Influence of Wine Writers

After laboring through David Shaw’s expose on wine writers (Part I, Aug. 23-24), I am left with a few observations and a question or two:

Who cares? As one who has been on all sides of the fence, writing about wine, selling wines, teaching and, yes, even hiring wine writers as consultants, I am not so deluded as to think that any of this matters much. Shaw missed the most important segment, the consumer! He never asked them what they thought. I guarantee you their only concern is what’s in the bottle. If guys like Robert Parker, Nathan Chroman, Jerry Mead and Robert Lawrence Balzer were writing about bad wines, nobody would read them. Did he ever bother to find out if the consumer thought that the wine being praised was bad?

Since Shaw’s own figures state that 15% of the people consume 85% of the wine, how many people actually read or respond to wine writers? Where he missed the boat is that they actually influence the trade more than the consumer.

Small wineries and little known areas would probably never get any ink unless they literally “forced” some of these writers to taste the wines. This is all to the consumer’s good. My students are constantly amazed at how good these wines are. How many times have Chroman and Mead written about small, obscure wineries making wonderful wines which the consumer would have never tried if he hadn’t read about them first.

The only reason I can think of for the attack on Chroman is jealousy. Chroman is considered by those of us who know the difference, as the best “writer” of the bunch.

The Times owes Chroman an apology. If they think they can replace him, they’ll owe their readers one too.

ED MASCIANA

Torrance