Champagne reviews: Vinous versus The Wine advocates

Could it be that Gerhard Eichelmann is your favorite critic because your palates align?

ChatGPT needs a critical reasoning module added to it. In what way does Neal Martin’s opinion of you have anything to do with your opinion of @William_Kelley ?

I’ll say something a little more logical (I hope). I really do appreciate your perspectives on Champagne and value your promotion of some producers with whom I am not familiar. Your polemics against one reviewer who is broadly admired (in my view, for good reasons) is tiresome.

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I think it’s because Donald is (just about) the only one on the forum that can read him, which gives him an air of authority.

William, it really is sad how often you need to defend yourself from these attacks, but I must say you do a fantastic job of it.

I’m sure you’re probably growing tired of the whole exercise, but I think I can speak for many of us when I say the fact you can continue to do so in such a professional manner without completely losing your cool actually speaks volumes about your character and helps me feel even more confident that I can rely on you as a ā€œsource of truthā€ about what’s going on in the various regions you cover. Keep it up.

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Galloni is an odd poster boy for integrity: he sells ’bespoke’ advance prescriptions to those in the trade, including shops like yours. Donald, do you have an early access subscription?

I’m not slagging Galloni only for his ethically-challenged subscription model. When he took over much of California from Parker, Galloni cynically heaped praise on the most unpalatable, disgusting Cali Cabs and Rhone knock-offs as had his then boss. There was no way the guy who only praised traditionalists in Italy would voluntarily ingest many of the California wines he sold to rubes (TWA subscribers) under the guise of rating them.

As do others, I find your Champagne posts to be interesting. I also find your ad-hominem attacks of Kelley to reek of envy. Don’t be a knob. Thank you.

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As I mentioned earlier in this topic, I thought Donald’s latest comments were veering into a far more reasonable place. Discussing and comparing critics, highlighting perceived flaws or weaknesses of them, and anointing favorites is tried and true subject matter for WB. I’m interested in this as I read reviewers and try to glean information from them. In the postings here Donald is trying really hard to discuss differences and (his) preferences, and leave off the random ad hominem attacks.

So I applaud the attempt, even if he isn’t right. Like many here, I read a lot of Donald’s posts with interest, and wonder at his commitment/need to work out his personal issues here as well as talk about wine. And I cheer even more to see William join in the discussion, explain his POV, his tastes and his approach. Argument becoming discussion is not the normal path for Internet boards. William expands his role to critic/interlocutor/psychoanalyst.

Funny side note. I recently got an offer from a wine retailer with quotes from Donald’s posts about the wines. Comical for a retailer to use another retailer’s notes to sell wine. Next thing you know he will give up wine sales for criticism. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Donald, you have at least twice referred to the problem here as being anglocentric wine criticism. I am not sure what you have against the English-speaking world, but I do wonder why you keep posting the same old arguments on an English language website. There are German wine websites out there. I know them. I speak German (Ich kenne sie. Ich spreche Deutsch).

So William Kelley’s palate doesn’t align with yours. Big deal. I think I speak for most of us here on the board when I say: Es ist uns allen Wurst. And that has nothing to do with sausage.

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Guys, it could be worse…he could be advocating that champagne is best tasted on day 3, and that it’s only good if it provides some sort of value / points per dollar after using some esoteric formula.

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I couldn’t agree more. This was the one thing I didn’t agree with Josh about. He tried to meet each wine on it’s terms, I think, and ended up highly scoring wines that I’m 95% sure he didn’t drink or buy himself. I think as long as you are open about where you are coming from (it comes out in the reviews anyway) then having a point of view is the best kind of criticism.

Donald’s posts only add to my skepticism about the usefulness of large language models (they aren’t true AI, so let’s not call the that).

