LaPresse: SAQ paid Suckling $24,000 for reviews

[rfelthoven]

@M A T T H A R T L E Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmmKK6nj9KM

Guys…it’s all cool…he lives in Tuscany…

His accent is reminiscent of The Californians skit on SNL:

http://stuffistolefromtheinternet.com/video/snl-the-californians/

[M_A_T_T_H_A_R_T_L_E_Y]

@Brian Loring

The way I read it is that James meant that he has no financial interest in the SAQ - i.e. he doesn’t benefit from any reviews he does. So there’s no conflict of interest. No different than if he’d done them for his site - except in this case he was asked to review a set of wines that he might not normally have reviewed, or in the time frame the SAQ needed. I wouldn’t do that for free, and neither should James. I really don’t see any smoking gun here.

From the SAQ website:

“Mr. Suckling was not paid by the SAQ to taste and rate these wines, and all travel expenses, including airfare and hotel accommodation, were paid for by Mr. Suckling. James Suckling acted in his personal name and not as a SAQ spokesperson.”

You take that to mean he has no financial interest in SAQ?

[C_Mc_Cart]

I don’t see this as negatively as many.
I see his role differently. Since he left WS and started his site I don’t consider him a wine critic.
To me it’s more like Tony Bourdain vs. a food critic. I frankly think he’s figured out web & social media better than anyone else in wine. He’s an entertainer (if you enjoy that sort of thing) with some notes and scores, not the other way around.
I’d be against it if it were WA or BH, but will let it slide for him - just look at his site (saw it months ago via a free preview), his isn’t the message, it’s the medium. If I were trying to market or sell large amounts of wine - I’d pay him to make some vids.

[Gordon_Fitz]

We pay an auditing firm to review our financials and submit their opinion. The auditing firm then publishes their opinion. Money changes hand. So according to many of the posters here, all audits are suspect, or aduit firms should work for free.

I didn’t see the write up on the wines. Were the tastings done blind? Were the normal tasting protocols utilized?

I think many are making a mountain out of a mole hill here.

[Russ_Williams]

@M A T T H A R T L E Y

@Brian Loring

The way I read it is that James meant that he has no financial interest in the SAQ - i.e. he doesn’t benefit from any reviews he does. So there’s no conflict of interest. No different than if he’d done them for his site - except in this case he was asked to review a set of wines that he might not normally have reviewed, or in the time frame the SAQ needed. I wouldn’t do that for free, and neither should James. I really don’t see any smoking gun here.

From the SAQ website:

“Mr. Suckling was not paid by the SAQ to taste and rate these wines, and all travel expenses, including airfare and hotel accommodation, were paid for by Mr. Suckling. James Suckling acted in his personal name and not as a SAQ spokesperson.”

You take that to mean he has no financial interest in SAQ?

Brian - I have to admit I’m at a loss for words regarding your logic.

[k_s_h_i_n]

@C. Mc Cart

I don’t see this as negatively as many.
I see his role differently. Since he left WS and started his site I don’t consider him a wine critic.
To me it’s more like Tony Bourdain vs. a food critic. I frankly think he’s figured out web & social media better than anyone else in wine. He’s an entertainer (if you enjoy that sort of thing) with some notes and scores, not the other way around. I’d be against it if it were WA or BH, but will let it slide for him - just look at his site (saw it months ago via a free preview), his isn’t the message, it’s the medium. If I were trying to market or sell large amounts of wine - I’d pay him to make some vids.

I think he sees himself as a critic. Otherwise there is no reason why he tries so hard to be the first guy to publish his rating. Also the merchants take him seriously enough to quote his ratings.

[k_s_h_i_n]

@Gordon Fitz

We pay an auditing firm to review our financials and submit their opinion. The auditing firm then publishes their opinion. Money changes hand. So according to many of the posters here, all audits are suspect, or aduit firms should work for free.

I didn’t see the write up on the wines. Were the tastings done blind? Were the normal tasting protocols utilized?

I think many are making a mountain out of a mole hill here.

