I am still a subscriber and will continue to be. AG’s opinions on Italy and Champagne are useful. Above all, they are consistent. From that a consumer can determine if he/she likes the wine. Finally, his reviews read easily, something that matters when trying to digest hundreds of snippets about wines. As for ageing, there are so many variables to that, many out of a reviewers control (i.e. how an individual prefers their wines), but AG will be able to provide successful guidelines. I don’t drink as much Burgundy as many on this BB, and have yet to have that Burgundy epiphany (although there have been some excellent wines). If AG can find some value in that region, consumers will be happy. Hopefully AG can find some new producers not yet pricing in the stratosphere.
Of course the folks who unsubscribed, lapsed or were locked out represent only a small fraction of TWA’s subscription base, so it’s likely Bob doesn’t really care all that much.
As for Antonio’s future, let’s see if he makes any more missteps into for profit activity a la the ‘festa’. He no doubt has a great palate.
I’m still a subscriber, and it’s only because of Antonio. The fact is that this was a good decision on Parker’s part. Antonio has a loyal following because he, not only has a good palate, but that he is also one of the most passionate, accessible and consumer involved wine critics I have yet to meet. His feet are planted firmly on the ground and his interests in wine are much like our own. Now he has a lot more responsibility and I’m sure his time will be much harder to come by, but his core of readers is already strong and I have faith that he will bring WA back out of its tailspin.
The flip-side of that glass-half-full view is that Galloni will have to cope not only with the significant alienation engendered by the rest of the Parker team, but also with the facts that (a) the overwhelming majority of those who made the Parkers, Tanzers, etc. what they are today are no doubt over 40 (or older), with too much wine in their cellars already, and less and less use for, and interest in, wine critics, (b) the new world wine pricing paradigms, particularly Bordeaux’s, but also Burgundy’s and California’s (at least at the high end), coupled with a weak dollar that has no way of recovering, seem likely to render anything said by ANY critic about, say, first-growth Bordeaux or grand cru Burgundy largely irrelevant and of academic interest only, and (c) Antonio will be lucky if the under-30 set has any interest in anything beyond “the world’s greatest wine values”, and one wonders if they will pay anything for that information. A final point is that he tasted over 2,000 wines last month. Nothing that a critic tasting 2,000 wines a month and jotting down Parkeresque trite, empty tasting notes has to say is ultimately worth paying for. In other words, Antonio is no longer the critic he was during his Piedmont Report days. He can solve that problem by adding competent staff once the WA reins are fully his, but then again, where will the competent staff come from? The one thing that Antonio does have going for him is a reasonable degree of name-brand recognition. One wonders whether a Raynolds, d’ Agata or Molesworth can ever get there, saying nothing negative about their critical or writing abilities. Lastly, I think that Suckling may be the “canary in a coal mine” test for the future of wine criticism. If he disappears altogether in the next several years, after so much time as one of Wine Spectator’s two leading critics, I doubt that it will bode well for the critics’ community in general. This is a much better time to be a wine writer than a wine critic…
Pretty good analysis right here. I’ll boil it down to its essence: the only way for the Wine Advocate to have any value anymore would be for it to cease being the Wine Advocate.
Ok, the coffee’s kicking in, so I’ll br contrarian. I know, it’s a shock…
I agree with Bill that most of the subscribers for TWA and other critics’ newsletters are probably 40+… but I wonder about the oft-repeated contention that the under 30 crowd is is so different. The so-called Millennials seem to thrive on being considered special, but I’ve heard that before. About the boomers. Then Gen-X. I get that it’s nice to think your part of something special and unprecedented in the world, but honestly I think it’s a lot more likely that this generation isn’t any more special than previous ones.
I wonder whether we won’t see the same thing we’ve seen with previous generations - a cohort of people who move from being casually interested in wine into being seriously interested and wanting to learn about a region in depth. Now, that region may not be the standard ones for no other reason than price, but still, if you want to really learn about a region that offers a lot of wine, the review newsletter is a convenient resource. So, much as it’s chic to write off critics, I’m not convinced that they’re doomed.
