Lord knows I’ve criticized Wine Spectator when they deserved it. But fair is fair; this piling on because of that dumb mistake they made over giving an award to a fake restaurant is all hat and no cattle.

Yes, Spectator is the magazine everyone loves to hate. I’ve gotten a ton of emails today from California friends, and they all have a certain gleefully malicious, rubbing of hands quality to them — a kind of “hehehe, it’s about time.” And, yes, I admit to feeling a certain initial giggle myself, along the lines of “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

But let’s step back and be objective. Every wine magazine and every food magazine I know of gives awards. As with anything, the process of giving awards is open to abuse, especially in this day and age of the Internet. No magazine has the time or staff to thoroughly vet every contestant in a big event. You do the best you can, and ultimately, you trust people not to be liars.

I think Wine Spectator has presented a plausible explanation of what happened in their formal response on their website. Most of the blogs I read that talked about the issue said or implied that all or most of the wines on the fictional restaurant’s list had earned low scores. If that were the case, Wine Spectator’s restaurant awards would indeed be suspect. But as Spectator’s executive editor, Tom Matthews, pointed out, “[Robin] Goldstein posted reviews for 15 wines. But the submitted list contained a total of 256 wines. Only 15 wines scored below 80 points.” That wasn’t made clear in the blogs that I read. I’m in agreement with one of the posters on Wine Spectator’s website who said, “All [Robin Goldstein] has proven is that, with enough effort, you can create the basis of a fraud.”

In a way, Goldstein’s exposé reminded me of the movie “Mondovino.” I hated it because it could have represented objective reporting. Instead, it was a sneak attack in the same sensationalist way as Goldstein’s.

Nonetheless, this episode will damage Wine Spectator. I even saw it reported on MSNBC, the mainstream media, in a way that was humiliating to the magazine. Wine Spectator has made (fairly or not) enemies over the years, and some people see this as payback. It’s not fair, but then, neither is life.

P.S. Please visit my other blog at Wine Enthusiast’s Unreserved.

Eric Asimov, at The Pour, says it doesn’t. He took a swipe at us the other day. “One thing that has always bothered me about the California wine industry,” he wrote, “is how disparaging it is of its past. Oh, of course there are exceptions. Everybody today will talk about how great and influential Robert Mondavi was, and deservedly so. But these same people will dismiss Mayacamas or Chateau Montelena as ‘Old School.’”

I’m not sure who this “Everybody” is that Eric refers to. Maybe, on his periodic jaunts to California, he just hangs out with dummies. The California wine industry I know has tremendous awareness of, and respect, for its history. As a member (in good standing, I hope) of that industry, I’ve written a couple books that are history heavy, and one of their more appreciative audiences has been winemakers, older and younger. Working as they do throughout California’s wine regions, winemakers are well aware of the giants, living and dead, who preceded them. And I’ve never met “these same people,” anywhere in the industry, whether it be on the production, sales, marketing or P.R. side, that would ever call Montelena or Mayacamas “Old School.”

A strange aspect of Eric’s commentary was his suggestion that the Napa Cabernets he likes are somehow more historically connected to the past than the ones he doesn’t. We all know he doesn’t like wines that (for lack of a better word) we can call Parker-esque. He listed Frog’s Leap and Clos du Val, among others, as making Cabernets that surprised him with their “unexpected subtlety.” I guess Eric’s expectations for Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon are so low that he’s astonished when he finds something balanced. Well, I’ve given extremely high scores to Frog’s Leap and Clos du Val, but to be completely honest, I don’t find them all that different from, say, Harlan, Colgin, Staglin or Araujo, in terms of satisfaction. It’s like the difference between (for example) Haut-Brion and Margaux — degrees of texture and firmness, yes, but both Bordeaux-esque in classicism. I never heard of anyone who liked Haut-Brion but didn’t like Margaux, although one might prefer one over the other. Great Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is like that. It’s not necessary to bash anything Michel Rolland has a hand in just because you like Clos du Val.

When Tom Wark, over at Fermentation, recently named me a top “American Public Wine Intellectual,” I knew I had to do something to lighten up my image. So here (with due apologies to Gary V.) is my statement that, sometimes, wine critics just want to have fun. Click here to view video.

P.S. Please check out my new blog at Wine Enthusiast.

This just in…

When statistics collide

American adults are now prefer beer over wine by double-digit margins, reports the Gallup Poll.

No, wait. American adults are drinking considerably less beer, and more wine, says The American Journal of Medicine.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so confused, I’ll drink anything, as long it has alcohol in it.

The Gallup Poll first told us that Americans preferred wine over beer back in 2005. It was huge news then. Everybody was saying, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty wine is finally Number One!” So it comes as something of a surprise that Gallup now is telling us that beer is the buzz of choice for 47 percent of us, while wine dropped to a measly 31 percent. Must be global warming, or Iraq, or something in the air.

