A Retailer's Responsibility or Being Overly Dogmatic?

Recently I was hanging out with a couple of friends who work on the retail side of the wine industry, as store owner and employee, respectively. During our conversation the subject of a retailers responsibility to the consumer came up. While that is admittedly a broad topic with regards to what you sell the consumer, the relationship you have with them, and where you steer their palates (for the new wine drinkers), the guys and I focused on the wines retailers hand-sell and recommend.

Why did this come up?

At the shop my friend owns, a local winery was pouring several wines, including a 2010 pinot noir. I tasted the pinot noir and put bluntly, it was not good wine. This 2010 pinot didn't taste like it should, based on the growing season Oregon experienced in that year. It lacked acidity and had no tannin, being instead soft and fruity, with a one-dimensional black fruit flavors and an evaporative finish. There was a perceptible ethyl acetate presence on the nose as well. Blind, I might have pegged it for a cheap pinot from Trader Joe's or Wal-Mart, but it sells for about $20. The wine was definitely not representative of Oregon pinot noir.

To that end, is it ok for the wine store to sell a wine like this? By selling pinot noir of such low quality, does that do a disservice to people who are buying what they think is a good expression of Oregon pinot? Those buyers may not know wine well enough to realize that this pinot isn't good, but there's an implied endorsement anytime a retailer stocks a wine. When I walk into a wine store, I trust the owner and employees to stand behind the wines they sell, it's an unwritten but incredibly significant contract.

Conversely, if the customer likes it, is that all that matters? Should those neophyte wine drinkers worry about whether or not a wine is "correct"?

During our friendly debate, my position was firm; stocking a wine like this and willfully selling it to customers is wrong, especially when there are similarly priced, higher quality alternatives available.

My friends position was that if someone wanted to buy it and liked it, there was nothing wrong with that. They also brought up the fact that a wine like this could be a good introduction to Oregon pinot noirs, whereby a neophyte wine drinker would slowly move up the ladder to better examples. I see where they're coming from, and that approach, building relationships with your customers slowly and over time, yields great results.

At what point do you draw the line with sub-standard wines though? If a wine is lacking varietal character and vintage typicity, shouldn't someone say something? I think that's where the contention was, and the source of our disagreement. Both guys admitted the wine wasn't great and they've each tasted enough 2010 Oregon pinot noir to get an idea of what the vintage expresses.

The reason I'm wrote this blog post is because I wonder if I'm being too dogmatic? Am I being too snobby by discounting this inferior wine? At the end of the day, if someone likes it, does that make the wine good?

Beau Carufel

Happy New Year!

As 2011 draws to a close, the inexorable march of time once again comes to the forefront of our consciousness. Since the beginning of the week, the wine blogosphere has been awash with posts highlighting "Top 10" lists, year-end wrap ups, and Champagne-education posts. Forgive me, but this won't be one of those.

I choose to look forward in 2012, to a job here in Oregon managing a tasting room, new wines on my radar, and a shift in the tone and direction of my wine blog. I also am setting some goals, both personal and professional, that I will endeavor to accomplish next year. Looking forward, I feel excited and invigorated about the prospects for next year and chronicling it will be very satisfying.

Since the internet wine scene is evolving quickly, so must wine bloggers. As more consumers start to read wine blogs and actively seek out blogs for information, what they read becomes far more important than whom they read. Therefore, the weight of integrity and transparency is upon all of us who call ourselves wine bloggers. Associated with those responsibilities is the need for better writing, and at the very least the use of spelling and grammar checks by most of us. You know who you are.

Part of the change in tone of my wine blog will seem strange to longtime readers, but I hope new readers will find it refreshing, and longtime readers will enjoy what I have to say. Since a large part of my posts are wine reviews, I won't change that focus very much. However, the majority of my wine reviews will not include grades anymore. If I like a wine, I'll recommend it and tell you why I like the wine. On the other hand, if I don't like a wine, I'll be precise as to why I don't like it and obviously will not recommend buying that bottle. In other words, I'll be a stricter critic of the wines I review, while striving to maintain at least a polite tone. What remains to be seen is how the marketing and public relations professionals adapt to that, if they do at all.

The shift in direction of my blog is a goal I've wanted to bring to fruition for a while, to shift away from almost 100% wine review posts to more focus on living in wine country, the people I meet, and finally, living the wine lifestyle. No, I am not writing a book on that, because there are certainly enough crappy books on wine out there already. The shift I'm talking about will be confined solely to my blog posts, and I hope you enjoy them as much as you enjoy my wine reviews.

Beau's Barrel Room wouldn't have survived in 2011 without you, my readers. I want to thank you all so much for taking the time to read and comment on my blog, whether we agree or disagree, I value your thoughts so much. With each post I try to become a better writer, a more engaging host, and a more adept communicator in the hopes that you will keep reading and enjoying my words.

