How do wine critics get their wines?

[GregT]

Dan you may be right. I don’t know the review date vs order dates but he completely crapped on one wine that got better reviews from some of the publications. It was in the early days of WL TV and I had no involvement at all then, but no matter how cynically I tried to view it, he sure seemed to have a heartfelt disgust. It was pretty interesting because there wasn’t any effort to make nice and protect a supply source. Like Nick mentioned, he sure seemed honest and usually does.

[Ignacio_Villalgordo]

We normally get in touch with the wineries in order to recieve samples (1 bottle) in http://www.elmundovino.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ocassionally there’s a producer we want to taste and he/she does not send in the wines. We just buy it retail

[Daniel_Posner]

Ignacio

Thanks for chiming in as well.

[Dan_Hammer]

@GregT

Some competitions charge money. Most reviewers don’t. Some trade organizations set up tastings with reviewers and charge for the wine to be included in the tasting, and placed favorably.

Sounds like the toy industry.

[Humberto_Dorta]

Just send a case to that place…
Its so simple…

[larry_schaffer]

I think one thing that has to be noted with Parker is that he often times does ‘cattle call’ tastings of specific varieities/regions. This allows him to ‘organize’ a bit better, I would fathom, and it gives him an opportunity to taste a number of similar wines at the same time, comparing and contrasting, to assess quality vs others. It obviously happens with Napa, as has been previously pointed out, as well as with rhone variety producers at a couple of stops along the central coast. My guess is that this happens in Sonoma/Russian River as well?!?!?? Many of these tastings are organized by local vintner’s associations.

I’m not condemning or condoning these - just info . . . .

Cheers!

[Phil_Vogels]

@Brian Loring

@K V a s t o l a

BTW I have just started The Super Mario Wine Advocate. Brian (and all other winemakers), I will pm you the address to send the free bottles to!

And if you demonstrate that your reviews have an effect on the wine buying public, and that you like the style of wine we make, we’ll gladly send you free wine to review.

One of the main reasons we don’t send wine to Tanzer and Burghound is that no matter how good their reviews are, they don’t really affect sales for us. And given that we don’t normally get too many great reviews from them any way, it adds up to a waste of $$$ for us.

Wine Enthusiast scores do a bit better for us than Tanzer or Burghound, but when you add in the cost to add a label image, the slight extra bump gets washed out.

I’m also not interested in sending wine to critics who’ve taken on a “crusader” attitude when it comes to things like alcohol levels, clones, etc. Why would I send wines to someone who’s already made their mind up that we’re doing something wrong? I.e. Azimov and Allen Meadows

Out of curiosity Brian, did you decide that you’d lose the benefit of the Enthusiast score without the label image? There are always a bunch in there without the labels, but of course if you pay for a label, you get to go first in the guide (take a look at any Wine Enthusiast: all of the wines that come first in the buying guide have label images).

[Paul_Jaouen]

@Brian Loring

We sent them in early because he used to ask us to ship in July .

What!!!

[Steve_Eisenhauer]

@Paul Jaouen

@Brian Loring

We sent them in early because he used to ask us to ship in July .

What!!!

Relax, it was a science experiment.

[Jack_Bulkin]

@Steve Eisenhauer

@Paul Jaouen

@Brian Loring

We sent them in early because he used to ask us to ship in July .

What!!!

Relax, it was a science experiment.

Eisenhauer you are a negative and disingenuous jerk.
I have spoken.
Sincerely yours;
The Bordeaux King.
I revealed the greatness of the 09 Bordeaux Vintage when the vines showed budbreak in 2009.

[Daniel_Posner]

@larry schaffer

I think one thing that has to be noted with Parker is that he often times does ‘cattle call’ tastings of specific varieities/regions. This allows him to ‘organize’ a bit better, I would fathom, and it gives him an opportunity to taste a number of similar wines at the same time, comparing and contrasting, to assess quality vs others. It obviously happens with Napa, as has been previously pointed out, as well as with rhone variety producers at a couple of stops along the central coast. My guess is that this happens in Sonoma/Russian River as well?!?!?? Many of these tastings are organized by local vintner’s associations.

I’m not condemning or condoning these - just info . . . .

Cheers!

Larry

Are these tastings done blindly?

[Gordon_Fitz]

I think Brian pretty well summed it up!

If a critic is not fond of your style of wine: the winemaker probably won’t submit it to that critic. Reviews as a marketing tool.

If the critic is not fond of a style of wine: He probably won’t go out of his way to personally pay for the bottle to do the review. There’s lots of wine out there to review, if the winemaker is not interested why should the critic be? Ignore the wine!

[davetong]

I mostly taste at the wineries - one of the benefits of only covering the regions closest to me.
Pretty much everything else I buy either at retail or at the winery.
Only one winery has ever sent me samples; a couple have given me bottles when I visited.

I doubt I have any significant effect on winery sales.

