Here’s the the thread talking about the twitter origins of that piece. Payment or advertising demanded for wine reviews?
On twitter Jeb Dunnuck weighed in:
https://twitter.com/jebdunnuck/status/1567629734431043586?s=20&t=3GzfLgCAT_z9AfRO99xltw
Read through this again this morning. There was an extensive thread about the $25K fee to Vinous for reviews. This basically tells me to not regard anything they rate as we don’t know what the price tag behind the rating cost the winery, distributor, etc.
Remember the recent thread asking why Autrian Riesling doesn’t get more play?
Yet a third major wine magazine, the same person told me, enforced a cap on a limited number of wines they would review from a certain German-speaking nation—simply because that country’s wine marketing board did not pay to advertise.
Jeb Dunnuck certainly didn’t mince words, which I appreciated. While my palate doesn’t always align with his, good on him for clearly stating the issues and having a very clear ethics policy (assuming he sticks to it, which I have no reason to believe he does not).
Vinous’ behavior is fairly well known, and there have certainly been rumors with other publications, but it would be nice to hear more naming and shaming of specific publications that are betraying readers trust. Hopefully more people in the trade will name names
Following - fascinating stuff indeed . . .
Cheers
Since you are in the business, can you shed any light on a publication or reviewer asking for money to rate your wines?
Glad this is being brought to light. Wine criticism is a tough industry to make a living and these “gray areas” I feel are becoming more and more encroached.
It sucks for the regions and producers that don’t pay to play and it sucks for the consumers.
There have been numerous accusations made against wine publications over the years but this one is all that more polarizing due to the article being written by a former vinous critic 
I thought that Jeb’s response was fantastic…
I think someone from Vinous needs to address both the article and Jeb’s comments.
Fascinating read and also nice to see someone like Dunnuck chime in - he’s definitely gone up in my book. Hope others do the same.
Reminds me of when you drive through a small town (or rather any town I suppose) and see a billboard for a company that says “Voted Best XZY in town!” - by who, the local journalist whose mother-in-law probably owns the company?!
IMO, an honest review of any product should first contain a disclaimer with any conflicts of interest.
Would be interested as well. That said, I think we can assume nobody is hitting him up for $25k for a full page ad as a smaller producer. I have a feeling those kind of moves are geared towards larger producers.
Well, I don’t know what to think. Right now we’re in the hearsay and innuendo phase. The big wine reviewers make money in ways other than consumer subscriptions, and I’m perfectly fine with that. But I certainly want to believe that the reviews are actually independent and represent honest evaluation of what’s in the bottle.
As someone with a lifetime of experience in business, I have seen all shades of light and dark. Some people and businesses are pure, but most occupy a range of shades of grey and must balance many competing demands.
I can imagine a perfectly reasonable situation in which a wine region’s marketing board (or whatever you want to call it) helps pay for a reviewer at a major review site. It’s business, and if the review site’s team believe the wines are of good quality, but can’t justify the financials purely on subscribers or advertising, then such a deal could make sense. The region helps pay the tab, the reviewers keep their independence. Yes, one could argue that good reviews are expected, but if the review site only takes the business on because the wines are good, it’s still ok. What could go wrong??!??
Not Larry but…
No one has ever asked me to give them money to review my wines. That’s because financially Goodfellow Family Cellars is a dust mote on an amoeba on a fly’s behind on a small dog that is the Oregon wine industry.
A-Z/Rex Hill just sold to the mega-corporation that owns Chateau St. Michelle, and they probably are who we should be asking. Except that as the article noted, the pay to the publication came from a public relations firm so that wineries employing them can state with a straight face that they don’t give money to publications for reviews…
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING NOW?
Well beyond the idea that it’s always been happening, there have been some major shifts in the market for wine itself and also the market for critical review of wine.
For many years, critical review was primarily for the relatively tiny group of people who KNEW AHEAD OF TIME that they were going to be buying wines from regions of their preference. People who mostly would fit in well on this board whether as a poster or reader. And most critics reviewed wines for little money, but regularly published books(Clive Coates, Hugh Johnson, Spurrier, et al) and scraped by, often selling wines themselves. They reviewed a few regions, dominated by the classics, where the wineries were semi-familiar to readers. And while the crown jewels of the wine world were reasonably rewarded fiscally, things like Chateau Latour cost $35-65, and wines like Dujac Clos de la Roche were $65-75(or less).
Then came RP. And that Shanken guy…
They popularized wine for the masses(including myself). Suddenly their reviewed wineries prices sky-rocketed and cult wines were born. But for the situation at hand, those financial shifts are small, tiny, tiny, tiny potatoes.
As the masses, especially in the US and then Asia, suddenly discovered we all loved wine, suddenly new regions appeared as if overnight: Australian wine boomed, Chilean wine appeared almost overnight(in comparison to historical regional growth it was more like the blink of an eye), Oregon has been doubling size every 6-7 years for awhile now, Wahington appeared, California exploded in size, Spanish regions across the country magically appeared(whether actually appeared as in Priorat or suddenly appeared on the world stage like Bierzo), etc, etc.
And suddenly we have over production merged with a total lack of price connection to production costs…proving that the old chestnut of price control through competition is 100% FOMO’s bitch.
Add in the reality that making any reasonable kind of living as a wine critic in cacophonous world of the internet is almost impossible.
