So I was in my therapist’s waiting room looking for a new magazine among the pile of old Scientific Americans and Smithsonians when I came across the Nov. 23, 2009 ish of The New Yorker. Not exactly new, but I hadn’t seen it before. Thumbed through it and saw, on page 44, “Lunch With M.,” a story about a reviewer for the New York City edition of the Michelin restaurant guide (and if you have to ask what that is, your idea of a great meal is Red Lobster).

I’d got about halfway through when Doc poked his head in the waiting room and said “Hi.” I was tempted to finish the article instead of having my head shrunk, but instead, I took the magazine and told Doc I was stealing it. He didn’t seem to mind, bless his larcenous soul.

So here’s the thing. The parallels between a Michelin Guide reviewer, or inspector, as they’re called, and me, as a wine reviewer, are eerie. The Michelin inspector profiled in the article is a woman whom the writer refers to only as “Maxime” (the M. of the headline). It’s not her real name, because Michelin inspectors are never publicly identified. In fact, they have been scrupulously, almost paranoically shielded from visibility for many decades, in the way of restaurant reviewers everywhere. Here in San Francisco, I’ve seen Michael Bauer, the Chronicle’s restaurant critic, admonish audiences for taking his picture and jeopardizing his independence. So that’s a little different from me — no anonymity here; everybody knows my mug.

With this penchant for secrecy, why did the Michelin people make Maxime available to a reporter from The New Yorker? Because the American editions of the Guide (there’s also a San Francisco edition) haven’t been selling well, and have not achieved the clout of local critics from the Chronicle, L.A. papers and the New York Times; and so the Michelin people launched this “effort to promote…a better understanding of the guides’ means and methods.” Well, if that doesn’t sound like transparency, I don’t know what does. “A better understanding of…means and methods” is exactly what I’ve been forced to explain in this blog due to unceasing demands for same from readers (and I am not complaining, just observing). It’s nice to see Michelin being confronted with the same transparency as I’ve been.

What does Maxime look for in the food she reviews? “You’re looking for something that really tests a number of quality ingredients and then something that’s a little complex…”, she says, noting that “We would never order something like a salad. We rarely order soup.” That’s different from what I do. I review everything from California — not just complex wines but wines that are the “salads” and “soups” of supermarket shelves; hopefully, those can be Best Buys, but Michelin does not include value in its reviews, only quality. But there is another similarity when the New Yorker writer says Maxime “is required to eat everything on her plate…a regimen that calls to mind the force-feeding of the ducks that supply [Jean-Georges] Vongerichten with his velvety foie gras…”. Yes, quack quack, there are days when I too feel force fed, only with wine.

A further similarity: the Michelin Guide has come under attack from its competitors. The Zagat people, interviewed for the article, complained about Michelin’s elitism. “We’ve never believed that there were experts that should tell you what to do,” Nina Zagat huffed.

Hello! Can we talk? How many times have bloggers said that ivory-tower critics should not purport to tell everybody what to drink? That’s what the bloggers call “the democratization of wine reviewing.” So this is a big parallel between Maxime and me.

The similarities pile up. A former Michelin inspector published a tell-all book revealing “the inspector’s life as one of loneliness and underpaid drudgery…dining alone and under intense pressure to file reports.” This, too, is the woeful tale of the wine critic — this one, anyway. Believe me, it’s not all glamor — far from it.

The most interesting part of the article comes when Maxime makes the distinction between her personal preferences and objective quality. “It’s not really a ‘like’ and a ‘not like,’” she observes. “It’s an analysis. You’re eating it and you’re looking for the quality of the products…You’re looking at ‘Was every single element prepared exactly perfectly, technically correct?’” Readers of this blog will recall the many conversations here concerning objectivity vs. subjectivity. Maxime believes in objectivity: she feels she really can differentiate between her personal taste and the existential reality of a properly prepared food, with math-like certainty. And I feel like I too can tell a “technically correct” wine from a bad one.

One can argue, of course, that the line between “analysis” and “liking” is so blurry as to be indistinguishable; and, since there’s no way to prove or disprove that, there will always be two camps: one that accepts the notion of objective judgment, and one that doesn’t. So it is with wine criticism.