But then there’s that contradictory AJM report, which found us consuming “significantly less beer and more wine, while intake of hard liquor has remained largely unchanged.” It’s hard to know what to make of these duelling studies, both from respected sources.

The two reports also weighed in on demographics. According to Gallup, college grads and people making more than $75,000 a year drink more than their opposites. Meanwhile, the AJM study says younger people drink more moderately than older people, although when people get really old, they drink less. All of which explains my own drinking patterns perfectly.

Six winemakers to watch

One of the pleasures of being a wine writer is discovering brilliant young winemakers who aren’t yet well known to the public, but ought to be. Here are six who’ve caught my eye (and my palate). Some have been around longer than others; all of them will be around for a long time.

Mikael Sigouin
Kaena Wine Co.

Honolulu-born Mikael is head winemaker at Beckmen Vineyards. He fell in love with wine during a tasting at Niebaum Coppola. His own label is Kaena, which is Hawaiian for “potential for greatness.” Mikael specializes in Rhône-style wines sourced mainly from Santa Ynez Valley.

Justin Mund
Addamo Vineyards

Justin got the top winemaking gig at Addamo just last year. I first met him when he was assistant winemaker (under Eric Hickey) at Laetitia. A graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, Justin’s first Addamo wines, made from estate Santa Maria Valley fruit, are just coming out.

Russell From
Herman Story

Named in honor of his grandfather, Russell From (above, on left) specializes in intense, powerhouse Rhône reds and whites from the Central Coast. He worked formerly at Central Coast Wine Services.

Ryan Waugh
Six Degrees

Ryan makes a single wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, from a tiny vineyard high in the Mayacamas Mountains, on the Sonoma side. Ryan started his career at Savannah Chanelle, and also owns Waugh Cellars. His Six Degrees Cabernet is a serious wine.

Paul Clifton
Lucienne

Lucienne focuses on Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir. Clifton, its founding winemaking, also is  Hahn’s winemaker. Previously, he was at Bernardus, after a stint as a firefighter.

Mike Padrick

P2

The name stands for “passion and perserverance” says Padrick, who credits Brian Loring as his mentor. Mike’s single-vineyard Pinots, especially his Cargasacchi Jalama, are killer.

P.S. Please visit my blog at Wine Enthusiast’s Unreserved.

This isn’t an attack on Robert Parker, I swear. I don’t even know the man, although I’m assured he’s every inch a gentleman, and certainly came across as one in “Mondovino.” So don’t go thinking Steve’s just being snarky (again…).

But now it’s being widely reported, as for instance in this article in the San Francisco Business Times, that the Maestro of Monkton is going to be giving a little talk and tasting next October at the Culinary Institute of America, in St. Helena. For $2,000 a person, his fans will hear him on the subject of the 2005 vintage in Bordeaux, which the SFBT quotes him as calling “the greatest vintage produced during my 30-year career.” (Interestingly, in 2006 he described the ‘05 Bordeaux, which presumably he’d tasted from barrel, as merely “one of the most singular years of the past five decades.” So I guess it’s improved in bottle.)

Now, wait. Wasn’t it just last month that Parker titillated the wine world with this midnight tease: “One of the biggest stories in my 30 years in the wine field will be the detailed announcement …officially set for tomorrow…that will shake the fine wine world.” ? That was the Cos d’Estournal-Montelena deal which, while interesting, hardly “shook the fine wine world.” In fact, Parker’s breathy hyperventilizing earned him some raised eyebrows and smiles out here in California.

Let’s take a step back. When I was at the Whitefish Wine & Food Summit last week a very famous winemaker whose name I won’t reveal said to me at the conclusion of a particularly bibulous (L. bibere, imbibe) dinner, “Don’t forget, dude, it’s enter-tain-ment!” What he meant was that there is an ineluctable part of the wine industry that’s as much stagecraft as wine. Famous winemakers are aware of their celebrity status and, far from despising it, utilize it in order to sell their wines.

At Wine Enthusiast, we realize that to call something “the greatest ever” sells. I did so with the 2001 Napa Cabernets and again with the 2005 coastal Pinot Noirs, and I said it because it was true; but believe me when I say that if every article I wrote contained the words “the greatest ever” in the headline, the powers-that-be at Wine Enthusiast would not be unhappy. It’s a basic rule of media: Churn up the excitement factor. Nobody gets turned on by average.

Parker, a born showman, understands this. So, by the way, do the Bordelais, who may be said to have invented the modern art of wine promotion. The only thing I’m trying to point out is that the nexus of reality and mass perception in wine is interesting and complex. So this really hasn’t been an attack on Parker. I swear.

Click here for some pictures of yours truly and some friends up on Whitefish Mountain

P.S. Please visit us at Wine Enthusiast’s Unreserved blogs.