Rational, evidence based thought is not nearly as 'fun' or 'sizzling w/ excitement' as fragmented tidbits used to slander a successful business as part of their odious agenda. Thankfully, there's a decent volume of people interested in the facts, which should be fairly clear now. Channeling a lot of time, effort and energy into a fooling a successful magazine may in fact smear their reputation a bit initially; but this was by no means a minor hoax that exposed how shallow the Wine Spectator's evaluation process was...while not a perfect process (and one, like many other things, that can be improved upon), it was fooled by a sophisticated & misguided individual. I know this all made the Spectator haters very happy, but it by no means demonstrates that the magazine lacks integrity or champions poor products.
quote:
Originally posted by Sacred Cow: Yes, you attempted to make, purported to make, and did make the point that seeing the 15 worst wines on a list of 256 wines, of which you do not know the other 241, is enough information for you to make a decision. Would seeing only the 15 BEST wines on a list of 256 allow you to make a decision too?
Personally I like having MUCH more information available to me before making a decision. An almost total lack of information leads me to defer judgment rather than jump to potentially/likely erroneous conclusions.
Originally posted by Brad Coelho: Rational, evidence based thought is not nearly as 'fun' or 'sizzling w/ excitement' as fragmented tidbits used to slander a successful business as part of their odious agenda. Thankfully, there's a decent volume of people interested in the facts, which should be fairly clear now. Channeling a lot of time, effort and energy into a fooling a successful magazine may in fact smear their reputation a bit initially; but this was by no means a minor hoax that exposed how shallow the Wine Spectator's evaluation process was...while not a perfect process (and one, like many other things, that can be improved upon), it was fooled by a sophisticated & misguided individual. I know this all made the Spectator haters very happy, but it by no means demonstrates that the magazine lacks integrity or champions poor products.
quote:
Originally posted by Sacred Cow: Yes, you attempted to make, purported to make, and did make the point that seeing the 15 worst wines on a list of 256 wines, of which you do not know the other 241, is enough information for you to make a decision. Would seeing only the 15 BEST wines on a list of 256 allow you to make a decision too?
Personally I like having MUCH more information available to me before making a decision. An almost total lack of information leads me to defer judgment rather than jump to potentially/likely erroneous conclusions.
Moo
Brad I do not think that you have correctly identified the purpose behind the false submission, but again I have read explanations of the reasons from 3rd party sources/articles/posts that make assumptions. If it was his intention, as reported by the LA Times (and I have no idea about the credibility of that publication, or their sources) " to expose the lack of any foundation for many food and wine awards", I think he succeeded in part. Again, many here seem to be of the opinion that the process of giving out 'awards' is flawed/lacks appropriate review (and that even if the lack of appropriate review is acknowledged by WS, that most people out there are not aware of the criteria for review, and may be surprised at the threshhold applied). As for being duped by something that was fake, it looks bad but is not so convincing that the review of the wine list was flawed. As for the presence of a number of awful listings on the wine list, that should have raised a red flag in my opinion, but several others disagree. So some success (i.m.o.) in questioning the foundation of the awards (consistent with questioning by posters for a long time), and some flashy window dressing (faking out WS with the fake restaurant).
"No TV and no beer make Homer...something, something"
Originally posted by Board-O: I think this whole thing is blown way out of proportion. One jerk lied to the WS about a restaurant and went so far as to provide false backup. What's the big deal that has everybody's bowels churning? WS is taking steps to try to prevent this from happening again. It appears to be an isolated incident. Is it so earth-shattering that somebody pulled off a little scam?
As someone hinted at earlier, we get fooled everyday by advertising. Here, as far as we know, we got fooled once in 2+ decades.
I agree. I do appreciate the patience and professionalism of the WS editors through all this. It is apparent that the poster(s) is/are just stirring the pot and the editors have been doing a tremendous job tolerating it.
Posts: 1602 | Location: NC | Registered: May 01, 2007
quote: Originally posted by irwin: Ne Kulturny: Is it fair to blame the victim for the criminal's action? Do you blame women who are raped by evil guys because they wear alluring clothing, or do you blame banks for being robbed because they keep money in their facilities.
If a person is dishonest, and thereby injures an honest person, so far as I can tell, the bad guy is the dishonest person, not the victim.
Lets extend your bank analogy. Lets say said bank keeps all of said money in an unsecured back room with no security cameras (they don't purport to have any security); it also don't bother to do employee security checks on any of its 50 employees all of whom have keys to the back room (which is usually unlocked anyway because staff lose keys all the time), BUT each employee is required to sign a note saying they're honest AND the bank manager did Google each of their names verify that they've never done anything bad before.
