Wine reviews - better never than late
One of the greatest sources of frustration for both the wine retailer and the wine drinker vis a` vis the wine press is the often nearly absurd timing of wine reviews, both great and small. I cannot tell you how many times customers have come into the shop with a list from one of the big wine magazines/review services looking for something that is either long gone from our shelves, or similarly, items that are rarer than hens’ teeth. This unfortunate tendency in many cases applies to the short, capsule reviews at the back of the of the wine magazines, but may go TRIPLE for the “Wines of the Year” issue that every wine journal offers. I have on several occasions stood with a customer excited and eager to get a hold of a few bottles of this or that wine that the wine pundits have anointed as the “best” wines of the year, only to be a part of the following exchange:
“What about this one?”
“Nope.”
“What about this one?”
“Nope.”
“What about this one?”
“Nope.”
“What about this one?”
“Nope.”
Now salespeople are always taught to offer alternatives, which if we can, we do indeed do, but in the case of someone seeking out a particular item from a “Wines of the Year” list, making an alternate suggestion, to some degree, flies in the face of the purpose of the whole journalistic exercise. To some the thinking is: “Well, if Bunyon Farms’ Planter’s Wart Cuvee`#2 is THE best wine of its type, or at least one of them, why is the wine that you’re trying to sell me, if it’s so damned good, not on this list?” And while I’m not the biggest fan of these lists of wine superlatives, the question is a valid one, and is also very difficult to answer.
Further, the back and forth exchange recreated above not only leaves the customer more than a little frustrated, it can leave the retailer both embarassed as well as a little miffed at the publication. In many cases, the folks following these lists are not “wine people” and will readily accept the idea that we no longer have, or never had a particular wine, but for those who have a bit more knowledge, it is known that in many instances, at many shops, these “trophy” wines are meted out to the buying public like sugar cubes are to diabetics…the reaction from this sort of customer is nearly always one of two - either he thinks “How could they not have this, it’s one of the “Wines of the Year?”, or alternately: “This SOB is holding out on me - he’s got it, but won’t sell it to me”. The former objection is just a non-professional wine lover not fully understanding the nearly incalculable ratio of the number of “great” bottles out there compared with the totally insufficient amount of space that EVERY retailer faces to stock ALL of these wines. The latter objector however, usually asks “why?”, and expects a good answer, and even when he gets it, probably doesn’t believe you anyway. Now while in some rare occasions retailers will indeed hold back a case or two of this or that cult wine for a “rainy day”, let’s be clear that wine retailers are in business to SELL WINE, not to hoard it.
So here’s a real and honest question for those of you who might be in the periodical field: Why is this done? It clearly doesn’t serve either the seller or the buyer, and while the publication will sell truckload more copies of that month’s issue, over time, it seems that the public will begin to suss this game out, and realize that it’s so similar to a “boy who cried wolf” scenario…as the frustration of not being able to obtain many of these miniscule production/highly sought after bottlings mounts year after year, when does the reader stop listening?
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First? LOL.
Great rant. I’m not in the perodical business, but my guess is that it’s done because it sells magazines. Look no further than at the wine forums when the Top 100 lists are coming out.
Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, says, “Great deals are like trains, just wait 5 minutes and there will be another one.” I think this attitude hold true for wine as well…
Comment by TimF — January 17, 2007 @ 5:26 pm
Those reviews are a bit of tease for sure, but I think acceptable as long as they don’t get out of hand. I don’t read the big pubs too often, so take this with a grain of salt.
Some journalists are up front about the availability of the wine they review. I’ve seen articles state stuff like, “This wine is hard to find”, etc. So why bother publishing? Even if you can’t get your hands on the wine, you’ll still learn something about the winery, their future wines possibly, and about how your tastes relate to the author. It might even be enjoyable to read even though you can’t get the wine. Although these pubs for sure will have to have a good balance between usable reviews and fluff reviews.
Another note: Wine Spectator’s Top 100 lists take into account the availability of the wine. So those wines are more likely to be found I suppose. Although, my own record is about 1-in-5 for wines found on the list.
