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Gerald Albert Asher (born 18 August 1932) is an English wine personality based since 1974 in San Francisco, California. Initially a wine merchant and importer, today, he is a wine writer.
Born in London and raised partly in rural Essex because of the Blitz, Asher's career in wine began in 1950, when he took a part-time job at a wine retailer in London's Shepherd Market. He founded his own merchant house, Asher, Storey, and Co, in 1955 to import rare and lesser-known French wines to Britain. Active until 1970, the firm was widely seen as ground-breaking for its introduction to the British market of several previously obscure wines that proceeded to become popular. In 1971, Asher relocated to New York to take up a senior position at Austin, Nichols, and Co, which imported Bordeaux-classed wines to the United States. The next year he also became wine editor at Gourmet magazine, a post he would hold for the next three decades, writing the "Wine Journal" column, which eventually became monthly. In 1974, he received the Mérite agricole from the French government for his contributions to French agriculture.
He moved the same year to San Francisco, where he became head of the Monterey Wine Company. He writes that he had "a topsy-turvy introduction to California wine," having never tasted any before a 1967 visit, but he soon began championing it, organising the annual California Vintners Barrel Tasting Dinner along with Paul Kovi and Tom Margittai of New York's Four Seasons Restaurant. The barrel tasting, which started in 1976, played an important role in building the image and understanding of California wines on the East Coast of the United States and, over the next decade, became seen by critics as the wine event of the year. Asher started the Mosswood Wine Company in 1978 within the McKesson Corporation and headed it until 1987 when McKesson sold off its interests in wine and spirits to concentrate on pharmaceuticals. Asher took early retirement to focus solely on his wine writing, which he continues today.
He retained the post of wine editor at Gourmet until 2002, and thereafter contributed a selection of wines to each issue until the magazine discontinued in 2009. Many of his wine essays from Gourmet have been republished in book form; five volumes of these columns have been published, most recently A Carafé of Red in 2012. Asher's writing and knowledge of wine are both acclaimed, with British wine critic Jancis Robinson calling him "America's most elegant wine writer". James Beard, an American chef and food writer, says Asher's writing "makes one feel that one is sitting in a room with Gerald, enjoying his ... awesome knowledge and expertise in the world of wine." Asher has received many accolades for his writing and work with wine during his life. He was inducted into the California Vintners' Hall of Fame by the Culinary Institute of America in 2009.