Hey, I’m used to getting some tough reaction from wineries over my scores, but really, this is the most violent blowback I ever got. I’m not going to identify the emailer, but you can determine for yourself if it’s psycho talk. Read it, then I’ll continue with my remarks.

A Small Man in Many Ways

S-tupid, small minded
T-atooed like a fool
E-vil
V-ile
E-rectile inversion, get the pump
H-omosapien, poor excuse for one
E-xtra insincere
I-gnoramous, immature
M-ean, will someday meet his maker like all the rest of us but how will he explain the…
O-ff putting, odorous, bullshit he feeds people, his malicious intent reeks
F-oul  and…
F-ake

The sender followed this up with a long email the next day. It was laced with obscenities and sexual innuendo. Here’s a taste: “FUCK YOU, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT.”

What happened was, I gave one of this winery’s wines a score they didn’t like (84). This evidently led to a situation with one of their distributors that was not in their favor. The writer also disliked the text part of my review. “The written portion of your reviews reveal your lack of tact, lack of poise and expose you as a bully,” she wrote.

I want to say something here about my written reviews. I taste a lot of wine that is mediocre and some that is outright bad. Long ago, I developed a philosophy I’ve hewed to for years. It goes something like this: If a wine is mediocre, give it the appropriate numerical rating, but write the review up in more positive terms, for the sake of compassion. There’s no sense kicking a man when he’s already down on the ground. There’s always a way to say something critical in a kind way, as opposed to being downright nasty.

Some other parts of the email:

Most of the wines submitted to you had received gold medals Do you expect me to be impressed that a wine got a gold medal someplace? Should that make me think twice about my impression of it?

[A friend] said:  Wow, what beef does he have with ___ Winery? I have no beef with any winery. Wine reviewing isn’t personal.

You’re one of those fame chasers, a popularity seeker Actually, it’s just the opposite. Ask around to find out how little I enjoy “fame.”

Your writing is mediocre at best. Now, that is below the belt! Give me credit at least for being a good writer, even if you don’t like what I say!

People are your ‘friends’ because they’re afraid of you I don’t know if she means my Facebook friends, or my actual friends. Anyway, if some people are afraid of me, there’s not a thing I can do about it. I tell them not to be. I hope no one is. I don’t know why they would be. I encourage people to call, email, whatever, and I tell them not to apologize for interrupting me, etc. When I’m on the road, I don’t throw any weight around. There’s no reason to be afraid of me. I try my best to let everyone know that I’m just this guy living in Oakland who’s paid to write about wine.

[You’re] just trying to get a free meal OMG! I hope all the winemakers and public relations people who know this isn’t true will write in! In the beginning, yes, I did accept every invitation to lunch or dinner. That was 20 years ago. The novelty wore off quickly. I go to about 10 lunches a year, max, and maybe half as many dinners. I do it for work, not because I want a free meal.

It’s funny how the writer uses the word “little” so much in both her emails. Yes, I’m short. So what? Do we have to resort to ad hominem attacks? She also called me “a trust fund type.” That’s a laugh, as my CPA will tell you. I’m “a bloodsucker.” An “oddity.” I “aspire to be accepted by the elitist pigs.” Really? Tell that to my friends in Occupy Oakland.

Okay, the emailer had to get it off her chest. I feel her pain. I need to vent, too, when stuff happens to me that I think is unfair. But really, have we descended so far down the etiquette chain that it’s now considered appropriate to send crap like this?

It’s not that I’m uninterested in the replacement of Robert Parker by his protege, Anotonio Galloni, in reviewing California wines. I am interested. If Jim Laube gave up California, I’d be interested in that, too. If I gave up California, or rather my coastal part of it (I happily share the rest of the state with Virginie Boone), I assume that would be a fairly significant story for the wine press to cover. However, what I have no interest in is what some of my fellow wine bloggers are doing: treating this Galloni thing as some sort of epochal shift that’s making History, like a Presidential election. They’re interpreting every move Galloni makes, every word he writes, with the mesmerized fascination of a Kremlinologist, or a Vatican watcher trying to make sense of some newly elected Pope, or the scrutiny of a Supreme Court reporter discerning which way a new appointee leans.

People, get a grip! Galloni is not the new Pope! He’s a nice-looking dude covering California wine, the new kid in town. We should look forward to welcoming him to the Golden State, if we get the opportunity to meet him, as we never did with Parker, who traveled here as though he were Mick Jagger. But he’s just another one of us, no more or less important than anyone else.

