I realize that if there’s anything worse than Inside Baseball, it’s Inside Wine, but this story is very interesting to me. The Wine Advocate (founded by Robert Parker, probably the most influential wine publication in the world) just fired one of its writers for a complicated form of bribery (the people who “coordinated his visit”/tasted wine for him took bribes).
Evan Dawson of New York Cork Report has an interesting take on this, that the superstar all-knowing wine critic model doesn’t work, no one can taste that much stuff from all over the world. A better model, he suggests, is critics who focus on a small area and spend a lot of time on each wine. Periodically, wine world VSPs (a former wine writer and Opinion page editor for the Times, etc.) show up on New York Cork Report and scream at the hippies there for daring to criticize their superiors.
I’m often struck by how much the other things I’m interested in — honestly, it’s just wine and sports now that I think of it — follow the same coverage pattern as politics. There’s some top level of very serious people, who are are typically ethically compromised (free wine, trips to Nantucket vacay homes, etc.) or just plain stupid/predictable (Dan Shaughnessy, David Broder, etc.) but wield an inexplicable amount of influence. And then there’s lots of smart stuff written by nobodies that all but a few people ignore.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
You must admit that tasting notes are some of the best comedy around.
The nose comes alive with herb satchel, mineral, and a nice brambly note. Smoke, tar and a dark richness comes through on the palate. Earth, good tannins and a hint of brick finishes things off.
pr
Slight barnyard and a little smoke and some earth. Light fruit and a nice dry finish.
I love a little barnyard, tar or some brick, don’t you.
Egg Berry
IIRC, there was a controversy several month ago that was similar to this regarding Inside Auto and one of the big web sites. And, yes, it is tedious.
sfinny
Sounds kinda like the finance industry.
DougJ
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I like those kind of tasting notes. Wine Advocate is all “big jammy fruit with a peppery finish”. Yawn! I want more detail.
Peter
The art world has a lot in common with this model as well; as the value and popularity of a given cultural commodity rises, so do the stakes and thus the power of the gatekeepers/arbiters of taste, many of whom are self-appointed and/or just rich kids with Daddy’s rolodex. And thus meritocracy loses out to pressures of influence, fashion and hype. It was ever thus, I suspect.
I’m done ranting about Parker’s destructive influence, but if you haven’t read them yet I recommend Jonathan Nossiter’s Liquid Memory (he directed Mondovino) and Alice Feiring’s Naked Wine. Both excellent books from prominent anti-Parkers.
DougJ
@Peter:
What’s painful to me about Parker — and this is probably true of the art world too — is that good wine criticism is so valuable for the consumer. I have learned a ton from Steve Tanzer and also a lot from New York Cork Report. It has really enhanced my ability to enjoy wine, and not pricey stuff either. That’s why it sucks when criticism ends up dumbing down or corrupting, when it could be edifying.
reflectionephemeral
I’m often struck by how much the other things I’m interested in—honestly, it’s just wine and sports now that I think of it—follow the same coverage pattern as politics.
It’s always struck me that sports & political coverage are quite similar– the people on the ATH & MTP are kind of despised by people who want to learn more about sports and politics, respectfully. I can’t really see much difference, in value “added” by baseless narratives, between Jay Mariotti and Cokie Roberts.
We’ve discussed this a time or two at our highly regarded, well-trafficked blog.
It’s actually quite a bit better trafficked than usual this evening; thanks for the link in your previous post! I read Danielle Pletka so no one else has to.
Peter
@DougJ: I agree completely. The bright side, as with politics and sports and everything else, is that we have resources of fact, opinion, and community here online that are undercutting the hegemony of the VSPs, at least up to a point. But the 100 point scale works because it’s dumb, not despite it. That’s the unfortunate truth I think for those of us who want everyone to love things as much as we do.
AT
Wine snobs are amongst the most pretentious of all pretentious twats
Walker
Ah Wines. Anecdotally the course with the highest failure rate at my institution.
DougJ
@reflectionephemeral:
That was quite a quote, thanks for finding it.
Egg Berry
@reflectionephemeral:
With the exception that Cokie Roberts and her ilk have an impact on actual national policy, whereas Jay Marriotti is just a pompous ass.
Steeplejack
Wine notes on Posh Nosh.
The entire miniseries is hilarious (and viewable on YouTube). Episode 1 here.
delphi_ote
I’m just going to leave this right here…
http://theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/10/you-are-not-so-smart-why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad/247240/
And walk away.
pete
I always thought Spenser was more of a beer guy, myself.
DougJ
@delphi_ote:
I think it’s bullshit. There’s lots of crapy wine that isn’t cheap, that’s all that proves.
eemom
dude, this isn’t that complicated. What you do is you narrow the field — e.g., red vs white, zinfandel vs pinot noir vs shiraz, chard vs sauvignon blanc; you find the ones that are highly rated by Wine Spectator and/or Wine Advocate and/or whatever the hell the other one is, AND that cost less than $15; and you buy those and take them home and drink them. Am I missing something here?
Oh wait — you were speaking metaphorically….
DougJ
@eemom:
Why narrow the field? I like all those. The thing is I don’t like the wines the Spectator and WA like a lot.
