Champagne reviews: Vinous versus The Wine advocates

WINE TALK
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I wonder how big a role in wine criticism, the geographical origin of the critic plays a role, in shaping their perspective and influencing their preferences. William Kelley/The wine advocate has recently released his champagne reviews, which invite scrutiny regarding the impact of one’s regional background on wine critique. In a wine world sadly dominated by anglocentric influences, the question of whether a critic can free themselves from their regional bias is pertinent.

Observations on William Kelley’s champagne reviews reveal a persistent inclination towards Burgundian stylistic influences. While his criticism remains within acceptable boundaries and the point inflation is in check, it becomes increasingly evident that his affinity for Burgundian winemaking principles prejudices his assessment of champagnes. This bias, while perhaps unintentional, results in the omission of reviews for many champagne producers across various quality tiers, consequently distorting the overall perspective.

Vinous has also recently presented comprehensive champagne reviews, raising questions about the impact of regional background. Monika Kriebehl’s (MW) at Vinous initially sparked skepticism in me as although she comes from Germany, I feared her anglo training would not be beneficial considering the on going debate surrounding the anglocentric elitism within the MW community, which can alienate certain perspectives.

However, Vinous’ approach to champagne reviews has pleasantly surpised me. Antonio Galloni, known for his passionate/emotional style and sometimes hyperbolic style, offers in my mind a more balanced and open-minded assessment of wines and champagnes. His emotional tasting approach seems to transcend linguistic and regional boundaries, resulting in a distinctive perspective.

Anne Kriebehl’s approach also defies expectations. Rather than adhering dogmatically to a particular style, she displays an unexpected open-mindedness. Her willingness to explore diverse perspectives stands in contrast to the stereotype of certian MWs, rigid in their views.

In conclusion, William Kelley’s champagne reviews may resonate with those whose palates align with his Burgundian preferences, basically he is preaching to the converted, conservative wine drinker, one will not discover anything new in his reviews.

However, I think for those seeking a more impartial and diverse assessment, Antonio Galloni and Vinous offer in my mind a refreshing departure from anglocentric influences. The days of viewing champagne solely through Burgundian lenses may limit the potential for a truly informed opinion, highlighting the importance of a critic’s ability to transcend regional biases in the pursuit of wine excellence.

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Again???

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Thanks Donald. As you have said many times, the world of Champagne is vast and the number of producers reviewed by the professionals is small. This limits the diversity of points of view, for sure, but I too have valued the recently released reviews in these English language online sources.

As someone who only reads these sources (and only a few of those) I’m curious what the writers in other markets are saying that’s so different.

By the way, the Vinous reviewer’s first name is Anne. And I too have found her reviews to be interesting, clear and open-minded.

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This.

Although at this point it feels Donald is just an avatar of an angry ChatGPT who feels disproportionate resentment towards WK for some reason. :robot:

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I have being doing a lot of research for a blog article to help consumers understand critics and how they align to personal preferences. One would really have to throw in the German champange critic into the mix Gerhard Eichelmann, but the german language is obvioulsy a barrier. Also I think Tyson Stelzer is a superior champagne critic to both Galloni and Kelley especially when it comes to the maisons, but one wonders about his partiality as he hosts it seems a lot of dinners.

It just really struck me looking through the Wine advocate reviews, how it was basically one style of champagnes that were being reviewed.

I think it is a bit like Vinous, Josh Reynolds was a really good reviewer of champagnes as was David Schildknecht but it seems this is a job reserved for the chef. I think The wine advocate has better reviewers of champagne, namely Stephan Reihardt.

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As my wife recently said, one had hoped the days of the dabbling englishman were past.

As William Kelley wrote somewhere else he was considering suing me for libel, I have to defuse what I write as free speech and differing opinons are it seems not wanted anymore.

On a side note, in the German Spiegel, wrote about KI, it seems there are jobs out there with incredible pay for prompters, alas the days of the freelancers seem to be passing.

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If you yourself can’t make a distinction between differing opinions and libel, maybe you’d better stay quiet and think about these things until you do.