Yet I have read, with astonishment and bemusement, the fevered speculations of certain wine bloggers in covering Antonio’s first Cali reviews. Here’s Terroirist, deconstructing them as if they contained clues to the existence of life on Mars. Here’s Blake Gray, breathlessly combing through the scores, like a mathematician in search of the solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem. Here’s Alder Yarrow, admittedly a little less discombobulated, but still trying to have it both ways by arguing that–while Galloni’s coming means “nothing”–he’s going to headline it anyway.

As Macbeth might have said of all this hyperventilated reportage, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Not that I am calling the three aforementioned fine bloggers idiots! Highest respects! Blog on, brothers! But we bloggers collectively have got to get past the pall that Parker/Wine Advocate threw on the California wine scene for too long–one that the industry accepted too blithely. It was unhealthy, a dark, smothering cloud of choking soot that kept California wine from evolving normally. What we need in California, as the state and the country emerge from the Recession, is a free, fair, open conversation about California wine: what it is, what it isn’t, what it should be, what it could be, if only it were allowed to develop unimpaired, in a free market. Unimpaired is exactly what it wasn’t during the Parker era. One voice, for the most part, defined reality, thus paralyzing the free market into a talibaneque stylistic monopoly.

I was hopeful, when I heard of Parker’s impending retirement from my state, that multiple voices could be heard. But what happens when multiple voices now conspire to all talk about the same thing? Same old same old: The Wine Advocate, written by whomever, continues to dominate the chitchat.

You won’t find me deciphering Galloni. I don’t care what he says. I didn’t read Parker and I won’t read A.G. It’s not that I’m ruling out any mention of Galloni forever. I’ll write about him on an as-needed basis, the same way I’ll write about Jon Bonné or Jordan Mackay or Charlie Olken or Laube or Joe Blow, if I feel like it. But I’m not going to obsess on Galloni any more than I will on 1WineDude. (Happy new year, Joe!)

Make no mistake, the old order in California is as dead as 2011. If it was bizarre for bloggers to suffer from Parker Obsessive Disease, it’s even weirder for them to come down with a self-inflicted case of Galloni Obsessive Disease. So bloggers, if you want to take the cure, just let Dr. Steve know. He’s here to help you.

Every time the holidays roll around, This Critic is flooded with requests from perplexed readers on how to choose wines for the Christmas, Hanukah, Kwaanza or Solstice table! It can be overwhelming for ordinary people, with all the choices out there, and not knowing what to believe! Which is why I’m glad to offer my expert advice.

You’d be surprised at the range of things people ask about. For example, here’s a question from Mrs. A., of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “Dear Mr. Wine Critic, we’re having my in-laws over for supper this Christmas, and I just don’t know what to do! My husband, Frank, says beer is fine (he’s a Pabst man), but I feel that, with something as fancy as meat loaf, we should have wine. Please tell me what kind.”

Don’t you feel Mrs. A.’s pain? Here’s my answer. “Dear Mrs. A., you have hit the nail l on the head! Meat loaf is indeed a very special entrée, especially if it’s made with a nice ketchup topping. I would recommend Two Buck Chuck with that. It’s actually in a bottle with a cork! That should impress your guests.”

Here’s another one, this time from Anchorage, Alaska. “Hey there, Wine Critic Guy, we’re having the usual feast with all the trimmin’s for Xmas. Up here, that includes fried blubber, a trad fave. But what kind of wine goes with it? [signed] Blubber Dude” “Dear Blubber Dude: I’d recommend you eat a bottle of Quaaludes, and then you won’t care what you drink. In fact, you won’t be drinking anything, because you’ll be in a coma for the next six months. But look at it this way: at least you won’t have to deal with your lousy winters!”

Then there’s this plaintive question from Shirley W., of Chillicothe, Ohio. “Dear Wine Critic, I’m a housewife, and my husband lost his job at the lathe factory 2 years ago and hasnt worked since.  We’re living on our tiny savings that are just about dipleted.  My question is, the holidays is a time to splurge, but we just don’t have the money!!! So, I guess I’m asking, is it O.K. to steal a nice bottle of wine, just this one time a year?”

Dear Shirley W., of course it is! Why would you even ask, when the answer is so obvious? And not just this time of year; every day is the right time to shoplift that special bottle. So go out and Occupy that Wine Store!!! While you’re at it, can you stop by your local jewelry store and pick me up a nice Rolex? I like the Men’s Daytona Automatic Chronograph, with the Meteorite Dial. Pretend you’re having a heart attack, and while the clerk is freaking out, you can slip it into your pocket, and then suddenly recover.

