New York Times enters the Wine Club market

WINE TALK
1

to this news Mr Parker had this to say

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=207940


To that I say: Pot it’s the phone, the Kettle is calling!!!

2

Pot/kettle issues aside, I agree with his concenrs. The Times has sold things like coffee mugs, umbrellas, art prints, and crossword books, but somehow this seems different for exactly the reasons Mr. Parker described. The article mentioned that the critics are independent, but will the wines be chosen based on their recommendations? I found this description at nytwineclub.com:

Hand-selected wines from boutique wineries around the world
Expert wine tasting notes with recipe pairings from The Times
Related wine, food and travel articles from The Times
Convenient shipments sent to your home or office

Eric Asimov is a registered member here-- I hope he’ll chime in on this.

3

Same as the WSJ moving into wine, I truthfully do not see the point. Is it really worth their time, money and effort?

4

I am not involved with the NYT wine club at all. Nobody discussed it with me. I was not even informed of its existence until it was announced publicly. This morning, when I picked up my NYT outside my door, a circular for the Wall Street Journal wine club fell out. Apparently we’re making money from their club, at least.

5

Well that settles it. Thanks! Do you know who “hand picks” the selections, then?

Welcome aboard.

6

Dude - do you have children?

Seriously, SS Ye Olde Gray Lady is going down, and she’s going down hard.

They say that the big ships make a terrible vortex when they slip underwater, and that your lifeboat needs to steer a wide berth lest it be taken down as well.

7

Gee it only took Parker 15 minutes from the first post on this to chime in with possible conflict of interest musings about another publication/critic.

Maybe the NYT will run a feature on wine mixups and reviewers.

8

Newspapers have always taken advertisements. In fact newspapers live from advertisements! So long as there is a firm wall between advertising and editorial policy there is no moral question or conflict of interest issue to be raised. After all has been said and done these last weeks, I almost hate to remind us that there are quite a few honest critics out there.

Best
Rogov

9

Parker’s website contains a wine search engine where a consumer can point and click their way to purchasing wine. He sees money from that…as Larry said…hey kettle, it is pot calling…

I do not give a crap whether the NY Times sells wine, or the WSJ. Like Max said, is it worth it?

Parker should worry about his own stable of horses, before taking on the New York Times on ethics questions.

He attempted to take WSJ to task about this same issue a couple of months ago but people over there ganged up on him so he deleted his own post.

I wonder what his policies are about his wine critics buying wine and then possible reselling it for profit. I am not suggesting anything, I am just curious.

10

Ron Washam brings his characteristic levity to this issue as well:

http://hosemasterofwine.blogspot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

11

My company, WineAlert, provides the retailer search interface for eRobertParker.com. Just to clarify, they receive no part of the retailer fees paid to us, and in fact eRobertParker pays us a monthly fee for this service.

Thanks for the opportunity to set the record straight.

Julian Berkin
President
WineAlert

12

Welcome to the board Julian.

13

Welcome indeed - and to Eric as well, whom I’ve already communicated with via PM

14

Julian, Hello…

You wrote:

My company, WineAlert, provides the retailer search interface for eRobertParker.com. Just to clarify, they receive no part of the retailer fees paid to us, and in fact eRobertParker pays us a monthly fee for this service.

I do sincerely hope that I am not opening a new bag of proverbial worms here, but what is it precisely that Parker pays you for. Honestly, I simply do not understand and would appreciate clarification.

Thanks and Best
Rogov

15

Rogov :

We gather inventory data from about 200 serious wine merchants worldwide to help eRobertParker subscribers find the wines they’re interested in. What makes this process different from, say, a WineSearcher type search is that we match as many wines as possible to our database so that these listings are treated as real wine, not just searchable text. Though very labor intensive at our end, this allows for a much easier search where your search results show only the proper wine, not a long list of wines with similar words in the name. It also allows for much more sophisticated browsing, where one can perform queries such as “show all 2005 California Cabs, 90 pts. and higher, and currently available online for under $40.”

Of course this is a very simplified summary. Thanks again for the opportunity to clarify.

Julian

16

Full disclosure, we were paying winealert up until 2 weeks ago a fee of $300 per month to be on their list of “200 serious wine merchants,” but we dropped the service as we saw very little or no feedback on it in terms of customers. Julian is a great person, and they provide a good service. Nevertheless, the fee was too steep to justify (incidentally it costs more than Wine Searcher sponsorship).

Julian,

I do not think you answered the questioned that Daniel Rogov asked.

17

Daniel:

Thank you for your kind words. Just to clarify - the fee is $300 per quarter, not per month. We’re actually quite a bit cheaper than WineSearcher.

Julian

18

To Posner’s point…what does RMP/TWA pay YOU for?

19

Bill:

As I mentioned, the process of providing this highly customized data feed to the eRobertParker site, for the benefit of eRP subscribers, is an extremely labor intensive daily process. Like all of eRP’s suppliers, WineAlert is not in a position to provide an ongoing service like this, with all its significant costs, without receiving compensation.

Hope this is helpful.

Julian

20

Yeah! Who would be silly enough to provide an ongoing service to wine lovers without compensation???

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