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setzen, sechs, warum immer dieses Gejammer über den bösen William …
translation
sit down, grade F, why always the whining about the evil William

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Weil ich Champagner verkaufe, bin ich jede Woche in der Champagne-Region, und ich denke einfach nicht, dass er ein ausgewogener Kritiker ist. Für mich ist es ein bisschen so, als würde man sagen, du hast einen Kritiker von Shakespeares Werken, und er hat nur, sagen wir, 10 Stücke gelesen, qualifiziert ihn das, ein Kritiker von Shakespeare zu sein?

Was die Kritiker mit Bordeaux oder Burgund machen, kümmert mich nicht wirklich, aber bei Champagner ist das anders.

Das erste Stück handelt nicht von William Kelley, sondern vom Unterschied zwischen Vinous und dem Wine Advocate, und es lässt mich darüber nachdenken, wenn man vergleicht, wer der bessere Kritiker ist, und für mich würde ich sagen, Antonio Galloni. Ich meine, wir in Deutschland haben das Glück, Gerhard Eichelmann zu haben, einen Kritiker mit tiefem Wissen und Erfahrung, nicht jemanden, der fragwürdige Flaschen bei eBay kauft.

Because I sell champagne, I am in the Champagne region every week and I just do not think he is a balanced critic. For me it is a bit like say you have a critic of Shakespeares works and he has only read say 10 plays, does that qualify him to be a critic of Shakespeare.

What the critics do with Bordeaux or Burgundy does not really bother me, but with Champagne it is different.

The first piece is not about William Kelley but the difference between Vinous and the Wine advocate, and it makes me wonder when one compares, who is the better critic and for me I would say Antonio Galloni.I mean we in Germany are lucky to have Gerhard Eichelmann, a critic with profound knowledge and experience, not someone buying dubious bottles on ebay.

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Donald, I have no issue with differing opinions: everyone has them, as the saying goes. What I took issue with was your claim on UK wine pages last year that I had conspired with Egly-Ouriet in order to raise their prices. That was indeed a libelous accusation, which is why the host of wine pages removed it.

I’m sorry that the MICHELIN Guide didn’t like your oregano swordfish all those years ago, but I really wish you wouldn’t play out your trauma on me.

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Did you guys actually pay any attention to the text itself or just picked up Donald, WK and Champage and called it a day? For me and coming from Donald this was suprisingly balanced take vs some of the earlier posts. Maybe it’s the ChatGPT learning gradually to filter things towards more palatable manner, who knows

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Donald — FWIW @William_Kelley ‘s palate does not really align with mine (although I happen to have adored most Egly for a very long time). Nevertheless I discover a lot in his reviews: I find his tasting notes spot on, in fact as a skilled writer he often describes things about a wine that I had trouble articulating and, upon reading his note, say voila to myself.

It simply does not follow that his preferences mean he is preaching to the converted and that there is no other value to be gleaned from his reviews.

Finally I am not at all sure that I would characterize his champagne tastes as being “Burgundian.” I am not going to ask you what you mean by that.

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It’s wrong to believe that a critic has a duty to be style agnostic. William has such a big impact precisly because he has a clear point of view and preference. Parker had so much influence because he had a clear style preference too. 9 out of 10 wine drinkers have a clear style preference. Donald, you’re really really wrong about this, no matter how many times you repeat it.

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I recently discovered a thing called Topical map, this is for me really interesting and it is really good for the website. One of the suggestions is to discuss critics, explain where they are coming from. I think it is really interesting to see the different perspectives and from where critics are coming from.

My favourite critic is Gerhard Eichelmann, it is a shame the english book was not such a success but the new edition is being translated into french at the request of the producers.

If people think I am critical of William Kelley then they do not know how much Neal Martin loves me. I think it is interesting Vinous and The wine advocate released at roughlythe same time. I was not expecting much from Vinous and I have visited master classes which Kriebehl held on Alsatian riesling which were very strange. But this time Vinous really delivered, the points are down and the texts are good. I feared prodcuers leaning more towards the natural genre would be treated like Gibbs MW treated those in the Loire, but this was not the case.