Comment by Jason Coleman — January 17, 2007 @ 6:44 pm
Jason-
I wasn’t speaking so much about articles that might MENTION a very rare wine (see my own piece on Colares below!) within the context of an educationally-oriented article, but rather the “top 100″ and the capsule reviews in the major pulications.
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 18, 2007 @ 11:09 am
Tim-
As you say, these “best of the best” collections of reviews do indeed sell magazines, but as I say in the last paragraph, when does the disappointment in not finding most of these wines turn against the publications?…like buying a car magazine that has 2×3 inch pictures of non-production, custom cars with astronomical ratings (and price tags), and highly lauditory blurbs, but in these models are simply not part of any kind of reality for 99% of the people who might pick up the magazine…these publications are moving in the direction of wine pornography, as many have accused the fine food set of doing.
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 18, 2007 @ 11:17 am
Tom - How disappointed are the people really? I’m not ITB so I have no idea. But these pubs have been printing these lists for years and people keep buying them.
Also, as to the specific availability of a given wine: if you want a wine badly enough you can certainly get it (maybe with the exception of SQN but you can get your hands on it if you’re willing to pay). With the internet and all it’s wine related tools it isn’t that hard to find the bottle you want (even Colares).
Comment by TimF — January 18, 2007 @ 11:29 am
Tim-
You might be surprised regarding the disappointment level - now here in the NJ/NY area, where a certain segment of the population think that they’re ENTITLED to EVERYTHING that even momentarily catches their eyes, I’ve had people AGGRESSIVELY question me about why we didn’t have EVERY wine on the list, and then imply that we were amateurs or just plain stupid. Some folks STILL can’t understand that great wines are not just cranked out like so many cans of creamed corn, or that anyone could have the temerity to deny them ANYTHING…In a previous job, I once had someone threaten to contact the owners of the company to tell them that because he wasn’t getting what he wanted he was going to take his 5 figure-per-year purchases to the competiton…interesting…maybe it is more of a phenomenon peculiar to the VERY frenetic and competitive area in which I work…I have never lived or worked anywhere else in my entire career, so maybe MY viewpoint is skewed…as far as the Colares is concerned, if you can turn any up, I’ll be your best friend…if you have access to Wine Searcher Pro, do a search, in any which way you want, for Colares, and see what you come up with…
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 18, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
Tom — It looks like there is a fair amount of Colares for sale in Amsterdam. I happen to work for a Dutch company so I know people who go over from time to time. But I wouldn’t know what to buy. Is this place the real deal? http://www.antique-wines.net/menu.html
Comment by TimF — January 18, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
Tim-
Well there you go! Note however that they have no vintage later than 1992, and while Colares does age very well, I think that some of these bottles might be more akin to oenological mummies (rare, fascinating, expensive, but not much by the way of conversation) As far as the reputation of this vendor is concerned, I really have no idea…anyone?
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 18, 2007 @ 1:22 pm
Tom:
It works both ways though. There are also some greedy merchants who take advantage of those lists as evidenced by the greatly jacked up prices after they are published.
I was one of several dozen people who ordered the ‘01 Casanova di Neri Tenuta Nuova from another online retailer right here in NJ the day before it was announced as #1 on the WS WOTY list, at the regular price. My order was “cancelled” a couple days later. Obviously, I will never do business with that store again, but my point is that they knew they could sell the inventory at a higher price than they were charging prior to the list and sacrificed a lot of good will in order to maximize profit on that particular wine. Clearly, retailers make a lot of money on these wines so I think they are in favor of the lists.
dc
Comment by DC — January 18, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
I just PM’d a Portugese member of the WLTV Forum on the off chance he’s tried Colares. He just happens to be tasting two for his blog later on this week (2000 and 2005). Unfortunately his blog is in Portugese.
BTW Tom — I can’t find your e-mail address anywhere on this site. Am I being obtuse?
