Welcome, Linda Murphy of California

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I have long been conscious that although a very significant proportion of visitors to www.jancisrobinson.com are American, our coverage of West Coast wines and events is pretty sporadic, not to say flimsy. I’m therefore delighted to announce that the very talented, energetic Linda Murphy has joined our editorial team.

Linda writes on wine from her base in Healdsburg, California, in the heart of Sonoma County and just a short hop from Napa Valley. She recently left The San Francisco Chronicle as editor of its much admired wine section where she won two James Beard Awards (2004 and 2006) for best newspaper food/wine section.

Linda is a proper journalist, unlike me, with sport her original speciality. She may have won a couple of Beards but her real claim to fame is that she was the second woman in the US to gain access to a major-league baseball locker room, when she was a sportswriter for The San Diego Union.

Now that she has incontrovertibly switched from sweaty socks to sweaty saddles, she will continue to contribute to The Chronicle and other wine publications. She has recently been appointed West Coast correspondent for Decanter magazine, judges several wine competitions a year and is a speaker at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen and the Vintners’ Holidays in Yosemite, among others.

She reports that she drinks much better now than during her beer-and-a-shot sports days, and meets much nicer people.

You may wonder why, for the moment, the entire jancisrobinson.com team is female. I can assure you that this is pure coincidence.