And then, a final similarity between Maxime and me: dining at restaurant Jean-Georges, she tries an Artic char, on a bed of watercress remoulade, accompanied by a julienne of apple, and tells the writer, excitedly, “It’s perfectly cooked. I mean, it’s textbook.” It is, in other words, a 100-point fish.

I was struck by this remark in yesterday’s St. Helena Star newspaper: “You gotta stop chasing the scores. The younger generation doesn’t even know who (Robert) Parker Jr. is.” That was by a fellow named Glen Knight, described as domestic wine buyer for an L.A. store, The Wine House. Knight made the remark at a Napa Valley Grapegrowers event, in Calistoga.

“Chasing the scores” has become a phrase of abject scorn. It’s used by pundits to finger-wag wineries who endeavor to get high scores from a cadre of critics who use the 100-point system to rate wine, as well as consumers who use those scores to make buying decisions. There’s an arch tone of condemnation to it, as though anyone who believes in point scores is consigned to Hell.

Well, I’m here to defend the score-chasers against the evil-doers who attack them!

Google “chasing the scores” and you’ll come upon a rogue’s gallery of derison. Here’s Jamie Goode lecturing people on chasing the scores, which he calls chasing the points: “I had some merchants breathlessly quoting Parker scores to encourage me to bite. Worse still, some were quoting Wine Spectator scores—a similar 100 point scale (derivative), but with less consistency and authority than Parker. Uuugh!”

In the N.Y. Times, David Darlington, author of the best book ever written on Zinfandel, equates “chasing the Score” [capital letter from him] with “the dark side.”

A writer for the Burlington Free Press bashes “score-chasing formulaic wines.”

A Salt Lake City writer says that “number-chasing score-whores and wineries crafting their wines to attain higher scores [are] alarming.”

My bbff (best blogging friend forever) Joe Roberts refers to “classified Bordelais growths [that] are chasing the bombastic, high-point-scoring (and therefore high-price-demanding) style” (although he suggests this may be related to climate change).

An M.S (all rise) was quoted in the Houston Chronicle lambasting “trophy hunters [who are] chasing Parker scores and the Wine Spectator’s Top 100 List. I hate that!”

The blogger Arete Wines refers to Kermit Lynch in arguing that “the way we view wine…needs to change from chasing scores to truly enjoying and understanding wine,” as if Kermit Lynch doesn’t pour lavish praise on every wine he (and his staff) write about in his sales-oriented newsletter.

The rock god Maynard James Keenan says about his wines, in an interview about his movie, Blood Into Wine, “[W]e’re not chasing scores” (despite that fact that he had both me and Jim Suckling — two score mavens if ever there were any — in the movie).

A commenter on Dr. Vino’s blog got off this Ben Franklinesque aphorism: “A man who would score wine would score women, and deserves neither.”

Whores! Dark side! Women! Hatred! Uuugh! What’s going on?

Look, I’ve said myself that scores can be crutches. But what is it about them that makes so many people go so crazy? I’m not sure, without getting into psychopathological concepts of sublimation and projection, but what I am sure about is that scores are helpful to both wineries and consumers. Let me explain.

Consumers obviously like scores. They’ve proven time and time again that they use them to help decide what to buy, of the gazillions of choices out there. You therefore can’t argue that scores aren’t beneficial to the consumer. The consumer is asking for guidance, and scores are one way of providing it.

Wineries, too, benefit from “chasing scores,” if that’s how you care to explain a behavior that’s actually much more complicated than it might sound by that derogatory label. Consider that a winemaker determines that a good score by Steve Heimoff can help move her Sauvignon Blanc, which hasn’t been doing all that well. So she studies Steve’s ratings and reviews, and learns that he likes a dry, fruity Sauv Blanc with refreshing acidity. It may have a touch of gooseberry or grass, but Steve detests too much cat pee, and will slash a wine accordingly. So the winemaker makes the necessary adjustments, and the next year, I give the wine 92 points and it sells out. The winemaker has not only improved the quality of her Sauvignon Blanc, she’s helped her company’s bottom line and — most importantly of all — she’s given the consumer a better wine.

What’s wrong with that?

