Seattle Magazine

Jon Bonné is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine editor, responsible for the paper’s wine and spirits coverage and the annual Top 100 Wines list. Before coming to The Chronicle, Bonné was lifestyle editor and wine columnist for MSNBC.com and lived in New York. His work has earned him two James Beard awards and multiple awards from the Association of Food Journalists. Previously Bonné was wine columnist for Seattle Magazine and has written about wine for Food & Wine, Decanter, Saveur, and the Art of Eating. He has also reported for The New York Times, Court TV, and National Public Radio, and is working on a book about California wine. 

What wine varieties would you like to see the public embrace more fully?

So many Italian white varieties should be better known. Vermentino could be a star in California. Ribolla Gialla. Friulano. Grechetto. Timorasso. Ditto Portuguese varieties, but we’re much earlier on the curve. What else? Grenache. It’s everything that people claim to want in red wine, and it doesn’t have Syrah’s years of baggage. For that matter, let’s add Grenache Blanc to the list. It’s remarkably user-friendly.