Critiquing the critics

Life’s a funny thing. One day you’re on a train heading off to work in the rain, the next, BAM, you’re laid out flat on a metal slab, staring blankly at a fluorescent light, wondering what the hell just happened there!

I’m pretty sure that’s how my vines in the Hunter Valley felt last year when I accidentally sprayed them with a not-so-healthy dose of broadleaf weed killer[1]. Oh well…at least they didn’t get any mould!

On the Friday morning the vines were happily growing away. Great green plate-like leaves, gorgeous lush bunches of ripening berries gleaming healthily in the summer sun. The next, they were…well…dead, poisoned by a combination of my own stupidity and a misplaced belief that I actually had some remote idea about what I was doing.

Now, even though this viticultural genocide was purely accidental (I swear it weren’t me intent Gov’nor), my first (and only, at this stage) foray into the hands-on application of wine making/viticulture was, and let’s be honest here, an unmitigated disaster.

Which leads me to ponder, as a wine writer/critic, do I really have a right to review and question the ability of others far more qualified that myself to make wine, when I’m so obviously and completely inept at it myself?

The whole concept of being a “critic” has always bothered me slightly. If you can’t (or don’t want to) do something yourself then what gives you the right to question and criticise other people’s ability to do it.

Sports commentators are generally the most annoying. “Oh…that was a terrible shot…what was he thinking…he should have gone right, not left…oooo, I wouldn’t have done that…”

Yeah! Well why don’t you go out there and show us how it’s done, you hero!

A place for critics?

The point is, I guess it’s easy to sit on the sideline a criticise from a far; to take up a comfortable position and analyse the hard work of others safe in the knowledge that if YOU stuff up you can always claim that being a critic is a very subjective business and that everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.

So…is there a place for armchair wine critics? Should they (I should say we) be taken seriously, or are we just a gaggle of lazy wine prostitutes begging for free wine and generally bludging off the goodwill of the industry?

Well, and I’m obviously going well out on a limb here, I’d say that there is a place – and an important one at that.

When you look at the industry, the whole box and dice, wine makers, grape growers, marketers, suppliers, equipment manufacturers etc, it is clear that the role of the wine critic (objectively speaking) is crucial.

In a world as diverse as the one that wine occupies - from the high plateaux of Chile, through the steep river valleys of Germany, to the burning hillsides of Australia  - tens of thousands of winemakers create an even greater number of wines every year.

With micro-climate, terrior, grape varieties, the vagaries of different vintages and new wines being launched seemingly every minute, that’s a lot of things to consider.

The wine critic is essential in collating all this information and putting it, in an easily accessible form, in front of consumers (who, let’s face it, are by far the most important pieces of the wine industry jigsaw).

The wine critic plays the part of the privileged middleman, assisting the creators of the wine to communicate (in a, hopefully, clear, unbiased and objective fashion) the virtues of the wine to the people that really matter.

The wine critic also plays the vital role of assisting the consumer to sort the diamonds from the mud. There are, unfortunately, still a lot of very ordinary wines being produced on an industrial scale worldwide that need to be revealed as the rubbish they are. There are also a large number of wines being produced by makers who do not have the ability to reach a larger audience, that are of remarkable quality.

It is simply the job of the wine critic to wade through the masses of bottled expectation, created by backyard winemakers and industry giants alike, and point you, the all-important consumer, in the right direction.

Of course, it cannot hurt if the wine critic also dabbles in the fine art of wine making from time to time – hands on experience is always the best teacher.

On that point, I look forward to resuscitating my long suffering Hunter Valley vineyard and nurturing the remaining (obviously resilient) Semillon back into something worthy of a vintage. Maybe I’ll even let you try some … if you promise to be nice!

Cheers

Matt

[1] In preparation for spraying the vines with a diluted copper sulphate solution (to ward off mould and disease) we had actually thoroughly cleaned out the spray tank and the spray gun, but had forgotten to check & clean the 200 metre long hose that had recently been used to spray concentrated broadleaf weed killer over a 40acre paddock. DOH!