Ex-Bon Appétit editor Marissa Ross says the wine world ruined her. Now she's back and ready to give it hell.
Marissa Ross was in search of a wine that could make her"loins tingle," one that could excite her like"the brush of a crush's hand." As Bon Appétit's wine editor from 2016 through 2020, she gave ringing endorsements of magnums, ice cubes in wine, and chugging straight from the bottle, a technique she called"The Ross Test.
But, as with so many social-media stars, Ross' visibility was a double-edged sword. Her rise was tied to a period of reinvention for the wine world during which natural wine conquered millennial taste buds and became ubiquitous on menus across the US. It was also a period of reckoning, and Ross frequently found herself at the center of industry controversies.
Marissa Ross, Bon Appétit's wine editor from 2016 to 2020, often posted pictures of herself chugging straight from the bottle — a technique she called"The Ross test."Others offered a different takeaway. They noted that if Ross became a lightning rod for the many controversies shaking the wine world at that time, it was because she went out in the storm in a metal dress with her arms raised to the skies.
Ross developed her palate not at sommelier school but with the many bottles of Trader Joe's"Two-Buck-Chuck" she knocked back as a broke comedy writer trying to make it in LA in the early 2010s.
"To be the most important person in wine and not understand what I'm doing and not care, it just made me not think less of her as a person, but really discount her," the winemaker Brent Mayeaux of Stagiaire Wine said. Mayeaux said he and his friends used to listen to Ross'"Natural Disasters," a wine podcast she hosted with her friend Adam Vourvoulis, and laugh at factual errors.
A few years later, Rapoport would resign and spur a staff exodus amid allegations of a racist culture and poor management. But for Ross, who hadn't gone to college and had no formal media or food and beverage training, it simply felt as if she'd been thrust into a game where everyone knew the rules except for her."It was like no one wanted to give me any respect," she said, noting that she widely continued to be referred to as an"influencer" instead of a wine writer.
Despite Ross and Rapoport's good relationship, their dynamic could still be challenging. Ross said Rapoport would often make off-color jokes, call her Melissa, or tell her he didn't give a shit about wine."I was constantly having to prove why I deserve to write about these wines and why these wines should be written about."
Like many well-therapized people, Ross has some thoughts about her tendency to gravitate toward challenging interpersonal situations. So of course, it all starts with her family.
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