Men behaving badly - social media and the wine "professional"

At any given time, lurking somewhere in the depths of my Blogger "dashboard" are a handful of drafts - posts that I have part-written and may or may not eventually see the light of day. Occasionally, I have a clear-out and get rid of the ones which are either no longer relevant or topical, or which I simply cannot be bothered to complete. But the bare bones of what follows have been sitting there for a few months now - essentially, a bit of a rant about the propensity of people - mainly men, to put it bluntly - to force their (often ill-conceived or rash) opinions onto anyone who cares to read them. The most valuable attribute of the Internet can at the same time be the worst - it offers a window to the world, yet provides a certain degree of anonimity for those who wish to sound-off or, in the worst cases, abuse the privilege...............

Although I guess I am a "wine professional", insofar as I import and sell the stuff, it isn't usually a term I apply to myself. The fact that I also write a blog and use Facebook and Twitter is purely incidental (although I feel I do it quite well - in fact, better than some of those so-called professionals). After all, if I were not keen enough to be in the business in the first place, I doubt that I would be moved to share my thoughts about wine in a  public place. No, by "professional", I mean those who write and/or talk about wine for a living - the wine media.

I doubt very much that spats involving - or between - various members of the wine-writing fraternity are a new phenomenon. In my experience, by no means all of them have egos the size of Texas, but it often seems to help, especially if such writers' main means of communication with their readers is via blogs and social media. And let's face it, the importance of the printed word, be it in newspapers, magazines, or even books, seems to wane more and more with each passing year. Don't get me wrong - I love the Internet and can hardly imagine going back to a world without it. And of course I would never have been able to start a wine business without it - a bricks and mortar wine shop would have been (and still remains) way beyond my means and capabilities. And Facebook (and to a lesser extent Twitter) can be a fun way of communicating, not only with friends you see on a regular basis, or those who you see only occasionally/rarely, but also "friends" you have never even met. Just as long as the discussions remain civilised, of course. My mantra for social media is never to say anything to/about anyone on a public (or even private) forum that I wouldn't say to their face. Or at least to try and resist the urge to do so. It doesn't always work out that way, but I suppose we all put our foot in our mouth occasionally!

But I have noticed a fashion emerging amongst certain wine writers recently for posting remarks on Twitter and Facebook that are clearly intended to provoke. Sometimes it may be a link to their latest blog post, other times it may be an isolated remark - something along the lines of "(provocative statement) - discuss". At which point, more often than not, the writer retreats to a safe distance, whilst a mix of casual observers, sycophants and naysayers proceed to slog it out. I even feel the need to stick my two penn'orth in occasionally! A recent example was where the writer (a particularly prolific blogger, tweeter and - to be frank - serial troller) suggested that, because he didn't rate a wine that another (world-renowned) critic scored highly, said critic had somehow lost the plot. He then went on to remark that the very same critic is "a legend, a hero and an inspiration to me, but his scoring is boxing him into a corner."  It all smacks of a "my points are worth more than so-and-so's points" sort of attitude. Even more annoyingly, the original comment was made on Twitter, but also appeared automatically on Facebook, although the writer didn't see fit to reply to any resulting comments by his Faceboof "friends". Which to my mind displays a staggering level of arrogance, not to mention a large degree of contempt for his "friends" or followers. And because this was a far from isolated incident, I felt rather good about deleting this person's Facebook and Twitter feeds from my accounts! 

Another situation which occurred around the same time concerned another equally well-known wine writer (and an MW no less), who became embroiled with mutual a friend/follower on Facebook about the subject of ageing wines - my, what a controversial subject! Whilst many people, myself included, think that too many wines are drunk far too young, our writer friend decided to take completely the opposite view, stating quite categorically that "most whites, except Riesling and (at a pinch) Chardonnay, Beaujolais, most Pinot Noir, a lot of Syrahs, Loire Cab Francs, etc, etc" do not age. I replied that, in my opinion, virtually all of the above (which are any good in the first place, that is) benefit from plenty of age. Back came the reply "No they don't. Most of them are great young too. You need to taste more young Pinots. Which wines evolve in fascinating ways? Chenin, yes, Riesling, yes. Sauternes at a pinch. Hunter Semillon. That's about it." Given the rather dismissive (nay, arrogant) tone of this guy's replies, I decided that there was little point in continuing the discussion. Just as well, really, given that it deteriorated thereafter into a rather unseemly bout of handbags between the two original protagonists, resulting in a very public "unfriending". A very unseemly episode and a lesson in how not to use social media.

And then there is the seemingly never-ending one-man crusade by a wine journalist and fellow blogger to discredit a  producer of sweet wines in the Loire Valley, whose viticultural and vinification methods he suggests are at best contrary to the principles of fine winemaking and at worst illegal. The fact that this grower is particularly highly-regarded by so many wine drinkers (and indeed makes arguably the finest wine of the appellation in question) seems to make no difference to the journalist. Unfortunately, having done so much good work in the past, investigating so many more worthy incidents of real wine fraud, I feel that he is in danger of damaging his own reputation as much as - if not more than - his quarry. 

The thing that links these episodes together (albeit very loosely) is that they are all propogated by men. Not that the fairer sex is entirely blameless, but the nearest I have seen to spats about wine involving women was a bit of "handbags" between Jancis Robinson MW and Robert Parker Jr over the merits of a certain Bordeaux chateau's wine (and I know whose palate I would trust!) and a respected female Loire expert's online discussion/argument with the aforementioned blogger about his vendetta. Again, I know whose side I am on.

But now to the thing that really prompted me to publish this post - the work of a certain lady by the name of Helena Nicklin (a.k.a Winebird), whose interesting take on the wine video genre appears to have split the jury, garnering praise and derision in equal measure. The videos came to my attention via a thread on a UK-based wine discussion forum (which many of you reading this may well contribute to, or at least read). Ultimately, the thread ran to almost 200 posts and I have to admit that, as a man, I was more than a little disappointed - though far from surprised - at some of the derogatory remarks offered by so many regular (and almost exclusively male) contibutors, not to mention the (male) owner of the forum..

Personally, I think they provide an entertaining, light-hearted, yet extremely effective concept in attempting to bring "proper wine" to the masses. And thankfully, a few of the more tolerant and enlightened contributors seemed to agree with me. More importantly, I have a feeling that the same sentiment would be shared by countless hordes of non-wine geeks - surely the sort of people they are actually aimed at (rather than those of us who think we know it all). Of course, a pretty face helps (with apologies to anyone who thinks I'm being sexist, but I'm a red-blooded male!). Would I find the videos so interesting if they were presented by a man? Probably not, but the content would still be relevant and informative. Perhaps "Winehusband" (I believe that is Helena's other half's handle) could make some for the ladies!
        
Should Winebird be accepted into the world of the professional online wine commentator? Damn right she should. Her style might not go down too well with the old guard, whose often elitist and tired approach to the subject of wine is threatened by the more populist style of the new generation, but if it gets more people genuinely interested in wine (rather than just consuming the cheap and cheerful stuff as a beverage) then that can only be a positive.

As for wine commentary as a whole, and the Internet in general, it really doesn't matter whether you are a man or a woman - there's room for everyone. And if you don't like it, then don't read/watch it - but don't just jump in and slag it off without good reason.