And the bank gets robbed (duh!) and you have money in there. Do you fault the honest bank or the dishonest robber? Or both?
Above is a quote from Stevey: My answer is: The money was stolen by the robber. The robber is solely responsible for stealing it. There is a huge qualitative difference between the passivity of the bank and the activity of the robber. The robber has evil intent.
Originally posted by Board-O: I think this whole thing is blown way out of proportion. One jerk lied to the WS about a restaurant and went so far as to provide false backup. What's the big deal that has everybody's bowels churning? WS is taking steps to try to prevent this from happening again. It appears to be an isolated incident. Is it so earth-shattering that somebody pulled off a little scam?
As someone hinted at earlier, we get fooled everyday by advertising. Here, as far as we know, we got fooled once in 2+ decades.
I agree. I do appreciate the patience and professionalism of the WS editors through all this. It is apparent that the poster(s) is/are just stirring the pot and the editors have been doing a tremendous job tolerating it.
Originally posted by Board-O: I think this whole thing is blown way out of proportion. One jerk lied to the WS about a restaurant and went so far as to provide false backup.
Why do I keep wondering if Goldstein is actually Ashton Kutcher... and this is just another episode of Punk'd? Someone sets up an contrived, false situation in order to make someone else look foolish - for no other reason than "entertainment". Sure sounds like Punk'd to me.
Loring Wine Company
Posts: 353 | Location: Lompoc, CA, US | Registered: Feb 05, 2003
"My name is Robin Goldstein, and I’m the author of a new book called The Wine Trials (book here ; website here ). Lately, I’ve become curious about how Wine Spectator magazine determines its Awards of Excellence for the world’s best wine restaurants."
I'm sure more than one person has alluded to this before, but it must be terrific to get this amount of publicity-- both on the internet and in news publications-- while a new book is in distribution. You have to hand it to Goldstein; he's hit a gold mine with this move. Whether you think his actions were wrong or acceptable, it's a good illustration of that Brendan Behan line that "There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary."
Personally, I'm somewhat surprised at how large a mountain developed out of this molehill. And I recognize that just in posting this, I've added another yard of landfill to the pile, so I'll refrain from now on.
___________________________
Cheers!
Posts: 6489 | Location: Vancouver, BC | Registered: Oct 17, 2001
Originally posted by Board-O: I think this whole thing is blown way out of proportion. One jerk lied to the WS about a restaurant and went so far as to provide false backup.
Why do I keep wondering if Goldstein is actually Ashton Kutcher... and this is just another episode of Punk'd? Someone sets up an contrived, false situation in order to make someone else look foolish - for no other reason than "entertainment". Sure sounds like Punk'd to me.
Thomas, I can not believe WS is even considering taking this stand for this situation. My friend this is very simply black and white. How can any award be giving for a restaurant when your qualified staff haven't eaten at or been to? That is clearly like Me giving an aware car of the year when I have never seen it. For the sake of integrity say your evaluating the requirements and you will be making the necessary changes immediately. Do you still rate wines that advertise in your magazine? That has to be a conflict of interest. I have known for a long time why true wine people avoid your magazine but thought if anything you were helping by getting people that would normally not be into wines into them but come on. I feel bad for your readers and all I have to say is,"Decanter magazine". Get an issue or ten and learn.
I think everyone is missing the bigger point here. It's not how accurate or honest WS is with their wine awards, it's the fact that that issue of the magazine is about the only one to get recycled before I've even read it. No one in their right mind would choose a restaurant in a strange city based on that list. If you did so in my city, you'd be truly sorry, at least if you like food at all. Most good restaurants, and yes even those with great wine lists, don't bother with this sort of thing. In the end, those wine awards really mean very little. They are a waste of time from the consumers stand point.
Originally posted by GlennK: You think WS is going to knowingly take a risk putting through a fake wine list for the whopping sum of $250? I would think most “reasonable” people would consider the fee administrative to WS and nominal to the restaurant.
I don't know what you're trying to say here. Clearly WS didn't knowingly put through a fake list, also clearly a $250 fee didn't dissuade a determined individual.
The fee is administrative, yes, but to the general public it gives the appearance that the award could be simply a form of paid advertising.
I'm not saying that's what it IS, I'm saying that's what it looks like. All I was doing was offering a suggestion for a step WS could choose to take which would serve to repair their public image.
Originally posted by kjf: I think everyone is missing the bigger point here. It's not how accurate or honest WS is with their wine awards, it's the fact that that issue of the magazine is about the only one to get recycled before I've even read it. No one in their right mind would choose a restaurant in a strange city based on that list. If you did so in my city, you'd be truly sorry, at least if you like food at all. Most good restaurants, and yes even those with great wine lists, don't bother with this sort of thing. In the end, those wine awards really mean very little. They are a waste of time from the consumers stand point.