Seth Finkelstein
> ” … but wield an inexplicable amount of influence.”
Actually, there’s some pretty good mathematical explanations for it all – “winner take all” systems, “power laws”, risk calculations, etc. Non-mathematically, it often comes down that a unit of effort in terms of being _perceived_ as an expert often pays off much better than a unit of effort put into actually being an expert (hence, regurgitating conventional wisdom works better than being accurate – wine, sports, politics, etc.)
By the way, the Internet doesn’t solve this. If anything, it’s possible to make it worse by intensifying the existing pressures against experts and for marketers (i.e., if you’re not on the “A-list”, you don’t get heard).
bob_is_boring
The Spectator (in the industry they call it the “speculator”) and the Enthusiast are junk. Mostly pay-to-play (or advertise-to-play) junk thinly disguised as lifestyle magazines. The thing about Parker and his crew at the Advocate are that they have no ads or anything. Have you ever seen one? It’s just typeface on manila, staple-bound. They’re all about integrity and honesty and actual blind tastings.
(One might disagree with his taste in some areas (*cough Australia cough) but that’s another matter.)
Which is why this is a pseudo-big deal in the wine world.
@1 (name tl;dr):
“I love a little barnyard, tar or some brick, don’t you.”
Absolutely, especially (barnyard) in Provencal wines like Bandol. Oh, sorry, you were trying to be funny.
@9 (AT):
“Wine snobs are amongst the most pretentious of all pretentious twats”
Some are, some aren’t. Just like everyone else. Enjoy your plonk.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Steeplejack: That whole Posh Nosh series is awesomely funny.
Villago Delenda Est
Look, a late Ripple (10 days old in bottle, with a screw cap!) is just fine with your standard burger and fries.
magma
@AT:Wine snobs are amongst the most pretentious of all pretentious twats
MagicPanda
If anything, I think the fact that the wine advocate fired the guy is reason to trust them more, not less, when it comes to integrity.
The main issue with Parker has nothing to do with integrity. It is his love of fruit bombs combined with his huge influence. It’s as if the foremost movie critic only liked movies with car chases and explosions.
xyzxyzxyz
@MagicPanda
“The main issue with Parker has nothing to do with integrity. It is his love of fruit bombs…”
This (times 10). For example I didn’t realize the best Malbec was from So. France until I left the alter of Parker and went to a wine shop where they said, “Well, you can suck on Argentinian popsicles all you want, or go to where they know what they are doing.” No kidding. Go find someone with a wine store and a taste similar to yours, and all will be well.
jnfr
I like Woot Wine’s labrat reports. Real people trying their best to give an honest description for other people.
Yutsano
What you need to know about wine:
Try stuff.
If you like it, drink it.
The rest is fucking snobbery.
cmorenc
My standard for fine wine has slowly evolved over the years from ABTBF (anything better than Boone’s Farm) to the level of enjoying $10 bottles of Zinfandel from the likes of “Gnarly Head” vineyard. Anything finer and more high-falutin’ than that I’ll gladly accept a glass of if you’re buying, but frankly more than a small increment above the level of “Gnarly Head” Zinfandel and whatever enhanced experience there might be is probably lost on me.
fraught
Every professional Very Serious Wine Person I’ve ever known is on the take somehow. The whole wine thing attracts phonies.
JoeShabadoo
-from one of dougj’s links talking about making a better model for wine tasting.
How the hell would I, a person buying wine from a shop, benefit from you going to the winery to taste the wine? He straight up says that it gives him confirmation bias. The advantages he lists don’t make any sense coming from a critic.
I don’t care who the staff is. I care how the wine tastes.
I don’t care why they made the wine a certain way, I care that the wine is a certain way.
Do you see movie critics going out with the actors of a movie before they review it so they can really understand why they did what they did? Of course not. They know that what you get (the movie/the wine) is what you review, not the process and the people who made it.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Don’t know how many have seen it, but the program Wine for the Confused by John Cleese is an entertaining, and informative, show about wine and its appreciation.
Amir Khalid
Gee, I don’t know. This seems like a hell of a big fuss to be making over grape juice.
/teetotaller
MonkeyBoy
My brother is the wine master at a middling California winery. I connected him with a French friend of mine and she served as a guide/interpreter in the Burgundy region.
While there they ran into a large group of touring executives from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Given that they have a monopoly on wine sales in PA I can only imagine the amount of special treatment and bribes they received.
Does anybody know where I can get some PCLB official stationary so I can be treated with free Michelin 3 star meals?
Emily
I think this is the caption of a Thurber cartoon in the New Yorker many years ago.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Emily: You sure that wasn’t the name of one of his dogs?
Comrade Javamanphil
And given this:
I must declare this post a headline fail for not going with “Some men never grew up / fortunate like you / some men never found out / what it takes to be a dude”
Jim Pharo
The fact that it’s everything you’re interested in tells me something (and no, it’s not that you have a limited purview of interests): we live in a feudal society. There are a handful of people who by birth, good luck, or unbelievable talent break through the mass of people. We are supposed to emulate them, be interested in them — hell, live our lives through them.