Gordon,
I also don’t find this to be a big deal except he and SAQ seem to deny that he got paid. What bothers me more is that he solicits his service to the wineries that he rates.

[Tom_M]

My fave is when he states in interviews that many think he coined the term SuperTuscan. Then he feigns modesty and kind of shrugs his shoulders so we all think he’s got compunction. Whattaguy.

[Adam_Lee]

@Kevin Shin

@Gordon Fitz

We pay an auditing firm to review our financials and submit their opinion. The auditing firm then publishes their opinion. Money changes hand. So according to many of the posters here, all audits are suspect, or aduit firms should work for free.

I didn’t see the write up on the wines. Were the tastings done blind? Were the normal tasting protocols utilized?

I think many are making a mountain out of a mole hill here.

Gordon,
I also don’t find this to be a big deal except he and SAQ seem to deny that he got paid. What bothers me more is that he solicits his service to the wineries that he rates.

Kevin,

FWIW, my only tasting experience with James Suckling was different. I approached him via email about tasting when he was in Santa Barbara. He emailed me back with some dates, and asked about some other producers. He filmed in the Cargasacchi Vineyard (he wanted to be in a vineyard), tasted my wines, the Cargasacchi Wines, and the Loring wines, and then left. He posted the videos and the reviews, no solicitation of anything, no payment of any sort, etc.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

[Peter_Kleban]

@Gordon Fitz

We pay an auditing firm to review our financials and submit their opinion. The auditing firm then publishes their opinion. Money changes hand. So according to many of the posters here, all audits are suspect, or aduit firms should work for free.

I didn’t see the write up on the wines. Were the tastings done blind? Were the normal tasting protocols utilized?

I think many are making a mountain out of a mole hill here.

If SAQ kept his ratings to themselves, then you would be right. But if they use his ratings to sell wine without saying that he’s working for them, as I assume they do, it’s a conflict. He’s not independent of them, ie they are paying him to help sell their wines, not give his honest and independent opinion. Get it?

[Tim_Heaton]

@Brian Loring

The way I read it is that James meant that he has no financial interest in the SAQ - i.e. he doesn’t benefit from any reviews he does. So there’s no conflict of interest. No different than if he’d done them for his site - except in this case he was asked to review a set of wines that he might not normally have reviewed, or in the time frame the SAQ needed. I wouldn’t do that for free, and neither should James. I really don’t see any smoking gun here.

Horse. Lead. Water. Oh, forget it

[k_s_h_i_n]

@Adam Lee

@Kevin Shin

@Gordon Fitz

We pay an auditing firm to review our financials and submit their opinion. The auditing firm then publishes their opinion. Money changes hand. So according to many of the posters here, all audits are suspect, or aduit firms should work for free.

I didn’t see the write up on the wines. Were the tastings done blind? Were the normal tasting protocols utilized?

I think many are making a mountain out of a mole hill here.

Gordon,
I also don’t find this to be a big deal except he and SAQ seem to deny that he got paid. What bothers me more is that he solicits his service to the wineries that he rates.

Kevin,

FWIW, my only tasting experience with James Suckling was different. I approached him via email about tasting when he was in Santa Barbara. He emailed me back with some dates, and asked about some other producers. He filmed in the Cargasacchi Vineyard (he wanted to be in a vineyard), tasted my wines, the Cargasacchi Wines, and the Loring wines, and then left. He posted the videos and the reviews, no solicitation of anything, no payment of any sort, etc.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

Adam,
I appreciate your feedback. I heard this from a chateau owner in Bordeaux.
Cheers,
Kevin

[TomHill]

@Adam Lee

Kevin,
FWIW, my only tasting experience with James Suckling was different. I approached him via email about tasting when he was in Santa Barbara. He emailed me back with some dates, and asked about some other producers. He filmed in the Cargasacchi Vineyard (he wanted to be in a vineyard), tasted my wines, the Cargasacchi Wines, and the Loring wines, and then left. He posted the videos and the reviews, no solicitation of anything, no payment of any sort, etc.
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

Uhhhhhhhhh, Adam…I read out on the InterNet that Peter paid him off with a mess of fried gopher meat and the evening w/ a llama!!!
Tom

[Larry_P]

@Gordon Fitz

We pay an auditing firm to review our financials and submit their opinion. The auditing firm then publishes their opinion. Money changes hand. So according to many of the posters here, all audits are suspect, or aduit firms should work for free.

