I use the quotation marks because I’m not really talking about ‘real’ tourists, rather the ever-increasing global band of ‘writers’ who travel the world at the expense of regional marketing groups – worldwide – it seems a nice life! In itself there is nothing wrong with this symbiotic relationship as the journalist arrives, learns, tastes and (hopefully) objectively provides opinion and some exposure for the region – this is the professional version. What raised my eyebrows during the Grands Jours de Bourgogne (a visit which was paid for with my own cash – but did get me invitations to some nice meals!) was the number of ‘professionals’ that I met who had had their air tickets and hotels paid for by the burgundy marketing groups – the number of people was not the issue, rather the apparent lack of knowledge of the region that a few exhibited. Personally speaking I see the Grands Jours as the ideal opportunity (for example) to taste a number of Volnays in one room with their producers and then Pommards in another room with their producers, to learn about and contrast and eventually deepen your knowledge of styles, terroir etc.. Some I spoke to needed help with grape varieties, hierarchy of crus etc., etc.. I hope I’m not being elitist about this, but I expect that if someone was paying my fare, I would have (at least) made some basic research! In this latter case, I wonder what value will eventually accrue to BIVB/AVCO etc…

That leads me to the term ‘independent’. One of the ‘professionals’ I met described themselves as a completely independent critic – that got me thinking – can a critic ever be independent? I suppose it depends on the context of the word independent; a writer who occasionally writes a wine-related critique can largely be said to be independent because their living is not directly linked to the vine. Anyone whose income stream is dependent on their critique of wines is by definition, not independent of the industry – whatever they say, even if not paid directly by that industry – but that doesn’t mean that they are not independent of thought. 😉