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Friday, April 25, 2008
Clive Coates slams Parker, Wine Spectator and ‘emasculated’ wine trade
Clive Coates MW (Master of Wine), writer and author whose 10-year-old book entitled “Cote d’Or: A Celebration of the Great Wines of Burgundy” is considered by some to be the Bible of Burgundy, has just released an expanded and updated successor entitled simply “The Wines of Burgundy” ($60, University of California Press).
The book’s publisher has sent out some review copies of the book, which has an official release date of May 12 but which is available for ordering from the publisher’s web site now. The book contains some rather interesting assertions about the role of the media in the world’s perception of Burgundy, from a wine writer who has spent most of the last three decades in Burgundy..
And Coates isn’t afraid to name names, singling out Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, and Wine Spectator magazine, for specific and detailed criticism. Fine timing indeed, since the current (May 31) Wine Spectator is its “Special Report: Burgundy” issue.
Tell me what you think. Here are some excerpts from the book’s introduction:
“Wine Critics are often misinformed or just plain pig-ignorant. They ARE prejudiced. They set about doing the job of sampling Burgundy in the wrong way and at the wrong time. They try to imply that there is only one way to judge a wine (i.e., according to the personal taste of that critic), forgetting how subjective and temperamental taste can be, and also ignoring the fact that most wine is made to be consumed and judged mature with food and friends, not immature alongside numerous other bottles.”
“The bad critics look at Pinot through Cabernet-tinted spectacles and so criticise it for being what it never set out to be. Generally, they cause anger in the Cote d’Or and confusion at home. Moreover — and this is a situation which is almost universal in the United States, though thankfully largely absent in Britain — the trade has allowed itself to be emasculated. Instead of continuing to buy and sell based on their own professional judgement, they have consigned themselves to the role of mere purveyors. They buy what the Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate score highly and then sell their wares by proclaiming the magazine’s marks. It is totally crazy. … “
“Burgundy has been much maligned — more so than any other region — by certain elements of the media. Robert Parker proclaimed that the region was a dinosaur of poor quality and high prices: the exact opposite of the truth.”
“The Wine Spectator has criticised the increasing bunch of estates that refuse to play ball with its modus operandi and submit samples for mammoth tastings. The magazine’s representatives arrive in the region only a few months after the wines have been bottled, before they have had a chance to recover, and attempt to rate every wine in percentage points out of 100. The time for accurate ratings such as this is much later, a year or two after bottling and shipment, dispassionately, in groups of 25 or so.”
Your thoughts?
Cheers!
Mark Fisher