Congratulations are in order kjf. With your first post ever, you are now in the running for the most insipid, foolish if not moronic post yet.
There are 1000's of world class restaurants on the list.
kjf, be careful about over generalizing. Many people do use the WS lists and find wonderful restaurants with great wine lists. If one comes to Denver, they will find the Barolo Grill which has been on the WS list for the umpteen years. It is truly a wonderful restaurant in all aspects, one of Denver's best!
While in Hilton Head this spring we visited a restaurant that we had gotten off the WS list that was likewise wonderful. If it had not been for the WS guide we would not have found the restaurant because of its out of the way location.
Is the WS Restaurant guide the Bible guide for travelors, probably not nor does it claim to be. But it can be very useful, if you use it with practicality.
I also used to find the DiRoNA award award winner listing next to the wine listing very useful. I don't know why that ceased to be included. Listing the corkage fee is nice, but I always call to confirm before going.
Just one more sip.
Posts: 24987 | Location: NY | Registered: Oct 18, 2001
IT IS TO THE BENEFIT OF THE WINE SPECTATOR'S POSITION ON THIS ISSUE THAT THE COMPLETE LIST SUBMITTED BY MR. GOLDSTEIN BE PUBLISHED. PREFERABLY IN THE FORMAT/ORDER IT WAS SUBMITTED.
WHY ARE YOU AND MR. MATTHEWS NOT ADDRESSING THIS REQUEST MADE BY SEVERAL PEOPLE POSTING TO THIS THREAD (SPEAKING ONLY FOR MYSELF, I WOULD POINT OUT THAT I HAVE DONE THAT POLITELY AND RESPECTFULLY).
[understanding that all caps is usually considered "yelling" in chat and forums, I want to state that I am using all caps only in the hopes that the post will catch Mr. Molesworth's or Mr. Matthews' eye]
Arthur Przebinda
____ Faith CAN move mountains... but you have to bring a shovel. redwinebuzz.com, winesooth.com, redwinebuzz.com/forum, twitter.com/redwinebuzz
Machine, why should somebody that has no vested interest in this forum be allowed to take one dump in our virtual backyard and then run off only to leave the stench behind?
Joe ----- Wine is like potato chips around me...if it's open, it's gone.
Come visit me sometime at http://www.winexiles.com/
Originally posted by Shanej: Thomas, I can not believe WS is even considering taking this stand for this situation. My friend this is very simply black and white. How can any award be giving for a restaurant when your qualified staff haven't eaten at or been to? That is clearly like Me giving an aware car of the year when I have never seen it. For the sake of integrity say your evaluating the requirements and you will be making the necessary changes immediately. Do you still rate wines that advertise in your magazine? That has to be a conflict of interest. I have known for a long time why true wine people avoid your magazine but thought if anything you were helping by getting people that would normally not be into wines into them but come on. I feel bad for your readers and all I have to say is,"Decanter magazine". Get an issue or ten and learn.
Tool..........
-------------------- "One may dislike carrots, spinach, beetroot, or the skin on hot milk. But not wine. It is like hating the air that one breathes, since each is equally indispensable."
Marcel Ayme`
Posts: 6942 | Location: The Left Coast | Registered: Dec 01, 2001
Originally posted by kjf: I think everyone is missing the bigger point here. It's not how accurate or honest WS is with their wine awards, it's the fact that that issue of the magazine is about the only one to get recycled before I've even read it. No one in their right mind would choose a restaurant in a strange city based on that list. If you did so in my city, you'd be truly sorry, at least if you like food at all. Most good restaurants, and yes even those with great wine lists, don't bother with this sort of thing. In the end, those wine awards really mean very little. They are a waste of time from the consumers stand point.
Power Tool.......
-------------------- "One may dislike carrots, spinach, beetroot, or the skin on hot milk. But not wine. It is like hating the air that one breathes, since each is equally indispensable."
Marcel Ayme`
Posts: 6942 | Location: The Left Coast | Registered: Dec 01, 2001
What's really funny is the Tool/Trolls are just bumping up the site visit numbers.
I love irony..........
-------------------- "One may dislike carrots, spinach, beetroot, or the skin on hot milk. But not wine. It is like hating the air that one breathes, since each is equally indispensable."
Marcel Ayme`
Posts: 6942 | Location: The Left Coast | Registered: Dec 01, 2001
I'm officially walking now! I am thankful for this, and for my wife not having me put down. She may have suffered through this more than me.
