I’ve noticed this at times while reading WB (e.g., a possibly smoke-tainted 2020 PN - Sojourner?), and while listening to podcasts, such as Wine Pair’s reluctance to name Per Se, or The French Laundry, despite bad experiences at both. Should we not strive to be informed consumers? And for that matter, informed producers/restaurateurs? What happened to the (advocacy) spirit of RP? Or is the wine/hospitality community protective of its own? A “red wall” of silence?
I’ll take a stab at it.
As for wines, I am not a chemist, when I write tasting notes I sometimes use the words smoke ashtray, cigar ash, astringency as things my palate or nose pick up but have no idea what to attribute them to. Could be barrel toast, could be an accumulation of different compounds that give off that aroma or taste. I’ve tasted a number of 2020 wines that I knew were tainted because the winemaker told me so up front and many that I had a feeling could be but I have no way to know for sure. I simply write that is was off for me. People work really hard to produce and market a product for consumers and it’s not my place to call them out and tarnish their reputation or integrity when I am not 100% sure.
Any restaurant can have a bad day or night. I might share that they weren’t on their game on my visit but that’s it. I’m not a professional restaurant critic and one bad or sub/par experience should not outweigh 100s or thousands of great ones. What’s the point?
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Libel and slander. Lots of lawyers on here. 
Primum non nocere.
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Primum Noce Apte
Are not “I didn’t like the food” or “I didn’t like the wine” opinions, and not defamatory because they are subjective?
We can tip toe around it but lets be honest. Its access and having to look people in the eye after you slagged them publicly. For those that are professionally doing reviews and ‘takes’ they could be limiting their future access to things they need to go to in order for people to want to listen to them or read their material.
For everyone else, the wine and food world is not THAT big. You are going to run into people you’ve been talking about. While we want people to ‘say what they really think’ if those people still want to visit those restaurants or run in the same circles as those winemakers, they are setting themselves up for uncomfortable situations. Fact is, people don’t like confrontations and its certainly understandable to want to avoid them over a matter of taste. Especially when its that person’s taste versus someone making their living on tastes.
I cannot imagine being a wine reviewer from this standpoint. Hanging out with people making wine, especially at their estates, will make you friendly with them. Not all of them but some portion of them. Now if you didn’t think their wine was up to snuff, what do you do when its time to publish your takes? Worse, if you really take a liking to them are you going to give them better reviews than they deserve? And at the bitter end, we saw what happened when wineries wanted good scores from RP and his cohorts.
There are a lot of factors at play but I can certainly understand why people don’t want to be more forthcoming in many circumstances. Some people just do not like saying anything about someone that might be perceived as negative.
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Or, to put it less cynically, some of these are my friends. If I don’t like a meal my friend has prepared I might tell them, but I don’t need to tell the rest of the world. I don’t owe random strangers on the internet “honest reviews”, whatever that means. If people want to see community generated scores on wines and restaurants, CellarTracker, Vivino, Yelp, etc already exist.
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I started the “possibly” smoke tainted PN thread. The reason I didn’t want to name the producer was because a) it was entirely subjective (now that I have more experience, I would say they were 100% smoke tainted), but more importantly, b) Due to me being lazy, I didn’t give the producer a chance to make it right. And it would have been unfair to call them out on something without giving them a chance to make it right.
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Maybe better to provide an example. This is what happens when people name specific wineries and reasons.
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Very well-put. This is also why I routinely place more value in the published opinions of other enthusiasts than I do the published opinions of “pros” and wannabe pros. That’s not to say there aren’t some forthcoming “pros” and “wannabe pros” out there, and also some enthusiasts who tend to see everything through rose colored glasses, but those feel like exceptions that prove the rule…
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Yes, naming producers and reasons unleashes a torrent of responses, but is that bad? Threads often “descend” into a cavalcade of complaining (see e.g., posts about FedEx, Meiomi, various retailers . . .). While tone may be improved, isn’t the the information generally nformative?
Is it? In almost every one of these threads, there are others who are quick to respond as to why whatever one posts as bad, isn’t really that way. Rarely is anything clear and most hold to whatever belief they already have. Two more examples are below from before things were clear and the general reaction from many is to discount the concerns raised. I have personal experience that I won’t share of proprietors contacting me directly about posts I made and stating things privately that is completely different than what they posted on the board or stated publicly. Ultimately, I decided that it isn’t worth the frustration so either no longer post of issues or post without identifying the wines.
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True story- about 20 years ago on another popular wine forum, I outed a retailer from another city I had been visiting which had left high end Bordeaux (including Petrus) sitting on store shelves at 85 degrees+ for several days after a hurricane had hit resulting in an extended power outage. They had large beer coolers which would have at least warmed up slowly once off- but never even tried to gather up and put the top bottles in there. I know first hand the wines were in this condition for at least 4 days.
Not long after, the store did a major Bordeaux sale. That is when I posted online. I received a significant number of replies- most of them criticizing me. One was an ITBer who is to this day very highly regarded, including on this forum, and he basically said it was probably not a big deal and I was a jerk for making their lives harder. Wonder if he would take that stance now.
And I won’t even get into the Rudi situation. When many of us were sounding the alarm bells early on- and not even direct accusations, but concerns- a great many voices shouted us down down for being jealous and petty, including quite a few people on this forum who probably don’t want to be reminded of being in the wrong.
You and I and other posters- to varying degrees- are observers and recipients of valuable insights in our real lives plus we spend money for the wines we taste and talk about. Everything we post here- we do for free and we get no compensation. Not saying we should- just pointing it out.
And so, knowing that even sincere and accurate advice is going to be questioned and criticized by people with their own biases or their own need to share their bad day with someone else- I got to the point where I decided not to do or say anything that I think could cost me in some way down the road. Instead, I reach out directly to people I know might be affected and will take my counsel seriously.