What makes a good wine writer?

November 2009 has been renamed 'wine scandal' month amongst the wine geeks of the world. A lot of words have been written about a young, or not so young depending on your point of view, wine writer who was 'caught' producing specific tasting notes for wines that he could not possibly have tasted at the time the notes were written (he's just a naughty boy - Ed). 

Mark wouldn't do a Matt

For those of you who have more in your life than the average wine geek and aren't across this tasty bit of wine based soapie like drama - Matt Skinner is a well known Australian sommelier. He was, and maybe still is, the wine manager for Jamie Oliver's 15 restaurant project. Off the back of this notoriety he began publishing a yearly wine guide called 'Juice'.

The problem for Matt was, due to publishing deadlines, he had to submit tasting notes for wines prior to their release. Adding to the problem was that his tasting notes were vintage specific rather than just general recommendations. For example, you can make a general recommendation by saying that it's safe to buy anything from label yada yada because they are consistently good. But what Matt was doing was writing something like the 09 Yada Yada chardonnay is blah blah blah without having tried it. You can see why some people are just a tad cross.

His response to his critics was interesting and reflects the fact that there is a little spin doctor in all of us. He argued that his tasting notes were fine because the vintages he discussed didn't show much variation year to year. That is, last year's was great and therefore so will this years.  Trouble is he is on record as saying wine writers shouldn't write notes about wine they haven't tried and that no two vintages can be the same "that's the beauty of mother nature" he has said.  The book's publisher was unrepentant and simply said that they have to operate that way in order to ensure that the vintages of the wines featured in the book are 'on the shelves' at the time the book is released.

As we said,  this issue has been discussed near to death and in fact came up during our discussion with Rick Burge so we don't need to say any more about it. However the 'scandal' did raise a couple of important issues in our mind. Does what happened have implications for wine writers in general? Further, just what is it that makes a good wine writer?

Are there wider implications?

The short answer is 'not sure' and 'depends'. We're not sure because it's probably too early to tell if this incident will have any effect on other wine writers. We would expect that Matt's integrity may have taken a bit of a hit. The depends relates to whether or not people believe what Matt did is an isolated example rather than a wider practice. The only way to find that out is to talk to someone who is an experienced wine writer.

Graeme wouldn't do a Matt

Graeme Phillips has been writing on Tasmanian food and wine for many years. He has released a number of books on the subject but is probably best known as the wine writer for The Mercury newspaper. His survival of the recent 'cost cutting' exercises within the Murdoch press is testament to his skills.

He believes that Matt's actions are an isolated incident. "None of the wine writers I know would review wines without tasting them" he declared. Graeme argues that this incident is symptomatic of what has happened to the way annual wine guides are produced. "Everyone wants to be first and each year the guides are being released earlier and earlier to make sure they're ready for the Christmas sales".

While wine writers may not all fall into the 'Skinner trap' there is some evidence that tasting notes are reused. While researching this issue on the Internet we came across a number of comments from people keen to defend Matt. Their argument was that Matt was simply following in the steps of wine retailers who use the same tasting notes year in year out.

We have a couple of problems with this 'defence'. One, according to our mothers, and lets face it they should know, doing something wrong doesn't become ok because other people do it. Two, retailers are trying to sell product and you expect them to indulge in a bit of marketing, and as we know marketing is about presenting a message that encourages buying. So people aren't relying on anything a retailer says or writes. However punters regard a writer as someone who is an objective expert and look to them for some level of guidance.

At this stage all we can do is wait and see. But the extent to which the fallout from this incident lingers will depend on the behaviour of other wine writers. For the record, we don't have enough imagination or skill to write proper 'grown up' tasting notes at all let alone without trying the wine first.

What makes a 'good' wine writer?

Given that Matt has put the noble art of wine writing into the spotlight and because we need all the help we can get to improve our humble efforts we thought we should try and establish what qualities turn a wine hack into a good wine writer. As you would expect people have a wide range of views. However some characteristics were mentioned by both industry insiders and punters.  

Graeme Phillips believes that good wine writers are skilled people who display consistency, objectivity and honesty. "They must be good word smiths who write something worth reading". He went on to argue that a good writer is clear about his or her audience and uses approachable language. This means not producing prose that is full of technical jargon or requires that people 'read between the lines'. This portrait of a wine writer resonated with a number of punters who frequent the Auswine forum and who responded to our request for comments. 

In addition to the characteristics raised by Graeme they nominated passion, experience and a broad palate. People also appreciated writers who are transparent in their preferences. As Red put it "I'll respect a critic that will give a wine an 88, but then acknowledge that if you have a particular like for that variety or style then you can add a few points to the score". 

The notion of 'style' also came up. 'Rooman' suggested that there are two broad writing styles. "One is the highly analytical approach where 20 or 30 descriptors are used ..... generally these long lists leave me dead in the water ....  the second approach is more contextual. It sets the scene for the wine, flavours it with its environment, the foods it was consumed with, the people's reactions at the table". 

Another frequently nominated characteristic is humour. As Kris pointed out "I want to be entertained too". This requirement for more than information from a writer was summed up neatly by Rooman who wrote "set the scene, use humour, evoke an emotional response".  Along with these comments came some pretty good examples of humour, our favourites were "This wine should come with it's own pimp" and "It's like drinking a migraine" (can I yell 'touchdown' ... no I'd better not that would be a dumb thing to say, I mean really who would say something like that? - Ed).

Of particular interest to us was the issue of how much industry experience a writer had to have in order to qualify as 'good' (please say none, please say none - Ed). Daniel believes that a writer must have "restaurant service and/ or wine making experience (sales experience doesn't count)". However this wasn't a consistent view. In fact Graeme Phillips believes that wine industry experience isn't required because it is possible to "taste what the winemaker has done" without having actually made a wine yourself.

Obviously this is one of those questions that doesn't have a 'right' or 'final' answer but we found ourselves in agreement with 'Monghead' who wrote "the ultimate of course is the person who could transpose their passion for the wine onto paper, taking the reader through the waft of flavours and emotions that ticked the visual, olfactory, gustatory and tactile sensations that culminated in the overall pleasure of the wine".

What do you think?  Send us a comment