Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I hate Wine Spectator.

Hate is a bit of a strong word, I admit, when used to describe how I feel about a magazine, especially one so evidently esteemed as Wine Spectator. Let's just say instead, that I am extremely disdainful of the aforementioned publication, so much so that Vinoland's subscription was cancelled more than a year ago.
I have never seen particular merit in their 100 point wine rating scale. I have no interest in their reviewers' palates (I have my own). The entire magazine's pages, front to back, are filled with wines that are either unobtainable and/or unaffordable. The wineries with the smallest case productions get the highest scores: can we say cult? James Laube is a pompous ass! Shall I go on? No, I'll spare you any further ranting on this subject.
Apparently my employer feels the same way. In a fit of pre-spring cleaning, she clearly found it necessary to dispose of not one, but two Wine Spectator accolades awarded to the winery. It is interesting to see how the over-inflated subscription price charged to WS disciples is put to good use in producing tastful wood and brass pieces of rubbish...I mean plaques!
Note: The name of the winery has been obscured to protect the guilty.

10 comments:

Thomas said...

To paraphrase: What the world needs is an honest 5-cent wine magazine.

Would it be good for the wine industry and wine consumer if lifestyle magazines were replaced with actual wine reporting magazines? And I don't mean written by pompous, self-appointed critics. I mean real wine writing and wine information.

I can quickly think of five songs with thew word "dream" in their title to quote here!

Vinogirl said...

I maintained my subscription to WS for far longer than I needed to. I justified having that nonsense delivered to my house by arguing that I liked the geographic wine articles, when I should've just bought a guide book...or now I'd just look online.
Living in Napa you hear WS horror stories, e.g. they don't taste the wines blind, or one producer who did not leave his wine at their building, in summer, because he didn't feel they were storing wines correctly before reviewing them.
There will always be a segment of the population that will crave 'one stop shopping' for reviews, world wine news and editorials...the rest will seek out this info on blogs etc., and hopefully taste and judge for themselves.

Thud said...

it's red or white comes in a bottle and goes well with spag bol....there you go...wine reviewed.

monkey said...

i know a Thud who has a great little fire to burn that piece of crap.

The villager: said...

I'm pleased to see you have the same bin as me, Vinogirl, is it from IKEA ?!

Vinogirl said...

Thud: Succinct as usual.

Monkey: It's all it's good for really.

Villager: I do indeed believe my boss shopped in Ikea.

Affer said...

I hate it when you sit on the fence......

Vinogirl said...

Affer, I know. I am so wishy-washy!

Joe Roberts said...

C'mon, express your *true* feelings already! :)

Vinogirl said...

Winedude, believe me, my rant could have been a lot worse :)