Comment by TimF — January 18, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
Tim-
Cool news re: the Colares…e-mail me his URL, and I’ll try to link my Colares piece to the spot in his blog where he discusses the Colares’ he’s tasting…
My e-mail address is tciocco@winelibrary.com
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 18, 2007 @ 4:30 pm
Nice topic.
Around ten turns around the sun ago as I became more interested in finding wines of interest I discovered Wine Spectator. Today while being a subscriber rarely bother to read the capsule reviews. Once where I poured over them searching for bottles of interest, then disappointedly would find most unknown, out of stock, or unavailable to my retailers.
There’s just a lot out there. That should be reassuring to WS. I still subscribe to WS, but only to an on-line access. Even there, as Tim states, the web delivers more faster than WS alone. The wineries themselves more often than not have a web site, and will post the WS, WA, and any other wine critic they find that says they have tasty juice. That helps a savvy consumer make a savvy consumption choice.
Wine Library and the web now provide access and purchase options that were unavailable three years to a Texas wine geek.
Comment by Big Billy from Big D — January 18, 2007 @ 5:33 pm
Big Billy-
Thanks for the comments. It seems to me that as the average consumer becomes more confident and adventurous as a wine drinker, and with wine-related information/points of sale/etc. EXPLODING on the ‘net, the more “beginner” publications will really begin to feel the squeeze, if they haven’t already. You’re starting to see some marked “fine living” tendencies in one publication in particular - maybe their recognition that what they once were is no longer valid?
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 18, 2007 @ 6:02 pm
DC-
Yeah, that kind of crap happens more than you might think, and it is indeed “penny wise and dollar foolish” in the extreme! Let me assure you that this NEVER happens here at WL!
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 19, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
In this same vein, I know Gary said in one episode that WLTV has little impact on WL sales. So how am I to reconcile the fact that wines GV was so fond of on WLTV are quickly sold out. I can only come up with 3 explanations, maybe you can chip in a 4th. 1) Many viewers of WLTV walk in and buy up the stock of these wines and thus can not be directly equated to WLTV sales. 2) WL sells so MUCH wine like Trader Joes sells Charles Shaw, that overall the impact of WLTV to WL sales is small, but to inventories of these recommended wines the impact is huge 3) GV underestimates the impact of his recommendations to WL sales.
Ok help a brutha out…..PS I went to ‘execute’ my shopping cart and 12 bottles became 1.
Comment by CW — January 20, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
CW-
All three of the factors that you outline above account for the unavailability of many of the wines that Gary reviews - in order of importance probably reason #2, followed by #3, and then #1. Also, Gary chooses wines that he thinks will be interesting or challenging to the viewership, even if we have limited or even NO access to the wine in question. On several occasions, Gary has chosen to taste wines that we have only 6 or 7 bottles of in stock, and have no immediate avenue to obtain more simply because he is intrigued with the wine, and thinks that the “Vayniacs” will be too…
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 22, 2007 @ 11:16 am
I live in s.f. bay area. was talking to one of the top(if not the top)women winemakers recently, and she told me that when w.s. names one of her wines 90 or over, it sells out immediately, but others just sit..what do we think about that?
Comment by verna — January 22, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
Verna-
Always hard to say, but in most cases (pardon the pun) I think production numbers play a HUGE part in it…clearly, I don’t know to whom you were referring in your post, but a boutique Napa or Sonoma winery that only produces 1000 boxes of wine per harvest could sell out their entire production before lunch if they garner a HUGE score…other thoughts from anyone else?
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 22, 2007 @ 3:29 pm
Tom,
I don’t disagree with you in the least, being one of those consumers who from time to time has been swayed by one of those year-end, “Best Of…” reviews and has tried to find the wine. I’d say that in any given year, the average person may have about 10-15% success rate in finding such wines. Having said this, I note that the 2006 Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s Top 100 list does include a bit of a disclaimer, “If you do decide to take these pages and use this as a shopping list, we just want to caution you: These wines were reviewed throughout the year; some, of the precise vintage indicated, may no longer be available.” So at least they have gotten the message to some degree, or so it would seem. The readers, on the other hand…
Comment by JayZee — January 25, 2007 @ 4:09 pm