The caveat here, is that I’m talking about some ‘generalist’ wine-writers who occasionally dip their toe into a region, tasting at a few well-manicured addresses, probably sponsored by some ‘body’ or other, and back that up by tasting a bunch of grand crus that start at €100 a bottle. I’ve not been involved in a similar roughing of Twitter feathers before, but these two troll-esque tweets (from writers with over 40k of twitter followers) annoyed me just as much as previous Decanter (harvest) stories that seemed, at the same time, sensationalist yet lacking any real depth of comment or apparent knowledge:
Well, that’s my perjorative, clearly biased opinion based on what I read, anyway 😉
Packing for Burgundy. Can't help but feel this a #wine region whose prices are now so high they are beyond the reach of all but a very few.
— Will Lyons (@Will_Lyons) October 19, 2014
@Will_Lyons@billnanson@nealmartin@jymbudd most don't. Sad truth, affordable Burgundy is mostly boring. Wish it wasn't, terroir is real
— Jamie Goode (@jamiegoode) October 19, 2014
I assumed the first was tongue in cheek – and I like to have a laugh – but prodding showed that this was indeed Will’s thinking despite initially teasing-out that he was talking about ‘only the very best!’ His views seemed to harden and widen in the ‘conversation’ that followed. Hopefully he goes out and visits in more depth than I fear will be the case. As for Jamie – sorry, but that comment does not come up to his usual standards. There is much more to this if you wish to follow the conversations in the links above. Unfortunately, Twitter becomes unwieldy and close to useless once more than a couple of people are ‘involved’ in a conversation…
I pondered writing this, mainly because it seemed too self-serving, but the fact is, you need specialists if you want to know what to buy. Jancis’s site is going that way with multiple contributors, but already you have Roy Hersh for Port, Chris Kissack for Bordeaux and Loire, Burghound, maybe Neal Martin, maybe me for Burgundy – but for god’s sake, don’t read magazine/newspaper style columns hoping get useful info. World of Fine Wine is an exception, but has such lead-times you could never describe it as a guide for buying.
My basic premise is: Yes indeed Burgundy has become expensive for a certain niche producer list, put another way ‘no shit Sherlock.’ But a journalist can’t just say ‘I’m telling it like it is’ without actually showing some groundwork on which their opinions are formed. Actually, I’d be much more amenable if they simply said ‘In my opinion, Burgundy has a vanishing level of relevance because of xxxx, yyyy and zzzz‘ substantiating their words…
But we all know the phrase about ‘opinions’ – mine too! 😉
