he said.
The 31-year-old, known by his colleagues as Dr. Vino, believes quality wine is a direct result of government regulations. In this spirit, last year he launched www.drvino.net, a wine Web site with a mix of politics, top wine picks and critiques of various brands.
Described by renowned British wine critic Jancis Robinson as a “light-hearted” approach to the drink, Colman’s Web site aims to give viewers a better understanding of wine, he said.
“It’s something people don’t know very much about,” he said. “I try not to make it off-putting.”
A section of the Web site is devoted to wine politics and includes monthly articles such as one entitled, “Leaders, wine and war: a taste test.”
Nearly 3,000 users viewed the Web site last month, and Colman said he receives several e-mails per week from viewers of the site.
Another section on Colman’s Web site offers a quiz that matches world political leaders with the way they drink their wine. The Web site describes England Prime Minister Tony Blair as an “anything goes” man, while President Bush fits the “teetotaler” role.
One of the many weekly visitors to Colman’s site is political science Prof. Edward Gibson, Colman’s doctoral adviser. He said Colman gives new insight into wine.
“It’s real imagination,” he said. “It’s what we look for in political science.”
Gibson, who said he shared “several glasses of wine” with Colman after the completion of his dissertation, said the finished product takes political science to a new level.
“Wine, for him, was a window for looking at a lot of things,” Gibson said.
Colman’s dissertation on the politics of the wine industry in France and the United States received the political science department’s Class Prize, given out once a year to its top student.
Colman interviewed more than 60 leaders in the industry for his graduate work and found that shipping wine to U.S. cities is more difficult than shipping to France.
The French wine industry is more integrated than the American industry, because the French wine companies usually are privately owned, Colman said. The American industry is highly regulated, making it hard to produce and distribute wine, he found.
A self-described oenophile — wine lover — Colman said he aspires to one day be regarded among the greatest wine critics, even though he actually has no formal training in tasting.
Mostly, however, he said he hopes to show people that there is much more to wine than a price figure. One of the largest misunderstandings about wine, he said, is the assumption that price indicates quality.
“There is too much emphasis these days on trophy wines,” he said. “But few people ever even get to drink them.”
For this reason Colman has included a list of his favorite wines under $10 on the site. For the first week of May, his cheap wine pick was “Falesco Vitiano 2001” for $8.
Colman said one of his current favorites is named “G” — a 2001 vintage Dehesa Gago from Spain.
“I’ve had my fair share,” he said.
