I laugh at victims of wine fraud

[Chris_Seiber]

Great post, Maureen.

@Maureen Downey

Their net worth (which in all cases of my clients is the result of hard work and often creating many jobs!)

Though are you sure you’re from San Francisco?

[M_Dildine]

@Keith Levenberg

I guess if the only wine you have any interest in drinking is froot bombs that start to go downhill faster than a carton of milk, there is no point in being a “collector.”

I buy wines to age Keith (even some from that wacky place I’m believed to hate), but with 600 bottles in inventory will never consider myself to be a “collector.” I guess it depends on how you define “collector.”

[M.Kaplan]

@NickC

heimoff being a troll?!? well i never!

Which I why I ignore him. That and he was a Parker tool/toady (along with Tom Wark) when many of us were demanding that Parker address the issue of Campo selling access (at the very least) to Jay Miller. And those are just for starters…

[Maureen_Downey]

@Chris Seiber

Great post, Maureen.

@Maureen Downey

Their net worth (which in all cases of my clients is the result of hard work and often creating many jobs!)

Though are you sure you’re from San Francisco?

Some sane folks have to occupy this crazy place…
Though I often feel like this:

[A_Gillette]

My favorite part of the whole nasty blog is the “bio” section:

“Today, Steve remains an important fixture at Wine Enthusiast magazine, as the West Coast Editor. He writes columns, feature stories, news stories, web pieces, and he reviews about 4,500 California wines a year.”

He tastes on average 12 bottles of wine a day and rallies against the “acquisitive selfishness” of wine collectors? Priceless. “All of them owned more wine than they, or any 100 of us, could drink in a lifetime.” Dude - you tried 4500 wines this year.

A

[G_D_y_e_r]

@Alex Gillette

My favorite part of the whole nasty blog is the “bio” section:

“Today, Steve remains an important fixture at Wine Enthusiast magazine, as the West Coast Editor. He writes columns, feature stories, news stories, web pieces, and he reviews about 4,500 California wines a year.”

He tastes on average 12 bottles of wine a day and rallies against the “acquisitive selfishness” of wine collectors? Priceless. “All of them owned more wine than they, or any 100 of us, could drink in a lifetime.” Dude - you tried 4500 wines this year.

A

That’s Heimoff for you. He breathlessly praises high end Napa Cab–which QPR considerations aside likely are well deserving of the plaudits–then bashes the collectors who are the target market for these types of wines. As far as I’m concerned, you can try to draw some line in the sand between $150 and $800 bottles. But that line is washed out when the tide comes in: it’s all pretty damn expensive stuff accessible only to the upper echelon of buyers.

He is capable of thoughtful, well-researched writing and has a reliable ‘California palate’. But he also loves to stir the pot. And usually comes off as a hypocrite in the process.

[Tran_Bronstein]

I kind of see his point in that some of the people who are taken in by wine fraud are otherwise intelligent, wealthy and accomplished persons who really should’ve known better got blinded by their own arrogance which led to a stupid and shocking lack of due diligence. As such, they got fleeced as they deserve to.

This said, the article is wrong because it lumps ALL victims of wine fraud together and paints them all with the same brush. That’s wholly unfair. Did the people who got fleeced by the Bre-X scandal here in Canada and more recently the Madoff scandal in the US deserve it? Of course not.

In law school, I was once told by my Torts professor that fraud only hits two types of people: stupid people who were willfully blind and honest people who really didn’t or couldn’t have known all the facts they needed to. Lawyers hate the former as clients because they lie to cover up their own fault even to the lawyers they’ve hired to help them out and love the latter because they are motivated to fight for them.

It seems the author has hung out with too many of the former type of fraud victims and not enough of the latter as classified by my former professor.

[Brad_Huff]

Interesting piece.

[GregT]

in this case, Steve was a bit over the top, not to mention downright nasty.

Yep. And I don’t give him slack for having to write something daily either. It’s the tone and the broad brush that made it a terrible article. He could have written a far more sensible piece and even turned it into the class warfare that he wanted to. Instead, he’s damned the proletariat along with their oppressors. Bad writing as well as bad Marxism.

[Bill_Klapp_deactivated]

@Keith Levenberg

I am not sure why someone who makes his living as a wine writer would decide to post such a blanket insult to everyone who thinks wine is something worth keeping.

I guess if the only wine you have any interest in drinking is froot bombs that start to go downhill faster than a carton of milk, there is no point in being a “collector.”