William Kelley can correct me if I am wrong, but I recall him saying he struggled with champagnes stlyes which were not to his preference. This is OK, and if a customer came to me and said he liked the burugndian aspect of champagne, then I would point him in the way of Willaim Kelley.

One of the good things about champagne is the diversity, the burgundian aspect is only one side and sadly there are too many young producers trying to go down this path without really knowing what they were doing. For ma good example of this is Adrien Renoir, I felt with his 18 releases he was starting to find his style and I was really looking forward to the 19 releases. We tasted the 2019 terroir a few weeks ago and i was really disappointed. I decided not to post on it but the interesting thing here is the stylisitc. Obvioulsy this is a style which please William kelley as he gave it 93 points, personally I would go for 90 poits but that is spliiting hairs.

What i find espcially with Domaine du Tuilleries, is they are also going for that style but they pull it off. Obvioulsy this is a individual theory but Renoir just does not have the concentration or is not doing enough batonnage which I would say Tuilleries are. In terms of price and as some one who sells last year I wold hve recommended Renoir, this year i can muster no enthusiasm.

PS Otto, I have prompted Chatgpt to add 15% spelling mistake and put in more language varianz

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I give Pennet 5 out of 10 for perservarence, 3 for coming out with a new way to go after William and a minus 17 for subtlety.

Can you please get yourself a new hobby.

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Of course I read the text. Sure, it was a surprisingly reasonable post from ChatGPT - I mean Donald - compared to his earlier posts. However, I still stand behind my words when I said he feels disproportionately angry towards WK. To me, it seems Donald has made blaming WK about almost everything imaginable he considers wrong in the Champagne his new raison d’être - and not only that, but now he his even creating new threads specifically on this subject, not just hijacking other threads for this ridiculous purpose.

So whether the text itself is more palatable (thanks to AI) or not, it doesn’t matter, if the whole ordeal is beyond silly. This is starting to get quite tiresome even to people who are not participants in this matter in any way, let alone for WK (I imagine).

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You still can’t fool me.

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I think my palate is quite a bit more diverse than that, Donald. If you read the reviews you will see favorable appreciations for styles as different as Fabrice Gas and J-M Séléque, Selosse and Pierre Péters, ranging from tank fermentation with a reductive élevage to barrel fermentation with an oxidative/biological élevage.

Of course I do have preferences, and as @Andy_Sc observes, I consider the notion of stylistic agnosticism in wine criticism to be a dead end. After all, rating wines is inherently about preferring some to others, and how to do so if you disavow having taste? My tastes make my work more coherent.

In Champagne, I make no secret of preferring wines made from concentrated, physiologically mature grapes, which deliver wines with textural dimension, intense flavors, the capacity to evolve with genuine interest (as opposed to Maillard-derived smoke and mirrors), integrated acidity, and the need for only minimal dosage. Within those parameters, huge stylistic diversity is possible and I tend to embrace it. This set of preferences is also in harmony with what one finds in the benchmark Champagnes of the 50s, 60s and on into the 70s, before the full effects of over-productive clones and intensive farming techniques deprived many Champagnes of their texture and concentration.

On the other hand, I do not like Champagnes that are variously dilute; shrill; excessively high in dosage to compensate for poor quality fruit; or marked by organoleptic defects such as mousse taint or turbidity. I do not think this set of dislikes is that rare among wine lovers, which is presumably why some of them are kind enough to follow my work.

And as for the article being conservative, again, I simply don’t agree. If you can find other English-language critics covering the likes of Lurquin, Lamblot, Aurélien Clément, the Ponsart brother, Maxime Oudiette and Gaspard Brochet, I would love to know about it. And these reviews are not based on importer portfolio tastings but on going to the cellars and seeing the vineyards.

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So critics have different preferences and Donald doesn’t fully align with Williams (again)? Did we really need another thread on this?

Donald I think you have made your point of view very clear on this subject multiple times now. I think we all know what you think about William and his approach by now. It is really tasteless to constantly make it so personal.

And I think it is a shame that you have to make it personal so often, because I actually enjoy reading your take on Champagne and other wines, but you constantly ruin it by aiming at William.

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