If true, this is a pretty misleading marketing technique. My cynical side tends to believe that this happens more than one would think… Any insights from those ITB?
A brutal fail.
We have tasted wine in a tasting room and purchased wine based on that. The wine we got home obviously from a different batch from what we had tasted. Of course, we never go back to that winery, but they shall remain unnamed.
I suspect that this is pretty common. When a wine is bottled in more than one batch, there will naturally be some difference, however small or large. I figure most wineries assume that the public can’t tell the difference.
The situation described in the article is something different. From my POV 100% fraudulent and should be illegal. It probably is illegal if they represent it as the wine that was awarded the score when in fact it was a completely different batch of wine that was made up after the fact.
Where have I heard this before. 
Shouldn’t they take the Estate out of the name too?
Don’t fret, I hear its left-over Screaming Eagle… (KIDDING!) ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
It’s not unheard of. I’m not saying it happens 40, 30 or 20 percent of the time, but it’s not so unusual that people should be shocked. Talking about it with someone who had acknowledged doing it once, he pointed out that the people who only buy on points won’t care - they’re buying points, not taste, and the people who buy the wine because they have liked it over the years will shrug and rationalize it as an off vintage, which is what people have done with Bordeaux for many years. Cynical maybe, but it’s how wine is sold. More interesting was the fact that one of the wines we were discussing happened to be biodynamic. Certified no less.
I’m more shocked that they actually sold out of Shiraz…
I think the “Estate” name would be illegal in the U.S. but Australia may be different?? Regardless of the legality of the label, it is a clear effort of the winery to dupe their customers. Probably illegal, and if not, it should be, IMO.
To say “people who only buy on points won’t care - they’re buying points, not taste” is just rationalizing fraud.
To say “it’s how wine is sold” is just rationalizing fraud.
Just my $0.02.
Too many easy alternatives. How about a different label with a different name? Something like Schild Sibling or something?
Bottling this as the high scoring stuff really makes me doubt the honesty of the winery, even in disclosure.
If it were a US winery all hell would break out, no? Think about it…
Never can there be a justification for this behavior. Ever…never. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Since points became important it has been done many times - and it’ll keep getting done, everywhere.
I had to laugh a few weeks back when I happened upon the cable show ‘Three Thieves’.
The owner’s son of a Chilean winery had shown the ‘thieves’ the special collection of owners wines in the cellar. He points to a wall and says something like “That there is the third best wine in the world”. I surmised he was either crazy or had been anointed something from someone. Sure enough one of the Thieves mentions the Wine Spectators rankings from a certain year, and the guy say ‘si’. He then points to others and says “And those are the fourth best wines in the world” from another year of WS ratings!! Oh, the winery was BEAUTIFUL! Lots of new found cash easy to spot.
Anointing is EVERYTHING to certain people. Schild is riding the wave and being true to no-one other than their banker…
Geeez!
I 'd be interested in learning what Mr. Twelftree’s motive was - when ratting-out Schild.
a) Doing the right thing
b) Protecting the integrity of the Aussie wine biz
c) marginalizing a competitor
d) all of the above
Got this in an e-mail from a local retailer…I thought the issue was handled pretty well:
An important note on the 2008 Schild Shiraz:
Yesterday, the Wine Spectator published an article regarding a purported impropriety by Schild Estate in regards to their 94-Point rated 2008 Shiraz. Many of you have purchased this wine from us, so we wanted to bring this issue to your attention and apprise you of the facts. The winery produced 18,000 cases of the original, award-winning cuvee. As is common practice, this original cuvee was bottled in three separate runs, one in late 2009 and two in 2010. Up until this point, everything is good. The problem came earlier this year when Schild did a forth bottling of their 2008 Shiraz, using wine that was not part of the original cuvee.
According to the Wine Spectator’s Harvey Steiman, the disputed wine has not and will not come to the United States. In addition, the winery has agreed to affix a label to the disputed bottles to clarify that they are from a different cuvee. We have checked through the lot numbers on the bottles that we have remaining in stock and have verified that they were from the original cuvee that was bottled in 2010. Based on the facts presented by the Wine Spectator and our analysis of the lot codes, we have every reason to believe that all of the 2008 Schild Shiraz we have sold is from the original 94-Point cuvee. With that being said, if you have any questions or concerns about the provenance of your wine, do not hesitate to contact us. If you desire to return the wine, we will of course take it back without question.
serious question here, and perhaps some winemakers or others ITB can chime in:
I’m trying to understand how the “cuvee” can be consistent / the same when it was bottled potentially as far as a year apart (not clear when in 2010 the second and third runs were bottled)… so, is it that 100% of the wine is blended and stored in a tank prior to bottling, with only part being bottled in the first “run”? Or is some still in barrels, and therefore the second run is not exactly the same blend? I’m sure I’m probably splitting hairs here, but even if its all blended ahead of time, if that much time elapses before the 2nd and 3rd runs are bottled, couldn’t the wine have evolved slightly differently from the first run since it wasn’t in bottle?
I’m sure its more that I don’t understand fully how the final blending/bottling process works, but reading that statement above in bold got me wondering…
This is a very sad chain of events
My only real motivation was protecting the consumers, because in my eyes, if you don’t protect them who do you think will buy your wine.
Every one has a line in the sand and Schild’s line is obviously different to ours.
What would have you done Jay?
MT
More bad news for the Australian Shiraz market in the US. Cannot be good for marketing even though it is understood that this type of thing happens everywhere. They need a cover up and quickly.
Could not disagree more. What they need is some integrity.
The “fraud” label may or may not be fair to apply to the situation GregT is discussing, but what seems to have gone on in the Schild situation is a little different. Schild apparently attempted to capitalize on the high WS rating (and the consequent anticipated popularity of their 2008 Estate Shiraz in the US) by exporting to the US more of the original blend that was rated by WS. That is not fraud; arguably, it is a boon to the US consumer who would otherwise have had to pay an inflated price owing to the ostensibly higher demand.
Schild then blended another run to meet local demand in Australia where their wine is sold as a commodity product that is expected to be continually available – like a $15-20 Beringer wine in the US. To assert that in doing so they were trying to “pass off” the second blend as the one favorably reviewed by WS presupposes that Schild’s purchasers in Australia read and care about WS ratings. I have no idea whether or not that is true, although I am not surprised that WS thinks it is. 
If Schild really thought, wow, we can sell an extra 5K cases of wine in Australia because of the WS rating, let’s blend 'em up, then I think it is fair to say that creating the second blend was at least deceptive. They have, however, mitigated any such deception by deciding add “second blend” to the label.
Another possibility is that they thought, wow, great rating in the US press, let’s send more wine there so the distributors/retailers don’t gouge our US customers; meanwhile, for our local customers, we can produce a new blend that we think is up to the quality level they expect from us, and they don’t know a Wine Spectator from a wallaby anyway. If that is the case, then I say more power to Schild!
– Matt
This wine was on Wines Till Sold Out not too long ago and sold out quickly. (13 minutes)
I am curious if the “extra production” played any factor as the WTSO offer came after the wine was named to the WS top Ten List. Perhaps more of the original blend was going to be imported.
I would think that a 94 point, 5,000 case imported, top ten list wine, retailing for $20 and under, would be fully sold through normal retail channels.