Drink - Victoria Moore winces at the acidity of wine writers
Published 21 October 2002
The small world of wine critics is acid with scorn, bitterness and envy
You might expect wine writers (and I do not consider myself a wine writer, rather a journalist who sometimes writes about drink) to be gloriously civilised creatures, whose twin thirsts for taste and knowledge elevate them from the squalid dog-eat-dog behaviour often ascribed to those of us who labour for the popular press.
In my innocence I believed that the silence cloaking press tastings was caused by the quiet study of dutiful brains filing complex flavours into their glittering memory palaces; but it seems it might be something else, entirely: disdain and enmity.
Idly browsing the other day through the online archives of Harpers, the drinks trade bible, I had quite a shock. Here was paraded such scorn, bitterness and jealousy that it may have served Dante as material for his Inferno.
Earlier this year, the Daily Mail's wine writer- and I ought to confess that I, too, work for the Daily Mail - Matthew Jukes won a prestigious international award. Good for him, you may think. Jukes is a workaholic who tastes 25-26,000 wines every year, has a highly respected palate and distils his vast knowledge with great brio and agility. Harpers took a different view. According, it says, to "well-established wine journos", this announcement would cause "seismic activity on the eyebrow scale". Apparently Jukes is too accessible for this uppity mass of unnamed wine critics. There is worse. Harpers tight-lipped Barbara Scalera says that"[Jukes's] grammar is not always correct, nor is his English proper, sophisticated or elegant". Scanning further, I found a piece posted last month by Andrew Jefford, formerly of the Evening Standard, surveying wine writing. It was awash with vitriol.
To fully appreciate the scale of these attacks, you must realise that wine is a minuscule world. The Circle of Wine Writers has more than 200 members, though only a dozen or so have their heads well and truly above the parapet. This is no disincentive to the mud-slingers, who seem to believe that no one - save perhaps St Jancis who, by scholarly virtue, always escapes flack - is deserving of their jobs.
Who could author Hugh Johnson be talking about when Jefford quotes him as saying: "The language of most [wine writers] is imitative drivel"? The "pomposity and sanctimonious attitudes" of which "old farts" so offend one journalist? Others are slated as "dull and unreliable". Malcolm Gluck, pioneer of the marks-out-of-20 wine review, proclaims: "What few [wine writers] I have forced on my attention I find witless and trite."
Best not mention that my own ears have heard from souls made indiscrete by alcohol similar comments about Mr Gluck.
A little temperance wouldn't go amiss.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