Keith, many have studied this, and there are no easy answers. The emerging concensus is that Mr. Heimoff is a self-important, self-absorbed nobody that will do or say anything to attract attention to himself. (I believe that, when he is not blogging, he relaxes by tattooing his forearms to attract attention to himself.) In any event, I did reflexively cringe when you referred to him as a “wine writer”…

[Peter_Chiu]

@Victor Hong

Caveat emptor. For me, the matter is not who might deserve misfortune, but who voluntarily takes risk. Anybody who aggressively takes risk in hopes of personal reward should own both the upside and downside.

• 1. 

[Eric_LeVine]

And for kicks and fun, there is an enjoyable comment thread with plenty of derision for Madoff investors. I always tingle with joy when I run across those sorts of comments.

[Daniel_McIntosh]

@dcornutt

Why would anyone be happy about someone being a victim of a crime?

Schadenfreude. It’s lot’s 'o fun to see rich stupid people get ripped off. Remember Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? Great movie.

[Howard_Cooper]

Even rich, stupid, arrogant people don’t deserve to get fleeced.

[M_A_T_T_H_A_R_T_L_E_Y]

He lost me early on at:

"It’s as if this whole issue of “collectible” wine and fakes thereof matters to the 99% of us who just like to drink.

Actually, it doesn’t. Do you care? I don’t. I have no sympathy for people with too much money who get ripped off for being stupid."

Nothing like not giving a damn about someone who was the victim of a crime.

[PeterH]

The attitude that rich people deserve to be ripped off by anyone clever enough to prey on their greed or vanity is appalling. That is exactly the attitude of countless con men, embezzlers, and every other variety of white collar ripoff artists. I refuse to even click on the Heimoff link, and I’m thinking of writing to the Wine Enthusiast to encourage them to ditch him.

P Hickner

[Chris_Blum]

4500 wine tastes per year? I guess we have our explanation.

[Victor_Hong]

@M. Dildine

Chris, I believe the specific object of his derision is the wine “collector.” I must agree with him that this is a group I have little understanding of or sympathy with.

If a person pays the going price or more for a bottle of wine, he or she then owns it, and should be able to drink it anytime, store it forever, or just flush it down the toilet, without judgmental, unwarranted comments from self-appointed, envious taste/etiquette/lifestyle arbiters. Could you imagine if a writer were similarly to criticize us personally for drinking from our own cellars tonight, because the bottles might benefit from more aging or different food pairings, from his detached perspective? Maybe, he should post his cellaring and drinking habits, for others to mock as plebeian, wasteful, or cheap.

[Andrew_Kaufman]

@Victor Hong

@M. Dildine

Chris, I believe the specific object of his derision is the wine “collector.” I must agree with him that this is a group I have little understanding of or sympathy with.

If a person pays the going price or more for a bottle of wine, he or she then owns it, and should be able to drink it anytime, store it forever, or just flush it down the toilet, without judgmental, unwarranted comments from self-appointed, envious taste/etiquette/lifestyle arbiters. Could you imagine if a writer were similarly to criticize us personally for drinking from our own cellars tonight, because the bottles might benefit from more aging or different food pairings, from his detached perspective? Maybe, he should post his cellaring and drinking habits, for others to mock as plebeian, wasteful, or cheap.

I am not sure that I agree with flushing down toilet - anyone has the right to do with their wine as they see fit not sure if that immunizes them from comment when they do something nutty.

[Victor_Hong]

@Andrew Kaufman

@Victor Hong

@M. Dildine

Chris, I believe the specific object of his derision is the wine “collector.” I must agree with him that this is a group I have little understanding of or sympathy with.

If a person pays the going price or more for a bottle of wine, he or she then owns it, and should be able to drink it anytime, store it forever, or just flush it down the toilet, without judgmental, unwarranted comments from self-appointed, envious taste/etiquette/lifestyle arbiters. Could you imagine if a writer were similarly to criticize us personally for drinking from our own cellars tonight, because the bottles might benefit from more aging or different food pairings, from his detached perspective? Maybe, he should post his cellaring and drinking habits, for others to mock as plebeian, wasteful, or cheap.

I am not sure that I agree with flushing down toilet - anyone has the right to do with their wine as they see fit not sure if that immunizes them from comment when they do something nutty.

We all ultimately flush our wines down the toilet.