“Dear Mr. Wine Critic, I’m invited to a holiday meal in which the hosts are in the process of getting divorced. He likes red wine, especially Bordeaux. She likes a nice, sweet Moscato. What should I bring? [signed] Friend of Fighting Friends”

Dear FOFF, this situation arose during my recent visit to China. I solved it by mixing a little Moscato in with some Lafite and calling it “Mosceaux.”™

“Hey critic, who the f**k do you think you are, telling everybody what to do, when you dont know sh*t from shinola? Why dont you go out and get yourself a real job like the rest of us? [signed] Factory Joe.” Dear Factory Joe, I actually don’t know how to do anything else. But if I ever learn how to weld, I’ll see you down on the factory floor! Meanwhile, for the holidays, I recommend you and the Missus enjoy a nice bottle of Harlan ‘01. If you can’t find any where you live, let me know, and I’ll intervene personally with Bill. I suggest drinking it with a Kobe beef filet made from real Japanese Wagyu, not that inferior Texas crap. Give the wine a brief decant, preferably in a Riedel “Black Tie” (model #4100/23). No sauce on the steak, puh-leeze, just a little Fleur de Sel and some Surinamese black pepper, ground in a Peugeot pepper mill with a black mahogany base. And, of course, you’ll want to drink the wine in a Riedel Sommeliers Bordeaux glass. If you follow my instructions carefully, I believe you shall experience 100 perfect points of holiday bliss! Please accept my very best wishes for a safe, happy Christmas/Hanukah/Kwaanza or Solstice Ceremony, and I’ll see you out on the wine trail in 2012! [signed] The Wine Critic!

After last week’s brouhaha over Jay Miller I decided to double check what Robert Parker says about blind tasting. From “The Wine Advocate Rating System” page on his site:

“When possible all of my tastings are done in peer-group, single-blind conditions.”

You can see that the loophole here is “when possible,” but how big a loophole is it? So small you can barely squeeze a pinky? Or big enough to drive an 18-wheeler through? Well, here’s Parker on his own “exceptions to this policy”, followed by my comments:

(1) all barrel tastings

That’s cool. I’m down with that.

(2) all specific appellation tastings where at least 25 of the best estates will not submit samples for group tastings

I had to read this a couple times to understand it. I would guess this means, for example, Napa Valley Cabernet. I, personally, am never sent the wines of more than 25 Napa Cabs (Colgin, Araujo, Staglin, Screaming Eagle, etc.), and I would guess Parker isn’t, either. Perhaps he buys them, but my educated guess is that Parker actually travels to the wineries, or to local third party venues, to taste (of course, from now on it will be Galloni), and that these tastings are open. If you roll in other “specific appellations” (Bordeaux, the Northern Rhône, Burgundy), and if you assume that lots of the wineries there “will not submit samples” (do the First Growths or DRC?), then you have to also assume that Parker’s Rule #2 gives him ample leeway to taste openly, pretty much whenever he wants to.

Sodden thought: Who determines what are “the best estates”? And if you know you’re tasting one of “the best estates” wouldn’t that bias your perception of that wine?

(3) for all wines under $25

This is a pretty weird “exception to this policy.” Why should wines under $25 be held to a different standard than wines over $25? Parker doesn’t make this clear. It’s especially difficult to understand, given this statement, from his “Wine Advocate Writer Standards” page:

“In a tasting, a $10 bottle of petite chateau Pauillac should have as much of a chance as a $200 bottle of Lafite Rothschild or Latour.”

Truer words never were spoken! But how can that $10 petite chateau wine have “as much of a chance” if it’s tasted openly? Why not sneak it into a blind tasting against Second, Third and Fourth Growths? That would be giving it “as much of a chance” to earn a high score. If Parker (or anybody else) is staring at the label (and, even worse, at the tech sheet)–and particularly, if he’s sitting down to an open tasting of petite chateau wines–isn’t it possible, and even likely, that his mind is being influenced by knowledge of what he’s tasting? I should think so. “These are just petite chateaux, so they can’t possibly be very good. Everybody knows that,” is how the mentation would go.

Okay, back to blind tasting. Here’s Parker’s guideline (on the Writer Standards page) for “The Other Wine Advocate / eRobertParker.com Wine Critics”:

“All tastings…are done under both blind and non-blind conditions…”.

