No free samples?
Adam is right John. This was certainly no “pay to play” list. One of my wines is on the list and I didn’t even know about the list until it appeared in our local paper. Did I give Linda a free sample? Not that I recall and I can’t find any record of shipping anything to her. But Linda writes for a lot of publications (Decanter, JancisRobinson.com, Food & Wine, Sonoma magazine, and others) so it’s entirely possible that at some point I sent her something. But if I did, it would have been no more recent than last February or March as I’ve been out of the Sonoma County Zinfandel since then.
I’m sure this list was a result of an editor at the Press Democrat coming to Linda and saying, “Linda, make us a top 100 Sonoma County wines list based on what you’ve tasted in the last year or so.” Nothing sinister or underhanded here. But if you want to call that pay to play, feel free. I apologize if your favorite wineries were not included on the list.
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I gave 2 reasons and no one putting these large lists together can afford to go out and buy all these wines nor do I think a critic should have to so that is why one of the reasons is free samples might not have been included.
I am sure an editor came to Linda to put this list together which who would not want to make some money for reviews you already have done.
David hence the reason I gave two options. Do you think every publication tastes every good wine we enjoy?