Question regarding John Kapon's notes and CT status

I had this posted under the 12 Angry Men thread but was told this needed it’s own thread…so here it is

This is regarding cellartracker and a question I posed to Eric. I love cellartracker and all that it represents. I utilize it for tasting notes regularly. I have a concern about one of the aspects of the site and wanted to address it.


It’s actually something I thought about for sometime…and in light of everything that has been discussed with the Rudy trial/American greed I felt compelled to pose my concern/question.

Though unproven I have to assume a number of John Kapon’s notes are derived from fraudulent bottles. These notes are clearly displayed openly on cellartracker. Aside from this I always assumed he played the ‘see no evil’ roll when submitting these wines for auction. Again, strictly my opinion, I am sure some support this opinion and some will shrug it off, maybe call me a troll etc… If true or not, perception is reality and therefore the credibility of this individual is damaged or under scrutiny.

First I want to ask what the hell makes John Kapon an expert taster?? Really JK?? I believe half this board is more of an expert taster than him. Aside from this, if it is true about my speculation that Jk is not credible as an individual or that a number of his tasting notes are from fraudulent wines (Ponsot believes 80% of pre-1980 being sold at auction today are fake)
then do you think his presence should be removed from CT?

I believe what Eric has created is a important website of substance and great integrity that I would hate to see compromised.
Eric believes he has done enough vetting of JK to keep his presence on the board. I feel otherwise, maybe I am an outlier, someone who hangs out on the edges of the bell curve, the Bluto speech of Animal house "who’s with me? Lets go C’mon!! Ahhhhhhh!) Or am I?? (Even DRC’s de Villaine suggested those who sold Rudy’s wine are also guilty)

Again this is just my opinion and I was just curious of everyone’s thoughts.

Since a fair proportion of all older trophy wines consumed these days are fake, I don’t know that it helps to eliminate one taster’s notes.

I posted this in the 12 Angry Men thread but it’s better off here…

Kapon’ tasting note superlatives references various types of sex (liquid, sweaty, chocolate, etc.) and cocaine…how those retain their relevance in is beyond me.

I do hope that there isn’t any tasting notes of his for Ponsot Clos St. Denis pre-1982 (I believe that is the first vintage they produced)…despite how good he thought those wines were!

I say leave them. There’s not enough good comedy in the world of wine.

Do you have a link to the problematic notes, MarcF? Would be curious to read them.

So what will you do with your 1947 Ponsot mag?

Here is a sampling – there are more if you scroll through the “Issue Text” options.

Is this the type of thing that should have a screenshot before it is deleted, like many-a-tweet?

Those things are history. For pity’s sake, don’t outright delete them!

Thanks for posting, Ryan. Those are classic.

1921 Château Ausone St. Émilion Grand Cru Red Bordeaux Blend more Vintage Tastings, John Kapon
A Double-Blind Dinner of A Lifetime, Big Boy Style (6/3/2007)

That last flight of Burgundies left me dazed and dizzy with admiration, yet a > magnum of 1921 Ausone > was up for the task of reminding the world that it is not only a Burg, Burg world. > Rudy admired ‘the richness of 1921,’ and the wine was pure sex in the nose, intense and ridiculously good> . There was the meat, game and kink of St. Emilion here and that defining wintergreen to this ‘wow’ wine. Its flavors were also intense, full of menthol, meat, game and a long finish 97+M points

Seems like CT should delete them from the notes section but preserve them for the sake of humor.

Hmm. Menthol – a little Napa cab thrown in, perhaps?

Woohoo, 6-star status wine!

