Why do pro critics think Orin Swift Wines are good?

WINE TALK
21

They seldomly get 95 points or more but consistently rate between 88 and 94 points which seems fair for what it is.

22

If the OP dislikes Orin Swift, I cannot wait to hear what he thinks about 689 Cellars, currently a big hit in Germany through the Movenpick retail giant where it is one of the most popular wines sold.

23

Always frightening to let the client pick the wine. might end up with one of these, or the prisoner.

24

Except that the client is always right!

[snort.gif]

25

Some people like to drink young port. So what?

26

The style is the same throughout the lineup. I would be surprised if someone strongly disliked one of the wines and liked another. I don’t understand why you say it’s unlikely that someone would dislike them all. Personally, I wouldn’t be able to get through a full glass of any, and I’ve tried quite a few. If you like the wines, that’s great. If you think any of them are great wines, most people here will disagree with you, myself included, but it’s no big deal, is it?

I do understand questioning the critics on this since the wines all seem to lack any real complexity and are arguably unbalanced, but I can’t think of any major critic whose scores seem to consistently make sense.

27

What objective flaws do the wines have other than not being to your taste? I am no fan of the OS wines, but they are very well made in their particular style. Exemplars of terroir? No.

28

So we bash the critics, and subsequently the people who drink this stuff since we don’t like it? Despite the fact that they sell thousands and thousands of cases of these wines, and the people who drink it, like it?

2 Likes
29

Popular != necessarily equal good. Fred Franzia sells a shit-ton of wine (and Parker rated Apothic Red at least once and gave it an 88, despite the oodles of RS in those wines; which, btw, I can smell without even drinking)
 are you stocking up on those?

Having said that, I think this falls into a gray area (relative to David’s comments about objective flaws)
 things such as sur maturite, leaving detectable RS in dry red wine, using oak chips/flavor/color additives, etc, technically aren’t flaws.

30

Correct. This is the raison d’etre of the board. Otherwise, what are we even doing here? :slight_smile:

31

Has nothing to do with the critics and everything to do with advertising, in the same way that macho pickup trucks are being sold and death skulls are popular, they have figured out that sadistic art sells, basically I’m bigger and more powerful than you and can lord it you.

32

Creeepy and proving my previous point.

33

I don’t disagree with your first part that popular doesn’t necessarily mean good. What I’m failing to realize is why we need to bash people for what they drink, or rate highly. What exactly does that accomplish? I’m sure there is people who lurk on this board, and drink these wines. And maybe one will post and defend his reasoning.

Maybe one day they find their own rabbit hole and start drinking Burgundy, but for now, at least they are drinking wine. Isn’t that what we really want?

1 Like
34

If the Orin Swift crowd starts drinking Burgundy there will be a collective scream of anguish and “how dare they” from the board.

Damned if they do


35

That’s a tough one. I don’t really want to bash drinkers.

But I (and may here) absolutely do want to exert a chilling influence on critics, particularly given the increasing trend away from critics adhering to a stance of consumer advocacy / non-entanglement with the Trade. The why (at least to me) is that that sort of thing (particularly when it comes from “real” critics) encourages the creation of “frankenwines” like these. Now you might ask what is it to me, since I wouldn’t drink these kinds of wines, but the reality is that these things ultimately do have an impact
 for example, I used to be able to go to an average “non somm” restaurant and order a glass of dry red wine with at least some reasonable expectation that it tastes like dry red wine. Or order a particular variety, expecting it to taste like that variety. That’s no longer the case.

2 Likes
36

Bingo. Thank you sir!

37

Funny enough, the guy who makes them loves Burgundy.

38

My inner wine guy definitely agrees with you.

When I first got in to wine, I was drinking Marquis Philips by the case. Wouldn’t touch that kind of wine today. Burgundy was a fascination of mine during those MP days, but it took me a good 6-7 years to really understand it, and going there on a regular basis.

It’s a slow moving ship, but with the world focusing on organic/biodynamic/natural wines, I think you will see a large shift away from wines that aren’t made in that fashion. It could force the hands of Orin Swift’s winemaking to dial it down and go green. All should work itself out in due time :slight_smile:

1 Like
39

I’m not surprised at this. Orrin the wine lover is distinct from Orrin the business guy fine tuning his product for maximum sales.

We’ve discussed this before, but it sucks that we use one word - wine - to describe such a massive range of products. ‘Craft Beer’ is commonly used to distinguish products from mass production beer. Sloppy inaccurate and rough, but still useful. The stuff we drink and obsess over here is Craft Wine. That other stuff not worth reviewing is Crap Wine. There, problem solved.

1 Like
40

This implies that wine critics rating Orin Swift is like beer critics rating Bud Light. Why do wine critics feel obligated to shill for crap wine?