Attended this week in Vancouver a tasting by Gambero Rosso of “tre bicchieri” (3 glass awards) from their new 2013 Guide on Italian Wines. This was a very impressive promotion for this publication as well as their Wine Travel Food magazine by showing off some 77 Italian wine producers with over 100 top rated wines this year!
Raised the immediate question for me about the current marketing of wine advice which seems to be so rapidly changing! In the good old days you could depend on Decanter, Wine Spectator, The Wine Advocate (Robert M Parker), International Wine Cellar (Stephen Tanzer) and a few others to help you make your decisions on which were the best wines to purchase. Now there are so many sites online and for specific wine regions that the landscape has really changed and continues to do so.
In Canada www.gismondionwine.com, www.johnschreiner.blogspot.com, www.vinesmag.com and www.winealign.com among others are all important reference points.
James Suckling ex Wine Spectator has www.jamessuckling.com and now Antonio Galloni ex The Wine Advocate has just launched his own site at www.vinousmedia.com.
So many other blogs out there offering wine advice often based on limited wine experiences in this increasingly wider and wider world of wine choices.
Maybe the time has come to rely on your own opinion on what you like rather than some one else’s 90 point hype!
Please comment on who you believe you can rely on for your wine advice these days!
For Burgundy I tend to use Allen Meadows ( Burghound) and Stephen Tanzer as the primary references. For Italian wines Gamberro Rosso. For specialist Champagne reviews Brad Baker’s Champagne Warrior, Peter Liem’s Champagne Guide site . I also subscribe to the Wine Advocate for a broader coverage.
Antonio Galloni with his new site will be one to keep an eye on. When at the Wine Advocate he was about the first to start using videos for interviews and tutored tastings that I found to be interesting. I also use some French sites and publications as well.
On a related topic, has anyone seen the new film Escaping Robert Parker? I was alerted to its existence by a friend who sent me a link from The Daily Sip. Wine lovers can be slaves to ratings, and it seems to me that inflation has crept into the newly reorganized Wine Advocate’s ratings.
Escaping Robert Parker is a documentary by Burley Film which explores the impact (good, bad and otherwise) of iconic wine critic Robert Parker.
It is on http://www.WineNewsChannel.com as a pay for view, but you need a password. I have not had time to figure out how to access the movie. I checked Netflix and it is not there.
If you’ve seen the film, let us know if you liked it and if it was worth paying to view.