Eric - If the 2000 number is accurate, I don’t think it bodes well if it’s a pace AG anticipates doing month in and month out. 2000 wines per month at 5 minutes per wine means 7.5 hours per day, five days a week of just tasting. I don’t see that as sustainable. Now, if last month was an exception…
I’m more concerned* with the idea that any one person can cover multiple diverse (stylistically and geographically) areas no matter how good or driven that person is. When Rovani left, I thought TWA would go one of two way - toward the WS model of having multiple writers and covering every serious wine region (but without the lifestyle fluff) or toward their roots with Parker doing Bordeaux, the Rhone and freelancers doing other significant regions. They seemed to try to cross these - broad coverage but with a small staff. I wonder if that approach is sustainable.
*Intellectually and for the potential market impact. Since I don’t subscribe to TWA, I’m not concerned at a personal level.
I’m with you there, but what really is different about the current generation is that economics almost completely forecloses their getting a chance to regularly drink the kind of wines which people traditionally subscribed to the Wine Advocate for advice on. The WA is still covering the same wines even now that nobody can afford them. The point of the WA’s coverage used to be buying advice - now I’m not sure what the point is. Being a WA critic seems less about giving advice than having some sort of bizarre lifetime sinecure where other people feel mysteriously compelled to open expensive wine for you so you can write about it, even though fewer and fewer people have any reason to listen; it seems every other week one of the WA folk is tweeting about some event in which some chateau decides to open $25,000 worth of wine for them. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose!
Indeed. But that’s something that they can alter if they want. And, frankly, the myth that all Bordeaux, all Burgundy, all Rhone etc is priced stratospherically is flat out wrong. You can serve as a buying guide to those regions plus the others traditionally covered, review dozens of producers and never write about a wine that’s more than $100. In fact, I’ll argue that this is precisely when a good newsletter focused on serving as a buying guide is truly valuable. No one needs to be told that the top 20 or 50 domaines in a region are worth buying. Of course they are presuming you like a domaine’s style. REviewing things like the first growths, Leroy, DRC etc is useless from a buying guide perspective not only because most of us will never be able to buy them, but because they’ll always be high quality. If you love Haut Brion and can afford it, you don’t need anyone to tell you it is, yet again, excellent.
But identifying the 200 domaines in Burgundy or Piedmont or Bordeaux that make good to excellent wine and don’t cost an arm and a leg? That’s useful. Yes, the millennials’ are all obsessed with natural wine, etc etc. Frankly, I think the broadening of horizons in style and geography is a good thing. But some percentage of those oh so different under 30s will want to age wine and will become interested in Rhone or Burg or something. A newsletter that accommodates both the eclecticism of the current wine scene and pays attention to the amazing amount of fine wine from the traditional wine regions should have a bright future.
Couple of thoughts here. First, I’m with those who wouldn’t re-subscribe until Parker is out to pasture. Just too many bad feelings.
Second, I just feel that the glory days of a publication such as TWA are over, unless you have an unusually strong personality (such as a Jancis Robinson) running the show. Antonio is gracious, competent, thorough, and a star in his own right, but I don’t see him being another Robinson or (thankfully) another Parker. I just don’t see that as his personality. I think niche area reviewers plus CT is where its at and where its going. The days of needing Jay Miller, Mark Squires and “Team America” are over. Ironically, Antonio may be best suited as a niche reviewer (and achieve great success that way) but I just don’t know if there is, anymore, a market for TWA in the scope of “all things to all people.”
Good deal, Greg. We are making progress here. Now perhaps you can go back and make sense of the “nonsense” that you believe that you have called me out on!
I started out nodding my head to this, then I thought of something… how does a new to wine person know what niche they want to pay attention to? Yes, if you want Burgundy reviews and little else your money is probably best spent on Meadows. Rhones, perhaps Jeb Dunnick. Before he went to TWA I’d have said AG for Piedmont. But the person moving out of the casual wine drinker phase into the “I’m really getting into wine and want to learn more” phase typically doesn’t know what regions really turn them on. I wonder, isn’t there a place for a wine publication that caters to people who want reviews of several regions? Isn’t the niche, one region per publication phase one that applies only to a subset of serious wine geeks?
Rick, the under-30 notion is hardly original to me. A sampling of opinion from your favorite retailers will confirm that in spades, and there are a number of articles and interviews with retailers that do the same. Think about it: the American economy has been in the toilet for three years, and the under-30 crowd is lucky to have gainful employment, much less study up to learn whether the 2005 La Tache is, in fact, better than the 1999 and the 1990…
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