Kermit Lynch

Kermit Lynch is an American wine importer, author, and winemaker based in Berkeley, California. He is the author of Adventures on the Wine Route which won the Veuve Clicquot Wine Book of the Year award. He is a winner of the James Beard Foundation's "Wine Professional of the Year", and the Chevalier de l'Ordre de Mérite Agricole medal presented by the French government for his service to the wine industry. In 2005 he was awarded the insignia of Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur by the French government.

Richard Olney introduced Lynch to many French wine growers, including Lucien and Lulu Peyraud of Domaine Tempier, who were then re-establishing the Bandol AOC as a vineyard area of the first rank.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lynch took objection to a regulation of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms that required wine bottles to be labeled with the Surgeon General's warning against alcohol consumption but prohibited any countering sentiment about the benefits of moderate wine drinking to be on the label.

On numerous occasions, Lynch petitioned the BATF to allow him to add a statement about the benefit of wine to go with the Surgeon General's warning such as quotes by Louis Pasteur on the hygienic properties of wine, the Bible on wine's healing properties, and Thomas Jefferson on the pleasures that drinking wine can bring. After many trials, Lynch finally had his request approved.

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