And what happens is that the voice of the critic as the “cult wine”-maker is still sort of powerful but mostly as fantasy for the people delusional enough to think founding a winery is a good idea(ouch, but true), but financially worthwhile for those producers in certified 100 point areas(Napa) or historically FOMO based wines(Burgundy).
Where the critics voices become even more powerful is in the grocery store. If a 100 point score is a geyser shooting water 200 feet in the air, then the +90 point affirmation on shelf talkers is the Mississippi river. A-Z/Rex Hill makes 700,000 cases. If a 91 score allows them to price at $144/case FOB instead of $132/case, that’s $8,400,000 for a single producer. If they make that 700,000 cases in a region that gets routine coverage and high levels of critical enthusiasm that can be the difference between $12.99 on the shelf and $19.99 on the shelf, it’s easy to see why there is so much leverage these days. Or perhaps consider the revenue involved when a region like Napa shifts from averaging around $29.99/bottle to averaging around $70/bottle. I would love to see the financials on Silver Oak between 1991 and 2000(guessing shifting from $35 to $80/bottle on say 25,000 cases, maybe more.
It won’t change unless some things happen:
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consumers have to be willing to pay real money for real advice. Just like Facebook, if you get the product for free(shelf talkers) you are the product.
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individual critics need to find an open source option for publishing critical reviews, like say something Todd French would/could do…, that can be a fiscal opt in for readers that reaches also a wide enough audience to make the cost reasonable. Individual critics, like say WK, would post their writing directly and be compensated based upon views or subscription. (I would suggest some form of requirement for expertise from the critics, so the source doesn’t immediately dissolve into a blog based site).
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the site and the critics would need to sign contractual agreements not to take anything from wineries, PR firms, etc. beyond samples.
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just my opinion, but avoiding the 100pt system would be helpful. Consumers can use points, but “90 points” is every bit as powerful a syntax as “natural” is currently. As much credit as RP deserves for his prominence, the attraction we have to a numerical system that mirrors the grading systems we all grew up with was a powerful current moving them to success. With scores it is too easy to move readers away from a more in depth review. Out brains are hardwired to equate 90+ with an A grade. And the more twitterfied or shelf-talkerish the media is the more it will become paid for by producers.
Food for thought: Critical wine review is also being killed by the outdated and outrageous practice of bestowing certifications that imply expertise in wine world wide. “Master of Wine” and “Master Sommelier” are both certifications of extraordinarily high levels of study, but both are also as foolishly non-sensical as a “Master of Medicine” would be. Wine certification should move to certifying a “General Practitioner” which would require broad based knowledge. Then certify individuals based upon regional of specialization(s). i.e. one could ve a Master of Piedmont, Master of Rioja, etc.
I enjoy everyone who I submit samples to, and respect their integrity. But they all have an utterly insane workload and cover an extraordinary amount of ground. So at some point intelligent change should benefit just about everyone.
This isn’t a researched opinion at all, and this post is just off the cuff, so I am sure there are some holes in the theory but it makes no sense not to look at how to solve some of the issues.
Also, I believe that Larry doesn’t submit his wines to anyone for review.
Reading the article (thanks for posting) and thinking back to the old thread about the $25k early access, I’m confused about something, and I’m hoping someone ITB might be able to clear this up.
If you’re a winery and you sell into the three-tier system (ignore direct in-state sales for the moment), you sell to a distributor, and then the distributor sells to the retailer. If you, as winery, buy Vinuous’ 48-hour early look, and discover that your $25 retail priced wine just got a 96 from Vinuous, are you able to do anything about the retail price and/or benefit from that at all, given that (i) you’ve already sold the bottle to distributor, and (ii) distributor already sold that bottle to retailer? Do the larger wine companies have the right to dictate retail price, and then do they get paid a cut of that increase? I would bet they don’t have to pay back any discounting.
If the answer is that the winery gets no benefit from a price increase for wine that’s already sold, then what the heck is the benefit for the winery in paying $25k for early access to scores?
(serious question)
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at that point you no longer need to ignore DTC for the moment. Even if you, like a winery I know of, submit wines that are almost sold out or actually are sold out of, you can add people to the mailing list and sharpen allocations. And no one post-Covid is ever ignoring DTC. TBH almost no US wineries ever ignore DTC which is the issue with your query.
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in the old days, 96 points would sell a lot of wines. And your distributors would he ready and waiting for next year. They may not want to hear that you’re raising prices but they’ll accept it. So immediate gratification might not happen, but the entire next vintage would benefit from the score.
All good points, but it doesn’t seem like any of that is related to the 48-hour preview, unless you’re timing your DTC release allocation/pricing with when you get that info, but even then, why not just wait the extra 2 days and save $24k/year?
I’m really struggling to understand the economic benefit of knowing your scores 2 days in advance.
Ugh…was hoping you would bypass that.
The 48 hours gives you time to reach out to your distributors before the review and let them know that you are watching, and expecting them to get shit done with this review. And bluntly, if you do not let them know that this needs to happen, often it won’t.
And very little in wine sucks more than spending money on flights, hotels, and dinner to go work a market instead of spending time with your family and get handed an inventory containing 85% of stock of a 96(95 points in my case) point wine that should have sold out the previous year. And one that you sold 5 times as much DTC at nearly twice FOB price. Do the math, half the money for the sale and then you get to hand sell it 12-20 months after it was hot enough to sell pallets more than you made…
Nobody asks me for money, and I don’t get reviews ahead of when they are posted. But I NEVER ship high scoring wines to distribution anymore, and I don’t travel to work markets anymore either.
excellent response. Thanks Marcus