One of the amusements of social media is that you get to see celebrities from unrelated fields fighting. A prominent sub-genre is athletes telling non-athletes off. If the latter is an unsympathetic figure, the moment is particularly delicious. Few things are more fun than seeing an annoying loudmouth get his comeuppance.
The wine world has its own version of this, a winemaker telling off some non-winemaker loudmouth, usually a sommelier or a wine writer. The dynamic is the same: the true expert, with skin in the game, and the observer from the side-lines, with more opinions than sense. At heart there is a legitimacy question: can somebody really write about wine if they haven’t made wine?
Many a winemaker would respond with an emphatic “no”. After all, it sounds almost too simple and obvious an argument. A winemaker is the best-placed person to say what is good wine, the same way that a footballer is the best-placed person to say what is actually happening on the pitch.
Unfortunately, there are many arguments that are simple, obvious, and wrong. I’ve yet to meet the winemaker who is shy of expressing opinions on anything from houses, to labels, to cars, despite their understanding and qualifications of architecture, graphic design, and automotive engineering being that of a moderately insightful porcupine. And the argument cuts both ways: can someone really have an opinion on the quality of wine writing if they haven’t convinced at least a few editors to publish them, and gathered at least a few hundred loyal readers in the process?
Let’s be less flippant, however, and examine this proposed requirement in good faith. Just how much winemaking experience is needed before the desired legitimacy is achieved? Writers usually chip in to these conversations, wearing the odd vintage like a Purple Heart, but I’m unconvinced the doubters are sated by a couple of months hosing down floors and doing a bit of bâtonnage (I won’t even discuss “selecting blends”, the toy medal of winemaking). Then there is the issue of viticulture, wine being made in the vineyard and all that. Should the aspiring writer work on the vineyards and, if so, does gentleman farming suffice or is the real thing needed? Does other farming count? What about gardening? How about the producer role, hardly a small factor in the end product. Viticulture and winemaking are hard work but, unless you are making wine for your personal consumption and intellectual pleasure, knowing how to sell the thing and make ends meet should surely come into the equation somewhere?
Then there is the issue of “making wine” not being just thing. A one-man band producer/winemaker and Campo Viejo are very different entities. Natural winemaking at £15 a bottle is an altogether different animal from corporate Cabernet at £150. And wine is wonderfully, almost wondrously, geographic. Sicilians’ idea of a good wine is different to the Champenois’, which is different to the Californians’. There is of course a type…