It’s curious that on this very long page, which is practically an essay, this is the only mention of blind tasting. You would think Parker would focus much more deeply and candidly on this topic, since it’s really at the heart of everything he (and we) do. But no–just this slapdash little reference. And even it is unsatisfactory. “Both blind and non-blind”….How? When? Why? Under what circumstances? So this looks to me like another loophole, as big as the “when possible” loophole mentioned above.

Loopholes are funny things. Everybody uses them. Most of the time, it doesn’t really matter. We give ourselves just enough wriggle room so that, if we have to break a promise, we can say, “Well, I didn’t swear on a stack of Bibles, did I?” But sometimes it does matter. I should think in the case of a wine writer it would be obligatory to have a little note beside every review indicating how the wine was reviewed, and where. In a blind, big regional tasting? Individually and openly, at the winery, with the proprietor? These things matter. People have the right to know. We’ll never do away with loopholes, but we can make them so tiny that only a pinky can fit through.

I know that Jay Miller’s resignation from The Wine Advocate will have a younger generation cheering that the blogosphere just outed another lying, cheating sleazebag, and that the old order is crumbling faster than a chocolate chip cookie at an Overeater’s Anonymous meeting. But somebody has to put this into perspective.

I tried to begin that the other day, when I said we didn’t have enough information to come to any conclusions, even though plenty of people were. Today, we know more, mainly from the Baltimore Sun’s coverage. To me, here’s the salient point, taken from the Sun article:

“Campo said in that exchange he wasn’t arranging a visit by Miller to any wineries, but rather that he was negotiating fees for Miller to host a seminar….The speaking engagement — not Miller’s first — had nothing to do with The Wine Advocate, and the governing body for the local wine region, not any wineries, paid for it.”

If this is true, and there’s no reason to think it isn’t, then Miller’s critics are saying that Miller shouldn’t be allowed to make extra money through speaking fees, beyond whatever remuneration he got from Parker. That’s my reading, anyway. But on what basis do the critics make this charge? Does Roger Ebert ever make money from speaking engagements? I’m sure he does (or did, before his stroke). I don’t hear anyone getting all steamed about that. I, personally, don’t see anything wrong with Miller, or any other writer, taking fees for speaking before groups that’ve invited him.

Now, if the wineries who indirectly pay for these speaking engagements believe their wines are going to get higher scores from Miller in exchange for the fee, that’s their problem. I would hope Miller made it abundantly clear that wasn’t the case and could never be.

In another version of the same article, which you can read here, Miller said, “What I write is totally based on what’s in the bottle.” Again, is there any reason not to believe that? I’ve said the same thing over and over again. It doesn’t matter what a winery does to me or for me: My reviews are totally based on what’s in the bottle. Not, I hasten to add, that I speak very much for a fee–it only happens a few times a year, Wine Enthusiast‘s policy is for the fee to be paid by third parties, not wineries, and the fee is never anywhere close to Miller’s purported $26,000 for a two day trip. (I should live so long!) But if that’s Miller’s market value, then he has a right to accept it, if someone is willing to pay.

I still don’t understand all the details of the relationship between Miller and this Campo fellow, but from my reading, there doesn’t seem to be anything lurid or particularly scandalous about it. Campo runs a wine organization; he occasionally arranges local events for Miller, and perhaps he [Campo] even makes a little extra money off Miller. Nothing wrong with that.

This blogger, Jim Budd, who busted Miller, came up with the clever phrase, “No Pay, No Jay,” implying that unless wineries forked over big money to Miller, he wouldn’t review their wines. I don’t believe that for a minute. Is anyone suggesting Miller refused to review a Spanish wine because the winery didn’t pay him? Or that Miller lowered a score because the winery wouldn’t fork over money?  No.

The more subtle implication Mr. Budd is making is “The reason why producers and their [organizations] were prepared to pay these sums was because Miller was going to review and rate their wines for The Wine Advocate.” According to this view, Miller would never have been in a position to charge money for a private visit, unless he was the famous Spanish reviewer for Robert Parker.

Well, duh! Do bears crap in the forest? That’s just reality. Name me a famous wine critic and I’ll show you somebody making money beyond his or her paycheck from the company, from speaking engagements, consulting, book writing, etc. We even have critics who own wineries: Robert Parker and Beaux-Frères! Does anybody not think that Beaux-Frères (which retails in the $60-$80 neighborhood) has cachet because of Parker’s part-ownership? If you do, there’s a bridge in San Francisco I’d like to sell you.

