Relationships & Wine

So anyone that reads several wine blogs will have undoubtedly heard all the ruckus about, bloggers accepting freebies and critics being taken on wine trips…serious shit storm going on, with everyone taking a side and standing firm….once again, this blogger is falling somewhere in the middle, much like I did when Robert Parker started his taking his swipes at wine bloggers, a move now I am sure he wishes he had never made.

To me, there is no black and white on this issue, crap load of grey area that’s for sure and I’m not sure there is….or should be an easy answer. First of all, we are talking about people that are rather obsessed with wine, we tend to enjoy spending our time with others that share our passion, AND know a little something about it…well, that lops off a bunch of the population doesn’t it? We also tend to have “food issues” meaning that dining is more of a live for thing than an, eat to live thing….well there goes another chuck of folks. What I’m getting at is it is a small community, growing…thankfully, but still small, then you carve out those of us “in the business” and we are talking teensy now……are we really expected NOT to hang out with, dine with or taste with our peers/friends?

In my case, one of the most important people in my life is an importer, we are close friends and he has been a mentor for years….thing is, I loved his wines first and became his friend second, so should I not report on wines that I am crazy about because they are imported by a dear friend? Or would people prefer that I dissolve a friendship that has helped stir my passion, taught me more about wine and helped hone my palate, therefore making me better at my job…that is not only NOT going to happen, it’s freaking lame.

Visiting a wine estate is an integral part of understanding, and in turn educating, others about the wines made there….if one were to be treated to dinner at said estate, a dinner that often involves older vintages of the wines made there, and snippets of history through stories told around the table…is that a bad thing? To me, owning those moments help me, they enable me to convey the richness of the place, the land and the people that farm it, without that element, they are just structures that press grapes into juice….to take the “people” part out of wine strips it of an element of texture. …

Wine trips are also a essential part to learning, walking the vineyards, seeing the soils, the smell of the barrel room and pressing the work worn palms of the people that make the wines, no amount of reading can bring that to life, but to have someone before you, wearing that grin of remembrance, spinning the tale of a wild mustached winemaker, a moldy cellar or a leg of lamb strung up in the fireplace for dinner….to me, that brings it a bit closer, and makes things more personal….relationships are a HUGE part of this business.

My relationships with importers, creates relationships with winemakers, which creates a story I am able to share, which creates a relationship with my customers…with that wine, that winemaker and that importer…the problem is?

This is where credibility comes in, writers, critics and bloggers really have nothing else BUT our credibility, we don’t have all the answers and we cannot tell someone what they are going to like…all we can do is give our two cents and from there people can agree or not agree. If anyone starts giving rave reviews to shit wines, because they were “bribed” to do so, well they are lose their readership real quick. And what if someone gave like, 95 points to a wine, you bought it, loved it and then found out they were taken on a trip….do you love that wine any less?! I just don’t get the outrage about this whole thing.

The whole thing kind of makes me sad, to watch an industry of people, that share a passion for something as civilizing as wine, tear into each other, question each other fuel this bubble of ugly mistrust….STOP IT, just stop it. We might have different ways of going about tasting, writing and scoring/reviewing, but are we not all in this for the same reason…I mean, let’s be honest, no one is getting rich here….we want to share our stories, tasting notes, and discoveries with other people, help them find their next favorite wine, delicious pairing and create a memory of their own…really kind of unifying no?