Columnist, Author, Wine Educator, Baltimore, MD
Paul Lukacs is a wine writer, educator, and advisor. Currently a columnist for a metropolitan newspaper and an on-line site, he also is the author of two prize-winning books: The Great Wines of America: The Top Forty Vintners, Vineyards, and Vintages (WW Norton) and American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine (Houghton Mifflin hardcover; WW Norton paperback).
The Great Wines of America, published in November 2005, profiles forty of the country’s finest wines, while American Vintage, first published in 2000 and republished in 2005, offers a social history of wine in the United States. American Vintage won the three major American wine “book of the year” awards in 2001—from the James Beard Foundation, Champagne Veuve Clicquot, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. The Great Wines of America, a finalist for wine book of the year from IACP, was awarded a Gourmand prize and was featured as a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Lukacs is currently working on a third book, Wine: A New History, scheduled for publication (by WW Norton) in 2011.
Since 1994, Lukacs has written features, columns, and individual wine profiles for The Washington Times on a weekly basis. From 2002 to 2005, he served as the wine columnist for Washingtonian magazine. In 2007 and 2008, he served as wine editor for Saveur magazine. And in 2005, he became a regular contributor to Wine Review Online. In these roles, he covers wines and winemaking all across the globe.
Lukacs has traveled to many of the world’s most important winegrowing regions, and he evaluates literally thousands of wines every year. He has taught numerous wine appreciation and education classes. Since 1999 he has worked as a consultant for restaurants in the Washington, D. C. area, helping select wines for wine lists, pair wine with menu items, and train wait staff. Lukacs also has served as a judge at numerous wine competitions, both in America and in Europe. In addition, he is one of the organizers and founders of the International Oyster Wine Competition, held each November in Washington.
Paul Lukacs also serves as a professor of English at Loyola University Maryland. His academic specialty is 19th Century American literature, and he has published in leading academic journals in that field. He lives in Baltimore.