If I were Todd, I’d delete that last few posts, and ban Mr. Restine. Exactly the kind of BS we don’t need here. I don’t expect Galloni to spend a lot of time here, but I’d like him to feel like he’s welcome when he does.
^ What Alan said.
If I don’t like or need what is behind a paywall, I don’t pay for it.
Personally, I pay for Vinous.
Maybe you should apologize to Mr. Galloni for series of unnecessarily obnoxious posts and then leave this thread. Not a great way to introduce yourself to this board.
It would appear: little interest in Napa, but plenty of interest in AG.
Delete these posts if you want but the other fifteen or so posts he’s made are pure comedic gold.
Not to derail the thread, but always post that you are comfortable with the person you are writing about reading it. If you have a point to make and it’s a strong criticism, be prepared to defend it to the end. Otherwise, don’t poke the bear.
Thanks Mike!
I finally had a chance to read this piece and it was interesting and illuminating. I found Antonio’s desire to dedicate the piece to Bob a nice touch indeed - to me, it showed more humility than anything else. So few understand that we are who we are because of the paths that others have created for us. Period. Without Bob, Antonio would not have had the contacts, or confidence, to review the Napa wines that he does.
As far as blind tasting goes, he’s not the only one who shares the belief that for his reviewing purposes, blind tasting is not the way to go. Context is so important when tasting wines, and it’s impossible to have that in a blind setting. The challenge, of course, is still maintaining a sense of ‘objectiveness’ during tastings in certain settings with winemakers, for instance, and to me, that still raises ‘potential red flags’.
As far as certain producers not wanting to open their doors or submit their wines to a specific reviewer - happens all of the time. And on the flip side, some reviewers come to specific regions and do not invite all producers to have their wines tasted, so in a sense it goes both ways. It is a bummer if you are trying to get a truly ‘comprehensive’ look at a region. And there are many cases where wineries will submit to one reviewer over another ‘knowing their palate’ and assuming that one might review their wines ‘more favorably’ than another. That to me is pretty fascinating.
Cheers.
I totally agree, Alan, and it appears it’s been done.
I don’t know how that works but being invited to a place like Schrader, sitting at a table with the winemaker or owner and saying something like, “yeah, I’m gonna give this one 88 points.” for a cult $250 bottle of wine takes some cajones. At the same time, if that’s how it works, the expectation or pressure to give a few extra points for that same scenario I’d imagine happens more often. I suppose if he’s being that honest I’d rather read his reviews if I were an avid follower of reviews.
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Alex you hit the nail on the head and its the exact reason whey the scoring system is so flawed. I feel like a certain few critics will throw a 97+ rating on every bottle they try and it really takes away from those bottles that are truly perfect 100 pointers. It takes someone with a backbone to sit in front of the wine maker, owner, etc. and tell them their product isn’t up to snuff, which I feel like AG isn’t afraid to do and is why I like his reviews.
Truthfully, how difficult would it be to sit beside a winery owner or winemaker and still objectively evaluate his/her wine? Worst case scenario I would guess would be that they no longer invite them back. Seems to me that back-and-forth discussion could aid in the evaluation. “With this wine, I was hoping to show a little more site transparency by harvesting just a bit earlier…” [please don’t evaluate the accuracy of that fake quote…I’m just making things up for my point] for example. As long as a critic wasn’t pressured to provide his scores or much about what he’s tasting, what’s the problem? That’s what I would expect from Antonio or any other professional reviewer. To say that the only valuable reviews come from someone who tastes all wines blind in his/her own office in a vacuum is silly, in my opinion. And, like someone above said, the story is also part of what I enjoy about wine and visiting and tasting with wine folks is a major part of that.
Why? Can you elaborate further? Maybe provide and example of how context improves wine review. ?
Cheers
I would not say that it ‘improves’ a wine review - it simply gives the reviewer ‘more information’ by which to evaluate a wine. Whether it be the winemaker being there to provide insight or comparing multiple wines from a specific producer or even a group of producers, it can be helpful for them.
I am a happy paying customer of Vinous. One of my areas of interest is Napa cabs. If they can’t or won’t access some of the bigger names on a consistent basis, I probably wouldn’t need the product as much. Up to AG and co. to decide how to handle. I agree with his perception of fragility out there. As a markets person, I see a world now where almost every wine that tries to market to me direct tries to do so at a price that is higher than where previous vintages are available in the marketplace. That makes absolutely no sense and is extremely unsustainable. I recall an article that linked to some documents in a lawsuit related to Bryant that seemed to indicate that they were sitting on a tremendous amount of inventory. In a well-functioning, transparent market - prices would be coming down, but instead they are rising. Something is going to have to give.
I did a little research on Cellartracker on flows of wine purchases. At this point CT has to be pretty representative of the overall marketplace.
Approximate change 2012-2015 vintages in purchases logged.
Insignia -50%
Schrader -50%
Myriad - Flat
Carter +20%
Bryant -65%
Anderson CV -45%
Beringer -50%
Possible implications: Mike Smith is a genius! 
There is a lot more inventory out there than there used to be. Or - wines take a really really long time to get distributed these days.
I guess it’s also possible that the 2015 harvest was meaningfully smaller than 2012…I have no info on that question.
2012 was a much larger crop than 2015, for sure.
Purchases logged in the system. I get that some of the wines might get logged in twice if they are re-sold over time, but clearly that game is over for the most part.
That might be, but I don’t know that you can assume that. There are lots of people with big cellars who don’t use CT. Some may have made its way into wine investment funds, and I’m sure they don’t list their holdings on CT. So there are lots of ways the total inventory may depart from CT.
As discussed in another thread, Bryant has had a bunch of internal problems, so it’s not necessarily a barometer for the category.
Statistically, Cellartracker is a large enough sample to most likely be representative of the general behavior of the population. If anything, they have been building users over time, so there might be a bias for later vintage purchases to be larger than previous, all other things being equal. In addition, when I looked at benchmark large production wines in other regions and varieties, I did not see the same trend that seemed to be present consistently in Napa. Why wouldn’t this be happening? Where else are the prices of new vintages so much higher than the prices of older wines? Seems like a pretty rational response to me.
If Galloni’s numbers are accurate, the production of 2015 for Beringer and Insignia was about 20% less than in 2012. So that does explain some of the data.
He also says that Hillside Select produced 30k bottles per year in both 2012 and 2015. 2600 purchases of the 2015 so far and 5800 purchases of the 2012. Those are certainly large enough numbers to have statistical significance.