Bob Guccione Jr. wants in the wine publishing business
Here it comes. Bob Guccione Jr., the founder of Spin and Gear magazines, is intent on returning to the publishing business, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to find a project that is edgy enough for him. Mr. Guccione, whose father founded Penthouse, said that he considered buying Fortune from Time Inc. 18 months ago (“Fortune is rubbish. It doesn’t take chances.”), but Time wasn’t interested in a sale. Which brings us to the point.
Wine journalism might just do the trick for him. Here’s the money quote, the one I couldn’t wait to share with you. “For the first time in 50 years characters in rock and roll really don’t stand for anything. Music has become more manufactured than a Ford Focus … The culture of wine is rich and fascinating. There are more rock stars in the wine world than there are in music”.
Guccione is hard at work on the launch of a couple of new web properties, one specifically about wine and one about travel (“a cross between Condé Nast Traveler and National Geographic”). He also plans to launch a food magazine sometime in 2011.
