Imagine for a moment that you are a – relatively - young lover of fine watches or cars or wine who fancies the idea of setting yourself up as a critic in one of these fields. How would you get to drive the new Ferrari or McLaren? Or to handle the latest Rolex or Omega? Or taste the newest vintage of Dom Perignon or la Tâche? Unless you were able to find a position with one of the few surviving specialist publications in any of these fields, were born into a lot of money or landed an unusually highly-paid job, the only option would be to ask the motor manufacturers, watchmakers and wine distributors to give you the chance to do so.
The likelihood is that they’ll say no. After all, they must get huge numbers of this kind of random request. But let’s say that, with the help of an introduction, or after doing something that earned the respect or at least interest of their PR team, you receive an invitation to a media launch. What if, at this event, you decide that the emperor isn’t wearing as many clothes as everyone else is saying. What do you do? Express your critical views, knowing that all the other attendees will obediently praise the imperial robes? Or follow their example in the hope of being invited to the next event?
The UK wine writer, Jamie Goode, posed this question in a recent post in which he concluded that some wines are “beyond criticism”.
Wine rating
Scoring Grange, he says, “especially in Australia, the land of some very high scores – begins about 97 in a bad vintage but mostly hovers around 99 or 100. Go below 95 and you will be on your own, and no one will give you credibility.” The same, he says, applies to tasting ‘fancy Bordeaux chateau’ wines en primeur. Give a score of less than 98, or 96 in a lesser year and you won’t be invited to taste them again.
He advises potential critics to “by all means taste these wines (it’s so interesting to benchmark) and by all means be critical, but if your score is low, then you will gain nothing publishing your results, your readers will gain nothing either, and you could end up never getting the chance to taste these sorts of wines again.”
It may have been the reference to the Penfolds wine that sufficiently caught the attention of the Australian critic, Jeremy Oliver for him to pen a fierce riposte. “For what it’s worth” he wrote “I rate the current 2019 Grange at 89/100.”
Oliver continues “I often look twice at the scores given by ‘critics’ to poor vintages of famous wines. It’s as if some labels can operate outside the rules by which others are judged. I think that’s wrong. Goode’s advice is that if you don’t think the wines merit top scores, be positive or don’t say anything at all. I couldn’t disagree more strongly. One of our roles as critics is to protect buyers from making poor decisions.”
Reading what the two men have written, it’s clear that they agree on ‘some labels… operating outside the rules’ or, in Goode’s words ‘being beyond criticism’. The only point of difference between them – and it’s admittedly significant – is that the Australian believes one should publish and be damned, while the Briton accepts the need to “keep your head down and next year you’ll still be on the guest list and you’ll have a wonderful time.”
Wines as luxuries
Which brings me back to where I started. Producers of luxury products – a category that, like it or not, undeniably includes top wines – understandably focus their marketing budget and efforts on media that are going to help promote sales. Nowadays, that might well include influencers who can be relied upon to play nicely, but it almost certainly won’t embrace many critics who are going to be, well, critical.
Back in the late 1980s, Oz Clarke and I were both effectively blacklisted by the London Champagne Bureau and the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux after writing columns they did not appreciate, so I have some experience of what Goode and Oliver are talking about.
Neither Clarke nor I backed down, and after a brief interval, the invitations began to fall through our letterboxes again. But, by then, I’d already changed my plans – for Bordeaux, at least. Every year, instead of doing en primeur as a journalist, I paid my own way and joined a great local merchant called Bill Blatch and a team of his customers, and did all my tasting – including the very ‘fanciest’ chateaux - with them. But I accept that this strategy is rarely available.
Wine public relations - like all marketing - has become much more sophisticated. Producers put a lot more care into assessing the potential value to them of every invitee. Oz Clarke and I had columns in magazines and newspapers with big circulations and readers the Champagne and Bordeaux producers couldn't ignore. Today, that kind of wine print media is an endangered species and its impact on the sales of premium and super-premium wine far from what it once was.
Now, a top sommelier - who might be expected to buy the wine, and share their enthusiasm for it with other on-trade professionals - is more likely to have a place at the tasting table than many a minor critic whose words may, to be blunt, not shift any stock.
The only sure way for a critic to have access to the finest wines is to become nearly as big a brand – at least in one market - as they are. I’m presuming that Penfolds and Henschke (he was also scathing about a vintage of Hill of Grace) would not blacklist Jeremy Oliver, one of Australia’s top critics, any more than the Champenois or Bordelais would close their doors to Jane Anson, Jancis Robinson or James Suckling. But how many others have that status? The few critics who do, have the prerogative to say what they think and, in my opinion, should use it.
The brutal fact is that both Goode and Oliver are correct. Some wines, cars and watches are increasingly the exclusive domain of those who can afford to buy them, sales and marketing folk, compliant media with a sufficiently broad audience - and the few superstar opinion formers who have earned their own ‘access all areas’ passes – and the right to say what they think.
Everyone else is on the outside looking in.
Does it matter that the next generation of wine critics doesn't get to experience the finest wines? To switch sectors, would it matter if the next generation of theatre or movie critics didn't see the latest productions on stage or screen? I think it would, but I'm afraid I don't have any way to resolve the situation as it applies to the wine world
I was lucky enough to land that newspaper column quite early in my career. At the end of next year, I will celebrate 20 years of no longer being a wine critic. I really don’t envy those who are beginning to plough that furrow.
