To be honest, I really don't think that Vaynerchuk's intended audience are the people with 1000s of posts here or over at eBob.

quote:

Originally posted by dr.darkrichandbold:
I just don't get half of the connesieurs out there who buy cases of product and don't bother trying it until it's "ready".

How do you buy before you try if you're purchasing futures or mailing list wines? For me, I can't afford to fly to Europe and even if I did, I would not know how to taste a barrel sample.

quote:

Personally I have never detected the least prejudice in GV's ratings. I really believe he tells it like it is, whether his company carries the wine or not.

OK, one more time, it is quite possible that Gary V posseses a world class palate and renders entirely unbiased opinions. I spoke merely to the clear appearance of, are you ready, "conflict of interest". I think GV is the greatest cheerleader of wineolgy around. People love his style and he attracts a huge following. That is a good thing! He destroys the presumption that to enjoy fine wines you have to be white, partially bald, and speak with a British accent. I love watching Gary. I just do not believe as much in his scores and reviews as I do in Mr. Parker or Mr. Suckling.

quote:

Originally posted by dr.darkrichandbold:
In this scenairio, I would potentially comment that if you can't afford to try it, you can't afford to buy it. And, this is not meant to be an attack.

I make it a point to try virtually everything in my cellar. Granted, there are somethings I can't try before I buy. For example, a highly sought after wine at a good price that if I wait even one day to try it, it's gone from the marketplace. In this scenairio....I buy, try, and if I don't think it's worth it's price tag....off to auction it goes.

I have no desire to cellar potentially uninspiring wine. It's not cost effective. Although, in some cases I guess it could be negligible. I suppose if you had 2000 Lafite in the cellar and 20 years later, you didn't like it, you'd still have a hefty profit to take at auction on the remaining bottles.

I also don't agree with the folks who say...well, even if you try it when it's young, you have no idea what it will eventually be like, so what's the point? If that is so, then why is there a growing number of critics every year speculating on the latest vintage available? Granted, there are no for sures, but once you've tasted enough wine, it's not hard to evaluate the raw materials and decide whether or not the wine is interesting enough to cellar. Point and case....at La Paulee over the weekend, it was no surprise that Armand Rousseau's 2005's were so highly talked about. Were they ready to drink? No. But, the raw materials were nothing short of stunning, and the hundreds of people trying it were all able to see that.

Wow. How did we get here from Parker v. Vaynerchuck? I have this uncle who does his best to be the overbearing father I never had...

Wasn't Sarbuze talking about buying wine he/she could afford but not afford to buy extra to drink young? Frankly, what in the world would are you going to do with some of these wines on release - decant them for a week?

While you build a cellar, purchasing without having tasted the exact bottling is reality.

quote:

Originally posted by GlennK:
With that said, people trusting Gary’s scores as totally unbiased and objective are fooling themselves in my opinion. The guy is reviewing wines from his store non-blind. How can he put all of that out of his mind, I know I couldn’t? And I know he has panned wines on the show, but it’s easy to pan silver oak because it is still going to sell out anyway. Now I’m not saying he would intentionally over rate a wine to boost sales, I’m just saying there is no way he can be 100% objective.

Point well taken on the Silver Oak. And if that genre were the only wines that he panned that he also sold, I would share your skepticism. But how do you account for the wines that he sells where he says something like, "RP gave this one a '92' and I think he totally missed it. I'm giving this one a major pass."?

You really don't have to watch very long to come across this kind of note from GV. He's done this enough times to convince me that he's no less objective than anyone else you can throw out there. The fact that you or I might have difficulty with that is irrelevant.

- Senator

Parker isn't a big advocate of blind tasting either... so what's your point on this?

quote:

Originally posted by jqmunro:
Parker isn't a big advocate of blind tasting either... so what's your point on this?

There just seem to be some folks who actually think anyone is truly objective.

quote:

Originally posted by jfoobar:

quote:

Originally posted by jqmunro:
Parker isn't a big advocate of blind tasting either... so what's your point on this?

There just seem to be some folks who actually think anyone is truly objective.

By the same token, you cannot deny the contrary. Logically speaking, the contrary is correct since in order for you to prove your statement you'll have to somehow show that everyone is not objective.