To many of you, I suspect we'll get to share a bottle at some point this year, which only serves to heighten my anticipation for 2012. To others, I hope we finally meet in real life for the first time, because I would love to shake your hand and learn more about your own personal wine journey. To everyone, I offer my humblest Thank You for being a part of my life in wine.

Beau Carufel

The Scourge of Wine Bloggers

I've been thinking about this for a while now, my frustration growing at times, receding at other times. In the hopes of creating dialogue, I'm posting my feelings openly and honestly for everyone (all nine of you) to read.

Should wine bloggers be nice?

Yes, by all means we collectively should be nice to people, and of course, about the wines we review. However, should we be nice at the expense of our integrity as bloggers and responsibility to accurately report/blog about the wines we're drinking? The answer to that is a resounding NO. There's a line to be drawn between being polite, gracious, and nice, and being a jerk, insulting, and rude. Staying within the accepted societal norms of behavior is easy, unless you're the WAWineMan guy, but that's a "special" case.

With that out of the way...

If I'm sent a bottle of wine by a winery, PR group, or trade group with the understanding that I'll review it, whomever sent the wine must understand that I'll review that (and every) wine according to my tastes and based off of my own experiences. In other words, my life experience plus my accumulated wine training. Expanding that concept, wine bloggers shouldn't be expected to sugarcoat their reviews, and disliking some wines is a good thing, even if you got it for free. When you write about a wine you don't like, any smart PR agency or other wine-related group will read the review and understand that perhaps you aren't the best person to review a certain style or type in the future. Readers too will benefit by gaining a sense of where your palate lies in relation to theirs.

This all stems from me being sent a lot of inexpensive, budget-oriented wine to sample. In what context do I place those wines? Confession: I place them near the bottom, qualitatively, of my wine-consciousness because they are not as good as the more expensive wines I've been fortunate to taste in my career. Without any pretension, that is a fact. There are occasional exceptions which never fail to bring joy and a smile (and a positive review), but generally, wines that are inexpensive are also of lower quality and "score" lower on my (and other's) scale.

How do I convey that fact to my readers without coming across as a snob? 

I strive to balance the positives and negatives of every wine while remaining careful not to endorse something that I myself wouldn't drink. In my firm opinion, readers can see through the bullshit, especially from Wine Bloggers. What's required is a deft grammatical touch, correct phraseology, and being nice. I've spoken before of accepting all wine drinkers from the neophyte to the gurus. Inclusiveness is obviously vital to expanding the reach and influence of the wine blogging community.

 Though I always take self-appointed "wine gurus" (or divas, gods, goddesses, etc) with a grain of salt...

Now, about those Wine Bloggers...

Wine bloggers are under an obligation, which more and more of us seem to forget or dismiss, to write about what we're sent. So then, why do wine bloggers forget that obligation or dismiss it? That's easy; the main reason is that they don't want to cut of the flow of free wine. I'll be polite and refrain from naming any names, but when you gush over every single wine you're sent, without fail, in every public forum you can get into, something is wrong.

The word disingenuous comes to mind when I think of these bloggers, and quite a few of them are very "famous" in the insular wine blogging community. When I read their reviews, I grimace and understand why people like WAWineMan and the HoseMaster of Wine love to insult and demean wine bloggers. Perhaps those two have a point. If ever a small group within a large group harmed the collective image, those disingenuous bloggers are it.

Another point must be made: what is often forgotten is that someone took the time to reach out and send us a product that was made (by someone else) and is now on store shelves. Refraining from writing about that wine is basically ripping off the producer and entity that sent you the free bottle. By accepting samples we accept the mantle or responsibility to write honestly about those samples, not ignore the ones we don't like or gush about every single free bottle that ends up in our kitchen.

Backtracking just a bit to the consumers, i.e. our target audience..

Consumers want an accurate, non-sugar-coated wine review to assist them in their buying decisions. The only way to get more wine lovers to read wine blogs is to gain their trust while encouraging them to keep expanding their drinking boundaries. Bringing an element of personal evaluation into your review is critical, so long as you can do so without the rancor or rudeness of a cad. By showing a human side, one that likes some wines and dislikes others, without pretension, the average Googler will read your blog and might actually take away something useful.

My point is that every wine deserves a fair chance, and going back to what I wrote before, I personally do give every single wine I taste a fair shake before taking notes and writing up the review. After that fair shake, all bets are off, and that's how it should be, right? MY blog reflects the sum of MY wine experience. Is that unreasonable, or should we all strive for a similar philosophy?

Wine bloggers already have a bit of a bad reputation, and generally speaking, it might just be deserved.

Beau Carufel