I wouldn’t call this sort of thing “chasing scores.” Instead, the winemaker realizes that, sometimes, she gets a cellar palate in which she can’t really taste her wine objectively, which is to say, in the context of the full range of its competitors. I probably taste more wine than most working winemakers, so why wouldn’t they turn to me to find out what’s in the mainstream and what isn’t? You can call this “chasing the scores,” but that’s a very prejudiced, even jaundiced way of looking at it. As for the “younger generation” not even knowing who Parker is, that may well be true; it certainly doesn’t bother me. But I will guarantee you that the younger generation is going to be making their wine-buying decisions by scores, same way the older generation does. It won’t be the only basis on which they make their choices, no more than it is now. But it will be one of them, and one of the more important.

I spoke on the phone yesterday with a winemaker who wanted to know what I thought of his wine. He was very excited about it, he said; the wine was in high demand by restaurateurs. It was a Sangiovese-Cabernet Franc blend from up in the Foothills. Alcohol 14.8%, case production only 65, retails for $30.

I told the man I liked his wine okay and gave it a decent, but not great, score. Even though he was 200 miles away and I couldn’t see him, through the telephone line I could feel his spirits sink.

This happens a lot. It’s always a tough thing for me to tell someone I wasn’t doing handstands over their wine. Often, they’ll rebut by telling me how “X” or “Y” gave it a big score, or how it won this or that medal someplace. I listen. I commiserate. I feel bad. I try to figure out what to say next without being hurtful, prideful, defensive, whatever. These are real people, with real bills to pay.

I told the man that I could see why a restaurateur or sommelier would want his wine. It’s very high in acidity, as Sangioveses are. It also was a little green and minty, although it had some good, rich cherry fruit flavor and a spicy dose of pepper. I said that, while my palate veers more toward a softer, lusher style, as exemplified by Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, I could see how, if I were a sommelier looking for a food-friendly wine, I might choose his. Napa Cabernet is not particularly versatile with food. It’s practically a food group in itself. But this guy’s Sangiovese-Cab Franc blend would be pretty good with lots of different things.

But, I explained, I’m not a sommelier. I’m a wine critic. I’m not looking for food-friendly wines, although I like to praise them when I find them. I’m looking for wines of high quality, as we define them at Wine Enthusiast. Now, this gets back to some discussions we had here last week concerning typicity versus taste. Should a Sangiovese-Cab Franc blend from the Foothills be acidic and slightly green? I suppose a case could be made. If so, then was this man’s bottling a good example of one, and thus deserving of a higher score than I gave it? In other words, was it unfair or inappropriate for me to give it the score I did, simply because it lacked the richness of a Napa Cab?

Well, let’s break it down. High acidity works for me when it feels completely balanced with all the other parts. If it’s noticeable — if it tingles my mouth with tartness that’s almost sour — then it doesn’t work. A touch of green works for me, if it’s the kind of herbaceousness that Cabernet (or Cabernet Franc, or Bordeaux for that matter) sometimes shows. But too much green doesn’t feel right. Let’s admit these are questions of subjectivity.

Here’s another example. Somebody sent in a $75 Zinfandel from Paso Robles. This is a winery I’m quite familiar with. They make a lot of different SKUs, which I’ve tasted for years. Usually, I find the wines hot, sweet — and way overpriced (not that that has anything to do with the score). I don’t give them good numbers. The proprietor has let me know that others think a good deal more of his wines than I do. That’s fine. But here’s my question. Are we supposed to posit that Paso Robles Zinfandel should be hot and slightly sweet? After all, a lot of them are, maybe most of them. So am I being unfair, or biased, or inappropriate when I give them low scores?

I honestly don’t think so. There’s a slippery slope here. Consider Clarksburg Chenin Blanc. There’s not a lot of it, but it’s quite distinctive. I’ve had Chenins from Dry Creek, Vinum, Baron Herzog, Dancing Coyote, Ehrhardt, Bogle and others, and have given them a lot of Best Buys — 19, to be exact. That’s because, at average pricing between $9-$13, they’re exactly that, best buys.

Yet the highest score I ever gave a Clarksburg Chenin Blanc was 88 points, and that was only one of them, the Vinum 2007 ($12). All the rest scored 87 points or lower. So should I have given the Vinum a much higher score, because it was the best Clarksburg Chenin Blanc I ever tasted?

Again, I don’t think so. I have a Platonic vision in my mind of perfection. It’s a wine — white, red, dry, sweet, fortified, unfortified, oaked, unoaked, sparkling, still — in which all the parts are in the most exquisite harmony. I’ve never had a California Chenin Blanc where that was true, or even close. Ditto for Paso Robles Zinfandel.