How about neither. Although I find GV very entertaining, and have learned alot from him, my palate just doesn't align with his. As for Parker and the WA crew my experience with them is that their scores are inflated and therefore I just don't trust them. Call me a homer but I'll take Steiman, Laube and Suckling any day.

Parker gave this red called Falesco a 90 or 91 and Vanderchuk said it was mediocre wine with a "sad" finish. Made me laugh, that comment, and boosted his cred in my book

quote:

Originally posted by bjnatkels:


Call me a homer but I'll take Steiman , Laube, Suckling and Molesworth any day.

it's nice when molesworth triples the value of your 05 Clos in a matter of a month. I can understand why you would take him anyday

quote:

Parker gave this red called Falesco a 90 or 91 and Vanderchuk said it was mediocre wine with a "sad" finish. Made me laugh, that comment, and boosted his cred in my book

I saw that. I'll trust Gary on that one as you can see his face tasting it plus Wine Library probably bought 200 cases of that stuff, so that was a good honest drubbing. Cheapie italians like that are bought by the car load like Yellow Tail. Still, most of the people who drink it don't know who the hell Robert Parker or Gary Vaynerchuck are anyway, so it doesn't matter.

I've had Falesco Sangiovese before. It is a table wine in a pizza restaurant - like on every table 90 points seemed pushing it. I'll probably have it poured for me again sometime.

quote:

Originally posted by Poquelin:

quote:

Originally posted by tanglenet: ...Vaynerchuck sells wine. Although he may review wines he does not sell, he still sells wine. He represents himself, his shop and people who want to sell you wine. He's very successful at it, but I would not confuse the difference between the two.

Being the wine director of a huge wine-selling business actually places Gary V. in an ideal situation to critique wines: he has his pick of an enormous inventory to taste.

Personally I have never detected the least prejudice in GV's ratings. I really believe he tells it like it is, whether his company carries the wine or not.

Whatever you may think of his personality or style, I think he is totally unbiased.

Do you feel the same way about Wilfred Wong at BEVMO?

quote:

Originally posted by WEc:
By the same token, you cannot deny the contrary. Logically speaking, the contrary is correct since in order for you to prove your statement you'll have to somehow show that everyone is not objective.

True objectivity (or even true selflessness) has all the factual foundation of the Easter Bunny. I don't need a heaping plate of syllogism to recognize what is, inherently, human nature.

quote:

Originally posted by jfoobar:

quote:

Originally posted by WEc:
By the same token, you cannot deny the contrary. Logically speaking, the contrary is correct since in order for you to prove your statement you'll have to somehow show that everyone is not objective.

True objectivity (or even true selflessness) has all the factual foundation of the Easter Bunny.

That, unfortunately, is called an assumption. There is nothing factual about your proposition aside from your own postulations.

quote:

Originally posted by WEc:
That, unfortunately, is called an assumption. There is nothing factual about your proposition aside from your own postulations.

Heh, you make me chuckle.

quote:

Originally posted by dr.darkrichandbold:
In this scenairio, I would potentially comment that if you can't afford to try it, you can't afford to buy it. And, this is not meant to be an attack.

So anyone who cannot afford a case of wine for $2400 shouldn't buy two bottles? That's a great outlook...I wonder why people think wine enthusiasts are snobs.

A lot of people buy a bottle or two of wines that are that pricey as most people don't want to spend that much on a single case of wine. I'm a young, aspiring collector - why should I commit to large quantities of a few wines I may like when there are so many things out there that I haven't tried yet?

By the time some of my purchases reach their peak in 10-15 years, I'll be turning 40, will be long done with graduate school, and can worry about only buying things I've tried or know I'll love then. For now, a lot of the fun is trying anything and everything at all price ranges. I rarely buy more than 2-3 bottles of any single wine- there is so much great juice out there I don't want to miss out on any of it.

I didn't take your statement as a personal attack, just surprised someone would honestly believe that the only way to buy wine is once you've tasted it...how about futures or low-allocation mailing lists? Do you try all of these before you buy them?

quote:

Originally posted by sarbuze:
I rarely buy more than 2-3 bottles of any single wine- there is so much great juice out there I don't want to miss out on any of it.

