In Memoriam
Perry Luntz ( March 9,1927-April 13,2009)
Former Chairman of the Wine Media Guild
Perry Luntz graduated from Boys High and NYU with a degree in marketing. He served in the Army Air Force with the occupation forces in Berlin after WWII. He was involved in one way or another with the beverage alcohol business most of his adult life. For more than 20 years he was publisher and editor of Beverage Alcohol Market Report, an international e-letter for marketing executives in beer, wine, and spirits. He served as Director of Marketing Communications (a term he coined) for Seagram Distillers for a decade, worked on the creative side of several advertising agencies– including a spell as a creative director of a Young & Rubicam division– and for several years headed his own marketing communications agency.
As Chairman of the Wine Media Guild, he showed he knew his way around vineyards and breweries, as well as distilleries. Like many native New Yorkers, Perry was a political junky. He served several years as president of the Eleanor Roosevelt Political Club, He was a member of Manhattan Community Board 6 and a founder of the Manhattan Neighborhood Council. For the past decade, Perry was Senior Editor of the Beverage Media Group, a network of trade magazines read by 140,000 licensed retailers. He also wrote a weekly column for the group’s B-to-B Internet site. At age 80, he wrote his first book, Whiskey and Spirits for Dummies, and was working on a new book at the time of his death.
He is survived by wife, Carol Ann Rinzler, sons Ira and Russell (a third son, Lloyd, is deceased), and two grandsons, Ari and Eli.
Ron Kapon: On a personal note Perry helped me when I started writing about wine and spirits, making concrete suggestions that have made me a better writer. He asked me to join the Manhattan Neighborhood Council and whetted my appetite for politics while showing me the way things got done in New York City. He mentored many people in the wine and spirits business, and I have quoted his Whiskey and Spirits for Dummies book in several magazine articles and use it as a texbook for one of my classes. His gruff exterior hid a warm, friendly, caring person. I will miss our weekly phone calls. I raise my glass to you, Perry. Help organize heaven.
Ron Kapon
The Peripatetic Oenophile
www.ronkapon.com