Look, wine critics forever have made distinctions between great wines and coarse ones. One of the best literary examples of this was Professor Saintsbury’s very famous observation concerning Hermitage. “It was…not a delicate wine,” he wrote; “if you want delicacy you don’t go to the Rhône…But it was the manliest [italics Saintsbury’s] French wine I ever drank.” The Professor recognized Hermitage’s essential Hermitage-ness, and could not bring himself to put it on the same level as Bordeaux. Yet he found a way of praising it even while condemning it to lesser status. I try to do the same thing: I have described Paso Robles Zinfandel as lusty.

Professor Saintsbury

I suppose if I had a completely open mind, I would allow for the possibility of a 100 point Temecula Viognier. I do; and will let you know when, and if, I stumble across one.

Well, I finally made it into the Columbia Journalism Review, where Spencer Bailey said I write “thoughtful, in-depth posts” in my blog. Like this one! Nice. On the other hand, Spencer praised almost everybody else who’s anybody in wine blogdom. But I’m glad to be mentioned in the same breath as Tom, Alder, Jeff, the Dude, Karen, Alice and Bob (and if you need their last names, you’re not a regular reader of this blog).

The article was fairly standard for a university journalism review. Nothing particularly new (the travails of wine writers, the unmonetized experimentation of online, the democratization of wine criticism), but it was gratifying to see academia (and Ivy League at that) take notice of our little world. Mr. Bailey’s first premise is that “many young, social-media savvy bloggers are fragmenting what was once a lofty territory reserved for mostly stalwart, high-profile publications like Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast.” True that! Bailey does a fair job of seeing the pluses and minuses of the “everyman [and woman] a critic” phenomenon. He quotes Jeff, at Good Grape: “There are a lot people that don’t know shit about wine and blog about it,” which seems to be a minus (why would anybody want to read the opinion of somebody who doesn’t know shit?). But the plus is that the Web “allow[s] experts, aficionados, and amateurs alike to share and discuss their passions about wine in ways that were never before possible,” even if their passions are largely based on, well, shit.

But there I go again! Didn’t mean to diss anybody. Then Mr. Bailey strikes at the very heart of the thing I’ve been asked to talk about when I keynote next month’s American Wine Bloggers Conference. The conference organizers want me to address “the rift between some bloggers and traditional print media,” in their words. Bailey expresses the same thing this way: “Most bloggers think they deserve more credit for writing about wine in fresh, timely ways; many professionals feel snubbed and less respected.” Well, I can’t speak for most bloggers but I can speak for “many professionals,” being one myself: I don’t feel snubbed, and I certainly don’t feel less respected. I’m keynoting the &%$#! blogger’s conference, for crying out loud!
But I do have to admit to being disappointed by the one quote Bailey allowed Karen [MacNeil]. “If everybody’s an expert…nobody’s an expert.” Karen, normally so media savvy, should have known that you have to be careful what you say to a reporter who doesn’t understand the complexities of a story. Bailey took that as proof that “wine criticism is bunk.” He may think that, but surely Karen, who has devoted her life to wine writing and education, doesn’t. Maybe she was misquoted, or quoted out of context.

As you might imagine, my roving eye alights especially on passages that contain either my name or the words “Wine Enthusiast,” so I loved this one. “Readers today have got to feel like the experts connect with them in some way,” says Joe Roberts, who runs the blog 1WineDude.com. “It’s not just, ‘Oh, this person’s got great credentials because they work for Wine Enthusiast.’” I hope Joe used Wine Enthusiast (as opposed to some other publication) because he was secretly sending a message to me, as I do sometimes to him. That message would be: “Steve has great credentials on his blog, not merely because he works for Wine Enthusiast, but because he connects with readers.”

Anyway, Mr. Bailey was particularly kind to Wine Enthusiast’s editors’ blogs, as he was to mine. He then casts his vision into the future and gets into the sort of crystal-gazing in which we all indulge, from time to time. “The more in-depth and enlivening the writing, the more likely the critic or blogger will get noticed…the one standard for writing about wine today is that it should be entertaining and fresh, maybe even funny, and, at the very least, relatable to its audience.” I couldn’t have said it better, myself.