[larry_schaffer]

@Daniel Posner

@larry schaffer

I think one thing that has to be noted with Parker is that he often times does ‘cattle call’ tastings of specific varieities/regions. This allows him to ‘organize’ a bit better, I would fathom, and it gives him an opportunity to taste a number of similar wines at the same time, comparing and contrasting, to assess quality vs others. It obviously happens with Napa, as has been previously pointed out, as well as with rhone variety producers at a couple of stops along the central coast. My guess is that this happens in Sonoma/Russian River as well?!?!?? Many of these tastings are organized by local vintner’s associations.

I’m not condemning or condoning these - just info . . . .

Cheers!

Larry

Are these tastings done blindly?

My guess is no . . .

[seawayjan]

I wonder where Meadow gets his samples of Marcassin

[Marlene_L_Rossman]

I’m the monthly wine columnist for Chef mag (a food indie publication) and freelance for Sommelier Journal, International Sommelier, Tasting Panel mag, etc etc.

I get oceans of plonk sent to me unbidden. However, if I am writing a specific piece, I ask wineries,
PR agencies and distributors to send me a sample. As I am on the press list, I also get new releases as they come out. Needless to say, since the sinking of the economy, I have gotten more wine over the transom than in previous years.

[Jeff_Lewis]

Brian Loring, Thanks for all of that information.

Seems to me that Gary V’s (or any retailier’s) impartiality is in question when they promote inventory in the form of a review. Its kind of like asking the waiter in a restaurant what’s good on the menu. A few might be honest, but most have been instructed to push what they have too much of. Shouldn’t we assume that by definition retailers stock what they think is good value for the price? Their inventory IS a review by definition.

Parker and Tanzer’s organizations both taste a very very large number of wines every year. Is it really feasible for them to purchase all of it? Parker’s site shows 16,000+ reviews posted in 2009.

Ultimately, it is up to us to keep the reviewers honest and as unbiased as possible. I do not even read the WS reviews most of the time as I find Laube completely impossible to understand. I do find myself going to Tanzer first and then Parker or Robinson second these days, because I seem to be correlating well with Tanzer and I appreciate his trying to restrain score inflation. (Has he ever given a 100?).

[Brian_Loring]

@Phil Vogels

Out of curiosity Brian, did you decide that you’d lose the benefit of the Enthusiast score without the label image? There are always a bunch in there without the labels, but of course if you pay for a label, you get to go first in the guide (take a look at any Wine Enthusiast: all of the wines that come first in the buying guide have label images).

That was my impression from my limited experience, as well as what I’d been told by others.

@Gordon Fitz

There’s lots of wine out there to review, if the winemaker is not interested why should the critic be? Ignore the wine!

I’m not quite sure what you meant… Winemakers care deeply. And we still do get asked by most of the critics to submit our wines, we just choose not to in some cases. We are a business, and we have to weigh costs and benefits. And submitting wine has many costs associated with it - both measureable as in the amount of free wine and shipping costs associated with sending the wines all over the country for review, and less tangible in the affect of bad reviews. You can tell the result of good reviews, but you can never really know how many sales and/or customers were lost due to a bad review. And it’s that latter point that keeps winemakers awake at night.

For example, how many potential customers did we lose when Azimov compared one of our wines to Manischewitz Concord Grape? In case you misssed it, he was commenting on the “sweetness” of newer style Pinots, and didn’t bother to distinguish between fruit flavors in a dry wine (ours was 20mg/100ml which is about as dry as it gets) and the ridiculous levels of residual sugar in Manischewitz - as if our wines were virtually dessert wines.

I’ll take valid criticism like a man… but bullshit like that means game over for me.

[Daniel_Posner]

@Jeff Lewis

Parker and Tanzer’s organizations both taste a very very large number of wines every year. Is it really feasible for them to purchase all of it? Parker’s site shows 16,000+ reviews posted in 2009.

Jeff

Fair point, but lets remember that Parker claims to purchase 60% of the wines that he reviews, as of earlier this year. Before that, the claim was 75%.

[Peter_Metzger]

@Brian Loring

I can’t speak for all wines, but this is how each reviewer gets (or used to get) our wine:

Wine Spectator - We hand deliver 2 bottles of each wine to their office in Napa. No payment for the wine.

Pinot Report - We ship 2 bottles of each wine to their office in Sonoma. No payment for the wine.

Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine - They purchase our wine at retail, so we never know what’s being reviewed.

California Grapevine - We ship 1 bottle of each wine to their office. No payment for the wine.

Paker - We ship 1 bottle of each wine to his office in Maryland. If he’d asked for the wine, he asks to be billed. We billed at a silly low amount. If submitting unsolicited, no payment for the wine. The last two vintages we submitted (2006 and 2007) were sent in unsolicited, and Parker didn’t review them. We sent them in early because he used to ask us to ship in July . We no longer submit wines.

Tanzer - We ship 2 bottles of each wine to his office. No payment for the wine. We no longer submit wines.

Burghound - We ship 2 bottles of each wine to his office. No payment for the wine. We no longer submit wines.

Wine Enthusiast - We ship 2 bottles of each wine to their office. No payment for the wine. $900-ish per review to include a label image in the magazine. We no longer submit wines.

This is a terrific and fascinating post. Thanks. Brian.