Now, we can have a discussion about the various lines that separate a true conflict of interest from the appearance of a conflict of interest. We can say, “No wine critic such as Miller should ever be allowed to make a penny from private arrangements, because a blogger says that would ‘fail to pass the sniff test.’” But that, quite honestly, is to let some bloggers dictate to professionals how they should run their businesses. A blogger has the right to his opinion, of course, and that applies to Mr. Budd. But from everything I’ve read, I just don’t see what Miller did that’s so wrong. And it’s soooo easy these days to stir up a shitstorm on the blogosphere.

Maybe I’m wrong. I know that my brilliant readers will show me the light, if I’ve misinterpreted this. If I’m wrong, I’ll gladly do a mea culpa.

Here’s the bottom line: there is absolutely no way to convince doubters of a wine critic’s objectivity, or that he’s being as honest as he can. Naysayers will always find something to criticize, and in this business, being accused of accepting money for reviews is like being asked “When did you stop beating your wife?” There’s no answer that can possibly satisfy the questioner, and no matter what the critic replies, he ends up looking guilty, even when he’s not.

Still, for all my misgivings about the Jay Miller case, I’m glad it arose, because we always need to talk about these important issues, instead of letting them fester.

Any article with the headline Time to sex up wine is going to get my attention!

That’s how Lewis Perdue’s Wine Industry Insight Daily News Fetch put it last week, in reporting on an article in Harpers’ on a Spanish M.W., Pancho Campo, who told a Hong Kong [where else?] audience that “wine’s image should be ‘simple and sexy’.”

Here are some of the money quotes from Señor Campo’s speech: “The biggest problem of the next generation is that we are losing millennial consumers [aged between 18 and 25]…Too often young people prefer to drink beer or spirits because they think that wine is too expensive and snobby.” These hot-blooded young things “want their first experience of wine [to be] exciting and sexy.”

Well, who doesn’t? I suppose an 18-year old’s first experience with a bottle of sweet Moscato, in the back seat of a car with an ardent love partner, would be exciting and sexy. No wine glasses required, just tippling straight from the noggin so to speak, maybe spilling a little here and there, but hey! you can always lick it up and off…

But I digress!

Seriously, Pablo is just advancing the latest installation of the “wine for dummies” argument, according to which we [writers, critics, snobby sommeliers, bass-ackwards merchants and winemakers themselves] have made wine hopelessly complicated and snooty for the average young person. In fact, here’s the Harpers’ article’s lead paragraph, by their writer, Helen Arnold, who, I imagine, felt she was paraphrasing what Pablo meant to say:

“Besuited fat old men with black teeth droning on about malolactic fermentation is the last thing the wine industry needs if it wants to educate and attract younger consumers.”

Wow. Is she referencing me? I do talk about malolactic fermentation, I’m afraid (although I don’t believe I drone on), and I suppose I am considered “old” in relation to the Millennials. But I emphatically reject the notion that I am “besuited”!!! Ms. Arnold, I do not even own a suit! Hell, there’s only four or five days a year when I deign to put on a sport jacket. And “black teeth”? Mine aren’t, thank you, although I have often seen purple-stained teeth, especially after a Petite Sirah tasting.

And I am not fat. But I concede Ms. Arnold’s point that many years in the wine and food writing biz can pack on the pounds! Which is why I hit the gym everyday, about the only advice I would give to novice wine writers.

I sometimes sigh when I see this anti-intellectual streak that runs through wine writing like a vein of sludge in Alberta shale. Even Joe Roberts, at 1WineDude, taps into it, in his header: Serious Wine Talk for the not so serious drinker. Joe, at least, tries to have it both ways: he wants to play at the level of the professional critic, yet at the same time reassure his readers that he will dumb his knowledge down, lest he wade into swamps of malolactic miasma and drag them along with him. (Don’t get me wrong, I know what Joe’s trying to do, and I respect it. I just am predicting his shtick will change and get more “knowledge-y,” the older he gets.)

I know a lot of 18-25 year olds, and while I’m sure they think about sex a lot, it’s an insult to suggest that’s all they care about. They have pre-frontal lobes, too, and are concerned with knowledge, wisdom, spirituality and all sorts of other good things. They want to learn more about wine (assuming they like it to begin with), and they don’t want to be pandered to, the way beer and spirits (especially cognac) manufacturers do, by throwing the possibility of sex in their faces if only they’d buy the right booze. Far from finding a “simple and sexy” message for young people, wine should show them that a better, more meaningful life awaits when they graduate from chug-a-lug to the true intelligent appreciation of the world’s oldest and finest beverage.