Antonio Galloni announced that he will be leaving the Wine Advocate to start his own web site. Galloni covered the wine growing regions of Italy and,more recently, California. He was an able assistant to WA’s founder, Robert Parker Jr.

The news leaked out in the New York Times and other media before it was addressed on the WA’s bulletin board. After taking criticism from loyal WA commenters, Parker acknowledged that he had been told only 6 hours before the news leaked out. He complimented Galloni and wished him well.

The development is hardly a surprise. Several changes in WA’s direction were made late last year. Galloni, a private contract writer,, may have been miffed that he wasn’t given the editor’s job. A lot of followers have predicted the demise of WA without Galloni, but that’s nonesense.

Personnel changes haven’t ruined the WA yet, so isn’t it best to wait and see who replaces Galloni? It’s the possible that the next contributing writer will be even better.

We get comfortable with writers and Galloni was very good. However, it is unreasonable to expect that he would be there for life.