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Donald, I appreciate most of your many posts on Champagne, but I don’t really get the point of this post. Unless you just want a computer to print out a chemical analysis of the wines, I don’t get how you can’t accept that all wine critics will necessarily have their own biases, perspectives, opinions, etc. I don’t think it’s up to the wine the critic to eliminate all (reasonable) biases, rather it’s up to consumer to decide how much he or she values the output of each critic.

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I think perhaps Donald is an AI bot invented by Todd to post clickbait topics that boost his metrics and ad revenue.

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I’m starting to suspect Donald read Don Quixote and, rather than a parody, interpreted it as a ā€œhow toā€ manual. German windmills may not be safe for long.

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Things are getting interesting in WINE-BERSERKER Board recently - thanks to D.Deppen.

We have the thread which I named it as : The Burgundy Critics Brawl; and now this thread, May I name this as : The Champagne Critics Brawl.

I am going to get some pop corn,

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

No…Otto : he is not trying to fool you.I believe Donald is pulling your legs as they say it in English…

Or in Chinese, I think : he is trying to stir the pot as that more and more people will get interest in wines and now Champagne - which ultimately his real goal and why not ?

Please remember : He is ITB.,

Whether his opinions are trust worthy or not, it is up the readers to decide - bearing in mind of what is in Chapter 81 of the Tao which I am an admirer. Please judge Donald’s comments freely,

My post and the text in Tao is not intend to offend anyone including to the OP).

Truthful words are not beautiful.
Beautiful words are not truthful.
He who knows does not speak.
He who does not know speaks.
He who is learned does not know.
He who is not leaned does speak… .

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Old Donald plays people here like Harpo played the harp drop a bomb on WK and everybody is shocked and appalled, a good tasting note or two on champagne and everybody respects him lol. While on Vinous he is a perfect gentleman with the occasional backhand slap about Berserkers. :laughing:

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Donnie listening to Frank

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I do have to say that I love ā€œBurgundian wine influenceā€ in my reviewers. I personally love William’s take on Champagne. Miss Peter Liem however. He is around but not very popular anymore. I do like Brad Baker too.

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People here get me wrong. I find the discussions here more stimulating than those on Vinous, but Antonio Galloni really surprised me with his champagne review. Sure, one can criticize Galloni for selling his reviews in advance, but on The Wine Advocate, they list shops and other locations where one can buy the wines, so I am not sure how that plays into things.

The problem is inherent in this post; one tries to have a reasoned debate and suddenly it is all about William Kelley. If William Kelley were Malfoy, then you have the importer Greg K jumping in as Goyle. I really like this phrase (as opposed to Maillard-derived smoke and mirrors), and this would be worthy of a discussion in itself.

Then there is the thing about my anglophobia. Since the catastrophe of 2016 and then the bigger catastrophe of the 31st of January 2020, I just cannot be objective about anything English, especially individuals deriving from those privileged backgrounds and ruining everything. It is with an intense feeling of schadenfreude that I watch that privileged class annihilate themselves and, sadly, bring down ā€˜plebs’ like myself in their self-destruction.

A critic I also really like is the Wine King, and I am warming to Konstantin Baum despite his MW title. I just have to figure out how to integrate William Kelley authentically into the shops to benefit from the keywords, that is something for Chatgpt to do next year. But basically, Eichelmann, with his catholic taste as a critic, puts more bums on seats just as Bill Nanson is the best critic for selling Burgundy. Peter Leim for me is more of an educator. I really like Tyson Stelzer, the only one with the guts to call out Selosse, something neither Galloni or William Kelley has done.

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Um, you yourself brought William Kelley up, right in your first post. The very first two words in your second sentence. I simply can’t fathom how you can first write a post about William Kelley and then accuse us how ā€œit is all about William Kelleyā€. This is just simply absurd, I feel we’ve passed some kind of parody horizon now.

At I least I can’t take part in the discussion, because I’m just speechless. :smiley:

Way to generalize one thing a) that doesn’t even relate to the subject one little bit; b) and apply it to all the people in a certain group. This is just intellectual dishonesty at its best.

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