Kudos to Galloni- Unique approach to dealing with Bordeaux

I was surprised this wasn’t posted yet, but this was really interesting, and I’m a huge fan of his decision.

yes, Antonio is absolutely correct with this, and I assume is going to court. For some reason, he has not released the name of the offending company, but it is certainly in the wrong.


Can one of the lawyers tell us what the liability is and what damages Antonio could potentially collect. Does it change if the second release can be proven, as it seems to be a deliberate act of malice.

What decision are you referring to? The scores are coming out tomorrow.

Going after people for misusing his content. Forget the actual scores, I think Galloni (and team) is the best in the business at creating critic content. They really bring the wines off the screen. Parker used to be great at this, but no more. I learn about more than just the wine, but changes the winery may have made, challenges/failures, etc. I would hate for this to go away.

As a lawyer, I didn’t think that “going after people for misusing his content” was a particularly unique approach.

I did wonder at his comment about being in possession of a “complete” report meant that the possessor was in possession of stolen property. Is there a complete report (with scores) out already that isn’t available to subscribers?

He only released a handful of scores before this Friday. The notes are all up, but the scores were missing.

This may not seem unique, but I think for wine it is (first time I’m hearing this be done)

I’m all for Vinous defending their property. I, too, am a subscriber and find it consistently very useful. But I was surprised to see Galloni leading this article with his complaint about being robbed. Perhaps by leading this way he hopes to dissuade future violations. Sadly in the era of cut and paste it would be easy enough to leave this out.

I know, I’m a subscriber. I read the report and his various responses on his board; I don’t get the rationale for delaying releasing the scores for two days (one of which, today, is a holiday in France anyway). It’s the same thing as if he had released the full report with scores on Friday. Because what he has said doesn’t make sense, I suspect there is something else going on related to this theft of intellectual property that he won’t say publicly.

A lot of what might happen depends on the jurisdiction, and also on how he spins it. As always, the legal and business issues aren’t necessarily aligned.

Theoretically, if it all happened in France, among French parties, and he brought some action in French courts, he’d have to get someone who understands French or EU law and what it says about “terms of service” on a website. Were he to bring some action in the US, he’d first want to know if the defendants had assets in the US, because if not, for the amount of money likely at stake, it would probably be more trouble than it would be worth.

With securities, there are specific laws regarding advance information even if you’re not in the securities industry - printers at Newsweek were convicted of trading on information that was going to appear in the next week’s publication.

But this is wine reviewing. The whole point is to get your scores and opinions discussed and used. They may have violated his terms of service, but in terms of real harm, you could argue that he was actually helped more than harmed. And if he brings some kind of charges, he’d probably be helped even more, the assumption being that he’s the mover and shaker and his information should be treated like gold. And a lot of discussion in the wine world.

If I were him, I’d use it to my advantage. Good PR could turn this into a win for him. Isn’t the whole point to get your scores out there first so that you are the one to “call” the vintage? Suckling does it, doesn’t he? He’d know how to deal with this.

I am assuming that these opinions really make a difference to the market?

Some matter a lot more than others.

Are brokers/retailers supposed to pay to put critics notes/scores on shelf talkers?

From what I’m reading is they ripped the whole article and sent it out. You’re allowed to use notes and scores as shelf talkers. But you can just send the whole thing to everyone en masse

I read that too, but in addition a fear that someone was lifting his content before released and sending it out, hence delay in scores to see if any #s were released before he released them.

#9 is particularly insightful. And correct.

Seems like marketing over substance.

If there is not something underhanded going on it wouldn’t be Bordeaux.