But lest I run the risk of agreeing too much with Mr. Bailey, I’ll part company from him here: He inevitably brings up the spectacular Mr. Gary V. and, citing his success, writes: “All it takes is for a wine critic or blogger to have a unique idea—a Daily Candy-like newsletter for wine, say—to create [the] next big thing. No print publication necessary.”

Well, sorry. I don’t agree. There is no “next big” Gary V. “Unique ideas” are hard to find out there. If they were as common as candy, other wine bloggers would be as famous as Gary V. When it comes to success — and I’m talking financial — it still takes a print publication.

There was a terrific article in yesterday’s NY Times Magazine that I commend to everyone who has any interest in publishing, wine writing and social media. It’s as good a capsule description of where we are now as anything I’ve seen.

The author, Andrew Rice, covers a lot of territory. Basically, these are his chief points:

- Writers who worked for print publications are getting laid off, and seeking new opportunities, mainly online.
- Unfortunately, online pubs have not yet figured out a revenue stream, so these writers are either unpaid, or paid peanuts.
- Thus, while it’s true that online sites have done a good job destroying traditional print media, they’ve done a terrible job creating viable alternatives to it.
- One model that shows promise is “a commune of bloggers” wherein many bloggers pool their talents into a single online site, hoping their collective weight will attract eyeballs. (Think Huffington Post.) But making money still remains a formidable challenge.
- Two other models, subscriptions and premium memberships, are being tinkered with, so far with unproved results.

All these things, we already know, having covered this for years. But then, towards the end of the article, Rice gets into a territory that troubles me, and should trouble you, very much: “blurring the division between reporting and advertising.” In this model, a blog posting would “let advertisers…produce content that, while labeled, is blended into the rest of the site.” In other words, independent reporting would have, squeezed into its crevices like caulking in a windowpane, advertiser-created content, of which the reader might be entirely unaware. It would be as if I told you I was enjoying a cold, refeshing bottle of Coca Cola while writing these words.

Disclosure: Heimoff was paid by Coca Cola to produce this image.

Rice has enough sound journalistic sense to state that “Not long ago, such an idea would have been considered heretical, and in many newsrooms, it still is.” But then, he quotes somebody named Merrill Brown, described as “a veteran media executive and investor” who is entrepreneurially “building a network of local news sites.” “Hopefully we’re breaking down the silliness of how church and state was historically implemented,” Mr. Brown says. Times are so tough for writers, Brown implies, that they need to get over their holier-than-thou ideological purity and take the money, no matter what they have to do to get it. Or, as Rice puts it, “The recession has, through fear and necessity, made capitalists out of everyone.” Even those once-gnarled, hard-bitten wretches, reporters.

Incidentally, the reason I smell so squeaky clean is because I just showered with Dial Soap.

Disclosure: Heimoff was paid to mention “Dial Soap” in this blog

To me, the firewall between church and state — between the editorial and advertising sides of a publication — is sacrosanct. I can’t imagine being unbiased without that firewall existing. Look, I’m not an idiot. I understand that some 80% of a publication’s revenues come from advertising, not subscriptions. I know that Wine Enthusiast’s advertisers pay my bills. I try to respect the firewall, while not being needlessly antagonistic to anyone, advertisers included. That doesn’t mean an advertiser won’t get a lousy score, if I feel the wine deserves it, and the management of Wine Enthusiast has been very good about not reproaching me for reproaching advertisers’ bad wines.

By the way, I couldn’t have completed today’s post without the help of my friend, Xanax.

Disclosure: Heimoff was paid by Upjohn Pharmaceuticals to include this reference to Xanax.

Surely we can all agree this is the only model that makes sense. Can’t we? Would you find credible an alcoholic beverage magazine where there was functionally no difference between editorial and advertising? If you would, I have a subscription to The Tasting Panel I’d like to sell you. I’m not saying it’s impossible for a writer to write well with the right hand while the left hand is indulging in an orgy of product placement. Writing is a fungible skill, and in that sense, it is an amoral act. The writer can apply his skills in any direction, just as a printer can work for the U.S. Treasury or as a counterfeiter.

Say, have you seen the new Robin Hood? Fantastic movie! Check it out!

This space paid for by Universal Pictures

What I am saying is how profoundly uncomfortable I am to be watching this Brave New World plunge us into a new reality defined by advertisers, for advertisers, and confused by consumers as reality. It may be better to have no writers at all than to have writers who, through sheer economic desperation, sink into flackdom.