Sierra Carche - Jay Miller - and the latest black eye

WINE TALK
61

How anyone can still get upset about this is beyond me…all these tall stories of mistakes, errors, and bloopers just make no sense at the FREQUENCY with which they seem to happen. JM is a joke at this point, and I just laugh at anything he writes. I can’t even get upset about this stuff anymore. Good for me that I buy from Spain what I like after tasting…

1 Like
62

Guys, I understand the need to talk about the major players but let’s keep it clean and not personal please.

63

It could be interesting to do some data mining on CellarTracker on this one.
There are at least two distinct possibilities; one is that there were multiple batches of this wine, one batch good, another plonk.

If you grouped all the reviewers by scores and looked for patterns - eg. did they buy the wines around the same time, from the same stores? - you might get interesting results.

64

I just drink Lopez de Heredia…that stuff tastes like insipid water to palates like Miller and Co so more for me.

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Steffen

Most of the wine drinking public does not know about any of this. How many wine importers etc still refer to the Aussie reviews as a Parker score? I am constantly correcting people. Most consumers are ignorant, because they do not have the time nor inclination to get educated. ITB people are just lazy.

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Chris,

As you may have noticed, we have broken the old record of users “online” today…controversy sells! [basic-smile.gif]

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You know part of me enjoys reading all of this Max. [diablo.gif]

We just had a line that went too far and was also quoted. There is enough damage to be done and controversy to be brought to light without making crude remarks about the players involved.

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True…must have been that ass Posner, no doubt.

69

Sorry Cris, for quoting it, I was dying of laughter when I read it so I quoted it. You could have asked me to edit it.

Anyways, I emailed someone ITB who might know about this sort of stuff, and forwarded him this quote, from Mark, owner of Well Oiled Co.

“We have had similar problems with this wine and had a meeting in March with the winery to find out what the problem is. There was clearly some substandard product shipped by the winery and we have had to take back a large chunk of this wine from the market because it was rejected by the trade. I apologize on behalf of the winery for this apparent bait and switch. Going forward we are searching for a different winery for this brand (owned by our UK partner Guy Anderson wines).”

He says that based upon info he has and this quote that Well Oiled Co probably owns the brand Sierra Carche.

Based on that, Miller will never taste the wine again because it will never exist again. They will just change the name of the wine. Clever. Everyone wines, Wine Advocate style! You accuse the owner of fraud, and he just changes the label.

70

“Going forward we are searching for a different winery for this brand”.

Well there’s the problem in a nutshell: Marketing driven product instead of product driven marketing.

71

Yes, and passing the buck on who to blame. They must have read the same book as Parker and Miller on how to succeed by blaming others.

72

That is right my friend. BIG problem!

73

Mark Squires should threaten to sue DrJay, and lock the thread, since that is a libelous statement unless Jay can prove it was doctored. I suspect that is going to be pretty damn hard since the original evidence is long-gone…

In other news, the wineries make wine to please Parker’s palate, the idea of a perfect wine is specious, and the 100 point system implies an objectivity and precision that doesn’t really exist. Anything else? [pwn.gif]

74

“In other news, the wineries make wine to please Parker’s palate, the idea of a perfect wine is specious, and the 100 point system implies an objectivity and precision that doesn’t really exist. Anything else?”

Generalissimo Franco is STILL dead, women dress for other WOMEN not men and guys really do think about sex 100 times a day…

75

According to some this is not true. There is still denial about it…amazing.

Let’s see, should I try to make a wine that fits Parker’s palate like a glove, get 95-98 points and make a million bucks or should I stay true to nature, leave it to chance and the masses to find out on their own and maybe starve, or at the very least not being able to throw lavish parties with fireworks every year? Hmmm…let me think…

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For you, it may be obvious, for most it is not.

77

The whole thing is just reckless. Roberto - I didn’t get what you meant but I agree with you. If you call something “fraudulent” that’s pretty harsh.

However, I’m not sure that even that reckless phrasing is going to matter at the end of the day - who is the injured party that will gain anything buy suing? The importer? Sold his inventory and will only be taking on an unnecessary expense that may not end up to his liking. The winery? Sold this vintage and it will be a different bottling next year so the business decision is to let it lie. (Maybe literally.) The customers? Who do they sue and on what basis?

The guys who are really stepping up in this case are the folks at Wine Library and frankly, they’re the only ones with the clout to actually matter. Assuming that the importer didn’t know what was going on, him too, but there’s always a bit of doubt isn’t there? At best, it was reckless not to taste a few randomly chosen bottles when they got their shipments in.

The reckless scoring and vintage confusion? Where do you go with that?

78

I am the one suffering here. I keep getting calls from this idiot Kenney. headbang neener

So, he calls me again an hour or so ago. And I tell him: "Kenney, don’t you think it is HIGHLY suspicious that, after you contact the Importer, they go on the thread on the parker board and immediately start saying that they have been getting some inquiries and that they immediately start asking for lot numbers, etc, so that they can make this right?" No doing some homework, checking into a few things…just BAM…"who wants their money back?"

THEN,

“After TEN months of not doing anything with the wine YOU sent Jay, Kenney, along with 7-8 follow up e-mails AND responses from Jay stating that ‘yeah, it’s right here, and I will get to it right away’, finally he gets to it, you talk to him on the phone, he posts a feeble "explanation, and then announces that the wine he tasted was a fraud, and that he will never taste their wine again”

No checking on anything, no explanation of how he might have been duped, who duped him, when, where, how many wines, etc. Just goes all out and is the judge and jury of…who exactly? Who is this winery? Who is this wine maker? Who are the real owners and is there any trail of dead bodies? No getting a bottle of the good wine and the bad wine and testing it? I would imagine that the grapes are not even the same in the two wines. SO much could be ascertained with just a little investigative work…unless the fox is investigating the killings in the henhouse.

After all this, I read the last number of posts between my last two posts, and voila…things are becoming clearer…even to Kenney. [tease.gif]

Something VERY rotten here.

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Wait, posts are getting deleted? Color me confused…

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I just don’t get what’s the big deal. He may or may have not been duped, but why is such a villain. Just because he did not retaste the wine?