In the supermarket, wines get his stamp of approval and there are guides from his hand, but Harold Hamersma thinks there are enough people who know a lot more about wine, grapes and sticks. He writes his pieces and reviews to inform and entertain and refuses to write in a clichéd manner.
“About the nectar and that kind of nonsense. I write for the general public, deliberately not for trade journals”, Hamersma said in conversation with Faithful. “Most of all, I want to please, I just like it when people like my pieces.”
His colorful articles also sometimes generate indignant reactions. “For example, I once wrote a tasting note about the Greek red wine Gaia Estate Nótios, which I compared to my mother’s breath when she had a little too much berry gin and came to give me a goodnight kiss after a party: ‘Goodnight boy’.”
For Hamersma, who comes from the advertising world and came up with slogans such as ‘Pearle, Pearle, Pearle’ and ‘Whatever happens – Nationale Nederlanden’, writing for magazines and newspapers is also a form of vanity: as an advertiser, nobody knew he was responsible for the well-known slogans. “I am a good news bearer, an artist, I like the spotlight. I am in the Rolodex of the broadcasters, I have made beautiful TV programs and I have a large audience.”
Now that he is almost 65, he is regularly asked when he will retire. “People ask when I stop working. Why? That thought doesn’t even cross my mind.”
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