I'm in my 40's and still buy that way. I never buy a case of anything.

quote:

Vaynerchuck or Parker?

James Suckling

I’ll preface this by stating that I don't watch WLTV all that often (maybe 2x per month) and I have only bought wine from WL several times in the past.

I’ve tried several of Gary's recs in the past and have not been disappointed. I've also tasted some recs of his that I have not liked but Gary's mantra is to "trust your palate." I'm sure he really doesn't care if not everybody agrees with him. Additionally, I have found his palate to be a bit similar to my own in that he does not favor wines that are fake, heavily extracted, heavily manipulated, heavily oaked, etc. Several here have been a bit down on Gary for his unusual descriptors and verbiage on his show. I agree that he might seem a bit over-the-top and sophomoric at times but, in general, he knows what he is talking about. Would people really want to listen and watch a video blog in which the people talk in a monotone voice all of the time and do not have a sense of humor? Let's face it; a portion of what Gary does is for entertainment purposes. Sure he does want to promote the store and sell wine but why shouldn’t he? Wine Library is paying for the production of this show and they are not going to promote Canal's over in Pennsauken.

With all of this being said, I am not under the delusion that Gary is a wine critic. Personally, I will trust a recomendation from Tanzer and Molesworth before one from Gary. However, if Gary can accomplish the task of getting people to open their eyes and expand their horizons to trying new wines, he is doing a good job with his show. Additionally, he is accomplishing what a lot of advertising for other businesses is failing to with that being increasing brand awareness for WL AND serving as an educator. Back to the original question – I've probably tasted a higher percentage of wines with high scores from Parker that I thought weren't that good as opposed to wines recommended by Gary.

quote:

Originally posted by jfoobar:

quote:

Originally posted by WEc:
That, unfortunately, is called an assumption. There is nothing factual about your proposition aside from your own postulations.

Heh, you make me chuckle.

As do you. You obviously don't understand the concept of an objective truth and are just a victim of your own self-fulfilling prophecy. You are correct in that you do not need a heaping plate of syllogism from me as obviously the laws of logic don't apply to you.

Ignorance is bliss!

You can't be objective if you know what you're tasting – you can be professional, but you have a preconceived notion of what's in that glass, so its simply not possible. So Gary V. and Parker are out. As an aside, I assume that Jay Miller and the others at WA also do not taste blind – am I correct? What about IWC?

Either way, count me in no one is objective camp. Mostly, a blind taster might not know what exact bottle he or she is tasting, but its hard not to know a lot about the wine, including a pretty good estimate of price point or at least this is/is not a <$25 wine.

Further, after drinking wine for roughly a decade and really getting into it about 3 yrs ago, I can pick out some producers and/or wines blind. I can only assume these guys do it far more regularly. In this vane, Parker's famed memory almost makes it pointless for him to taste blind – he's going to know so often, he might as well make sure his preconceptions are accurate.

Blind tasters can do everything to keep preconceptions out of the score and notes, but a professional has to know too much about what's in the glass actually to have no preconceptions. And then there's the advertising and the socializing with wine people, and the flame fest when you pan hordes of Opus One fan's favorite wine. So again, no one is objective.

I guess if you never left your house or watched/read/listened to modern media while training yourself to be a wine expert by having de-labeled and re-bottled wines (those Turley bottles would start to be recognizable) delivered so you know only vintage, region, appellation, etc., then you could claim to have accomplished what would seem to be the holy grail of wine tasting - be an "objective" critic.

Incidentally, the one critic that I think might have somehow accomplished this is Laube, because his Cab scores seem to have no bearing whatever to price and producer and little relation to prior track record. Before anyone thinks I'm being facetious, I don't drink enough Cab to have anything but an anecdotal opinion, but I have found many of his ratings on bottles I have had to be spot on, especially the few bottles I've had from the 1996 and 1997 retrospectives.

quote:

Originally posted by vinole:

quote:

Originally posted by sarbuze:
I rarely buy more than 2-3 bottles of any single wine- there is so much great juice out there I don't want to miss out on any of it.

I'm in my 40's and still buy that way. I never buy a case of anything.

I'm in my 30's and I'm with you. I would not buy a case of 1 wine either. 2-4 bottles is my usual purchase. I prefer variety.