1900 Château Cheval Blanc St. Émilion Grand Cru Red Bordeaux Blend more Vintage Tastings, John Kapon

A Double-Blind Dinner of A Lifetime, Big Boy Style (6/3/2007)
The second wine of this flight had a complex nose of olives, garden, rose, citrus, wax and smoke. Its palate was smooth and soft, easy like Sunday morning. The nose gained this sushi-like sweet complexity, and Ray picked up on ‘lavender.’ There was nice acid to its rusty finish and also a lot of exotic spice. ‘If anything is Cheval, it’s this,’ Ray asserted, and it was a 1900 Cheval Blanc, also a Nicolas Reserve bottling. I have been fortunate to have been blown away by a spectacular bottle of this wine, and although it displayed more and more signature Cheval and was many’s favorite wine of the flight, I found this bottle to not live up to my memory of this wine (94). I should add that > both Rob and Rudy thought that by the end of the night, the 1900 Cheval was legendary and 6 star status> . I did not get to taste it at that much later stage. 94 points

Hmm
It is highly likely that some notes were used to enable the sale of fraudulent wine. That does make me feel uncomfortable, but barring being a small warning sign for potentially compromised wines, there is a decent list on the main Rudy thread that is probably more useful. The horse will sadly have bolted for those that trusted Kapon when they bought the wine.

I wonder whether the (hypothetical) perfect approach would be what Eric does for wines which are commonly mis-catalogued, but in this case it would pop-up whenever Rudy K was mentioned “Rudy K was convicted of creating forged wines on DD/MM/CCYY”. Such text search would be impossible to code as anyone else called Rudy would fall into such a blanket search, though perhaps it could be done only on members known to move in such circles.

Easier still is to put a disclaimer on Kapon’s TNs re: this association. Provocative for sure, and I doubt I would be so provocative if it were my business.

What would I do in Eric’s shoes? Probably nothing, or if I felt strongly enough, block or delete Kapon’s notes and send him a spreadsheet of his ‘intellectual property’ and his last contribution. Eric is running a business, not a criminal court, and there is no benefit in him getting involved.

regards
Ian

Re: 1962 Henri Jayer Richebourg

‘It’s Zinfandel,’ Rudy cried, half-joking, yet half-serious.

This is terrific. Please don’t paper it over. It’s history.

Here is a modified version of part of what I posted on the other thread:

I have a problem with Kapon or any other retailer, wholesaler, etc., being listed as a pro reviewer on CellarTracker and would request Eric considering an additional category for these types of people. When I think of pro reviewers, I think of someone who is posting dispassionate tasting notes - like an Allen Meadows or a John Gilman - I realize it is hard to think of either as a dispassionate person, esp. John, but what I mean is a reviewer who does not benefit financially from high scores. There seems to be a huge conflict of interest where a reviewer is ITB. Maybe there should be another category of ITB so that people are warned that the review is by someone who would profit from purchases of the wine.

So, I would not eliminate the reviews of Kapon or anyone else. I would just label them clearly so that nobody is misled.

Note that to me this isn’t just about Kapon. Certainly, anything by him has a special taint because of everything that has happened, but I feel the same way about a Peter Weygandt or a Terry Theise or any of a lot of other people whose views I highly respect but who have a commercial interest. Love to read their views, just want disclosure.

Does anyone think Kapon remained unaware of the fraud?

Difficult to believe it in that context.

I popped it!!! I meant to invite u over…I loved it>gave it 95points…I think the Orin Swift Prisoner that Rudy mixed in really gave it a nice kick.

Seriously, Rudy is a mixing genius…he mixes some cheap red wines with some mid range older burgs and everyone is slapping down 95-100 scores(even expert tasters :wink: like John Kapon …lol).HELL,. RUDY IS NOT A CRIMINAL AT ALL…HE IS THE WORLD GREATEST CONDUCTOR OF SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS!! See labels do affect score! (Well, we kinda already knew that though) exactly why I said wines for scoring should be tasted blind. Though I completely understand why they r not.

You and I had reverse-labelism when we picked D’Armailhac non-blind over Harlan, Haut Brion and some Leovilles! So cool to be anti-establishments and pull for the little guy! [cheers.gif]

“Let [them] stay. A lesson in folly is worth two in wisdom.”
–Tom Stoppard

Jay what about Jk’s status as an expert taster…more comedy??? Lol