THE WINE MERCHANT ROUND TABLE: LEEDS
Are journalists missing a trick? Pedestrian wine choices on Saturday Kitchen ... three wines that taste of berries in the Sunday supplements ... and never any AA Gill-style polemics against wines that critics didn’t enjoy. Why, our Leeds panelists wondered, does wine journalism often occupy such a boring rut?
Hoult: One of the things about wine
journalism is that it’s generally all very
positive. When you think about restaurant reviews … the late AA Gill was wonderful to read, but his best reviews were his
most acerbic reviews, so you wanted that negativity.
With wine, if you don’t like it you don’t
write about it. So there’s not that fun
element and I’m not sure you can do it; I’m
not sure there’s that Clarkson and Gill style
about the picture on the bottle and that it tastes of X, Y or Z. The wine industry is about personalities and stories, it’s
about journeys, it’s about agriculture, it’s
about science. There’s so much more that I personally engage my customers with when they ask a question about wine.
Every single weekend supplement has
three wines you should be drinking this
recommending.
Welsh: What made Clarkson’s journalism
it’s more down to the fact that editors are saying, “we’ve got room for three wines”.
Hoult: The big problem is not so much
Hoult: I feel for wine journalists to a
that they reference the big supermarkets, it’s the fact that they fall short of actually
degree because what’s left to write about?
helping. They just plump for wines that
You’ve got to come up with something
you could pluck off the shelf with little risk.
every week.
What they should be doing is saying, “this
There’s cars popping up all the time
is brilliant, and you can match it up with
is that the wine industry is not just
wine. You’re going to go to what people are
Hill: When I say it’s lazy journalism, I think
to the masses. There’s all this fancy food …
Hill: My frustration with print in particular
know what they think is a good bottle of
same with wine.
it’s lazy journalism and they want to appeal
goes for print and TV.
and the science behind it. They want to
a good story. That’s what they like. It’s the
never features any independents because
teach in any way, shape or form. And that
overly concerned about how it’s made
way. People engage with gins that have got
Welsh: The Saturday Kitchen show … it
people are shopping anyway, so they don’t
who are reading it because they’re not
cars, he wrote about them in a different
trade by the sound of it.
quid”. They’re falling into exactly where
it’s journalism that matters to the people
interesting was that when he wrote about
of wine journalism. It’s not a very well-paid
this dish. Let me tell you about this, it’s 15
Padgett: You say it’s lazy journalism, but
and restaurants popping up and there’s Where Romanée-Conti and orgasms collide
weekend and they taste of … berries. I think there’s an enormous trick being missed.
THE WINE MERCHANT september 2019 48
something to write about. Any change
in wine … it’s a natural product and it’s trickier.
Welsh: I promise you, the next article I
write, I’m going to point out some of the
shite producers and say why I dislike them, and see what happens.