This is BTW not evidence that there’s nothing wrong with the auditing system, nor a good reason to not suspect reviews done as work for hire.

[Keith_Levenberg]

The real scandal is that somewhere in Canada there is a taxpayer who worked several months out of the year just so that James Suckling could cash this check. I feel like James should find him and at least give him a bottle of Solaia or something as a thank you.

[C_Mc_Cart]

@Keith Levenberg

The real scandal is that somewhere in Canada there is a taxpayer who worked several months out of the year just so that James Suckling could cash this check. I feel like James should find him and at least give him a bottle of Solaia or something as a thank you.

Eh Ahem, Quebec only if you please sir - we here in Ontario have the highly competent and above reproach LCBO to fleece us!

[Rick_Gregory]

Brian L - If someone with Suckling’s credentials offered to review your wines for a fee and you paid that fee (and it was substantial), would you REALLY be happy with an 86? The reader, knowing that the review was paid for, can’t look at it in the same light as a review that wasn’t paid for. If I have to explain why, well…

Gordon - but all auditing firms charge all customers. It’s not as if some firms work for free, but hey, you can hire this other firm for a fee. If you could and their reports were always very positive, the question of the fee’s influence naturally arises.

[Xavier_Lavoipierre]

@M A T T H A R T L E Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmmKK6nj9KM

Guys…it’s all cool…he lives in Tuscany…

Aside from the totally unsolicited and gratuitous mention of living in Tuscany, his affected pronunciation of Grenache is hilarious. Even better, though, he slips up at about 1:30 in the clip and pronounces Grenache the way most of us mere mortal English speakers do (which is in fact closer to how the French pronounce it than his affected “GREH nosh”). Guess he wasn’t trying hard enough to maintain the fake accent, or whatever that is.

[Richard_Malloy]

@Gordon Fitz

We pay an auditing firm to review our financials and submit their opinion. The auditing firm then publishes their opinion. Money changes hand. So according to many of the posters here, all audits are suspect, or aduit firms should work for free.

And when companies are sued for issuing false and misleading financial statements, the company’s so-called independent auditor is very often also a named defendant. It would seem the enormous fees that the auditing firms earn from those gigs appear to provide all the reason they need to issue clean opinions on dodgy numbers.

Perhaps some of you recall a quaint old entity known as Arthur Andersen, last seen shredding workpapers from their annual audits of Enron Corp? What would cause a big accounting firm to overlook, or even assist in abetting obvious accounting fraud? Could it be … the enormous fees?

Perhaps some of you found not so long ago that your investment portfolios contained worthless derivatives that the big ratings agencies said where not just A-OK, but sometimes triple-AOK? I wonder if you know who was paying them to rate those instruments? (Um, it’s the issuer of those instruments.)

And unlike auditing firms - but just like wine reviewers - there’s no GAAP or GAAS or other generally accepted standards that ratings agencies must adhere to. They’re just “I’m all AAA on that!” … and here’s my bill, you fine, upstanding issuer of a 100-pt rated Brunello, I mean a triple-AAA rated collateralized debt obligation!"

[Larry_P]

@Xavier Lavoipierre

@M A T T H A R T L E Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmmKK6nj9KM

Guys…it’s all cool…he lives in Tuscany…

Aside from the totally unsolicited and gratuitous mention of living in Tuscany, his affected pronunciation of Grenache is hilarious. Even better, though, he slips up at about 1:30 in the clip and pronounces Grenache the way most of us mere mortal English speakers do (which is in fact closer to how the French pronounce it than his affected “GREH nosh”). Guess he wasn’t trying hard enough to maintain the fake accent, or whatever that is.

Love that video

JS: They think I’m off my rocker; they think I’m crazy.
Interviewer: I heard that too.