Every child is encouraged to follow their dreams — so long as that dream involves overcoming impossibly long odds and achieving things 99% of people will never achieve: Become a Pop Star! Be a starting FL quarterback! Discover a star! Become a published author! You hardly ever see “Become an assistant night manager at Wendy’s! Free-lance small handyman jobs in your Mom’s housing complex! Be a part-time janitor!
I view it as part and parcel of the egomania that Reagan’s election helped bring to the fore. No longer are we interested in how the other guy is doing: it is an unrelenting focus on the individual as the only legitimate form of social being, and the dismissal of the community as a source of power, legitimacy, etc.
Our current experience shows pretty clearly that this individual-centric model doesn’t work. The question for me is whether we have so ruined our usual tools of recovery that we cannot come back from this for a very long time…
schrodinger's cat
[email protected]
As a complete newbie to the world of wine can you give some suggestions for reasonably good red wine, that is relatively cheap $10 to $20.
James Gary
I view it as part and parcel of the egomania that Reagan’s election helped bring to the fore. No longer are we interested in how the other guy is doing: it is an unrelenting focus on the individual as the only legitimate form of social being, and the dismissal of the community as a source of power, legitimacy, etc.
Dude, just shut the f*ck up. I mean, really.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@DougJ: I agree that they’re quite useful, but often amusing as well. Twofers!
azelie
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Good catch. Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout you now, you know it’s true…
MagicPanda
@schrodinger’s cat: Some thoughts.
1) In the old days, I get the sense that there was a lot more bad wine floating around. Nowadays, because of advancements in technology combined with a global wine glut, pretty much every wine in the price range you mention will be “good” in a general sense. So the good news is that you can’t go wrong.
2) Instead of focusing on specific producers, I would taste a variety of wines to try to develop a sense of general likes and dislikes. After a while, you should have a thoughts like “I generally like zinfandels” or “I like wines from Spain”
3) Find a good wine store in your area. You want to find a store that is small but not too small. The most important thing is to find knowledgable friendly people. To find the best one, you may need to ask a friend.
4) Tell the folks at the wine store that you want to learn about wine, and stop worrying about sounding dumb. They love helping people learn about wine.
Final thought: Tasting wine shouldn’t be any more intimidating than, say, tasting apples. At first, you don’t know what you like, but after a while, you realize that you like galas and hate granny smiths. Ok… Wines are a bit more intimidating because there are more varieties and producers… I just meant that you should not be put off by the snobbery of it all.
schrodinger's cat
@MagicPanda: Thanks Panda, I actually prefer white wines especially dry and fruity ones like Rieslings. My husband prefers reds, but last few of the selections have been disappointing, and I end up cooking with them, so I wanted some suggestions.
twiffer
wait, people pay attention to dan shaughnessy?
twiffer
@schrodinger’s cat: i’m by no means an expert, but i do like red truck and gnarly head authentic red in that price range.
jo6pac
Doug here’s my fav wine blogger on this subject
http://blog.wblakegray.com/
Vico
Inside baseball is WAY more interesting than this.
catclub
@JoeShabadoo: The only possible benefit from a visit to the the winery would be if they found out some of the decisions involved arsenic, battery acid and cyanide. Otherwise, no.
“This wine has a message and the message is: beware!”
MagicPanda
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, there are two problems with recommendations: (1) It’s hard to know without knowing what kind of wines your husband likes, and (2) nationally distributed wines tend to be somewhat less interesting than small obscure wines.
If you ask a wine person “what wines have you had recently that you like”, you are ALWAYS going to get some obscure wine that you will never be able to find.
For wines that I KNOW your local store has, I might say try Avalon for cab, La Crema for pinot, etc.
For wines that I think your local store PROBABLY has, I might say try Cannonball for cab, David Bruce for pinot, or Catena for a malbec.
But what I REALLY think you should do is to try some more obscure wines from South America or Spain, where you can find great wines for cheap. There are also some interesting Italian wines as well.
I would also try some value French wines. You can certainly find Rhone wines in that price range, as well as wines as 2nd wines from Bordeaux estates (example: I had a Haut de Poujeaux recently that I thought was great value for money).
And depending on your taste, you may find Australian wines that you like. They’re not my cup of tea, but lots of people like them.
And to do any of that successfully, it all depends on what is available in the store near you, which is why I think you should start with the store and go from there. :-)
DougJ
@MagicPanda:
I agree with you about Parker. That’s a good summary.
DougJ
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, the best thing to try is Spanish wine, pretty much anything other than rioja, but especially Garnacha (Grenache) and Monastrel. Delicious and cheap. I am off to buy some right now!
Corey
I actually think sports VSPs are a lot worse than politics ones (except, of course, the politics VSPs actually control important parts of our lives). Hockey VSPs are typically directly co-opted by the league and Canadian teams, football VSPs like Peter King can’t get Roger Goodell’s cock out of their mouths long enough to form coherent sentences. I don’t really follow baseball or basketball as much, but college basketball in particular seems to have dozens of VSPs, all of whom unfailingly defend that particular cartel system.
Thank God sports are mostly just a game, and directly affect the lives of only a few people.