I’m currently sitting at the desk in my room at Hotel Alma (above) on the University of Calgary campus, where we have been judging wines for the Wine Access International Value Wine Awards, looking for the best available wines across Canada under the $25 mark.
Vancouver’s own Anthony Gismondi is both Editor-In-Chief for the magazine and directing the competition. Up in the top right photo you can see him giving us an example of how he’ll deck us if there’s any funny business.
It’s a national panel of judges, and quite the dynamic crew including both a Master Sommelier and a Master of Wine, an often-barefoot Montreal wine journalist, and people with almost-porn names like Brad Royale. Oh, and lest you think it’s just a boys’ club, the always-lovely Jackie Cooke and “Dynamite” D.J. Kearney are along for the ride as well.
I’m quite impressed by the lack of bullshit in the whole thing. This is certainly an open, honest and valuable competition that seems to be comfortable in its own skin, without any egos or politics trying to elbow their way in. I was never made to feel that my voice/score/thoughts were not valid, there’s plenty of room for everyone’s input. There really is a casual tone in the room, which I guess there has to be when you’re judging a wine competition in the midst of World Cup fever…
There’s great transparency with the whole competition, we’re all allowed (and encouraged) to write about whatever strikes us as we work. There has been no censoring, kiboshing, favour-asking, nothing. There was also a Twitter frenzy on a daily basis, where you can certainly see that we weren’t shy with our opinions, raves, rants and the odd razzing of colleagues the next table over. There were some shitty Pinot Noirs and there were some awesome Tempranillos. Quality was all over the place, but that’s what we’re there to ascertain, so you don’t have to wade through bad plonk to find gems. We sacrifice our teeth for thee.
Off to another dinner tonight, we’ve certainly had some great ones already, but that’ll be another post.
Thanks, Wine Access, for having me. It’s been a blast.
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7 Responses:
June 17th, 2010 at 9:23 am
This post is interesting, but I have a few questions about the process if you are able to answer them. If the awards are ‘fair and equitable’ then:
1. How are the wines that will be poured selected?
2. Why are most of the wines in previous competitions large production and often corporate wine? I remain open to being shown otherwise on this, however.
Thanks,
Shea
June 17th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Hi Shea,
I’m afraid there’s no drama or juicy controversy to be found here, sorry.
1. As with most wine competitions, the wine selected to be poured comes from any winery or agent who would like to enter their product. There are no agendas or favouritism. They pay 100 bucks and they’re in! It’s that simple. The rules are clearly stated on Wine Access’ website: http://www.wineaccess.ca/IVWA/rules-for-entry
2. The reasons most of the wines in these competitions are large production and often corporate are both varied and valid:
i. They have to be wines that are quite widely available across Canada and in decent supply, otherwise what’s the point of giving them a spotlight?
ii. It is generally ‘corporate’ wine that have enough product to be able to be in dozens of major markets.
iii. Many smaller, ‘independent’ wineries don’t enter their wines, since a) they generally sell out anyways or b) they just don’t have the supply or c) they simply just don’t ‘do’ the competition thing.
iv. There just aren’t that many independent, natural wines with grapes hand-picked by virgin maidens and crafted by wee, enchanting 17th generation winemakers under bio-dynamic guidelines that come in under 25 bucks, now are there?
If there are, please pass ‘em along!
Best,
KK
June 18th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Thanks for the info – I’m certainly not looking for controversy. I guess I’d just say I always get a little tingle in the back of my brain regarding these (and other magazine) awards.
This is not necessarily meant as a criticism, but aren’t these wine access awards, then, simply a vehicle for corporations to sell wine and to make wine access money? What does the consumer get out of this? Note that I realize it is more the laws and regulations within Canada that are to blame for this annoying situation.
Also, the reason I really care is not because I have any fanciful notions that we should all be buying wines from charming 17th generation winemakers (love the description btw 
). Rather, I guess I wonder if it is possible to support wines that aren’t made in ways that do harm to the environment or that rely on underpaid labour. The production chain for these products becomes hidden under the flash and dazzle of points scoring and awards without mention of other factors that should be important considerations for consumers. I realize that this may seem idealistic, but I wonder if wine journalism provides consumers with any added value when they simply become a vehicle for corporate marketing. For instance, I’d love to see a series of articles in Wine Access on why corporate wines dominate the national market and what tactics they use to do so and why government regulation supports these practices. Then I’d like to see a balanced analysis of the benefits and detriments of corporate wine making (I’m sure there are both), with a good look at supply chain and production issues. These kind of considerations would be extremely valuable and could lead to better labeling for wine bottles and deeper consumer information – something that I’m always happy to see more of.
Again, thanks for the info and please don’t take this as any sort of critism. These are just niggling questions I have thought about for a while. Cheers!
June 21st, 2010 at 12:25 am
Hi Shea,
I don’t even know where to start.
Are wine awards a vehicle for corporations to sell wine and to make Wine Access money? Of course that’s one of many aspects. We live in a capitalist society and businesses aim to make money through many avenues.
I enter wine programs I run into wine list competitions and garner awards which, in a way, sells myself and businesses I run. Is that somehow immoral? Is it somehow different when large, corporate restaurants and operators do the same thing to the same acclaim?
Can Rob Van Westen enter his wines into wine competitions? He’s a second generation Naramata farmer, raising 4 daughters in a simple small-town bungalow, who churns out maybe 1000 cases a year while utilizing sustainable farm and business practices plus employing and housing young people in the workforce.
What about Blue Mountain, at 12 000 cases, practically bio-dynamic, and paying Mexican immigrants much better than a simple living wage, plus benefits, housing and so on?
At what point is there a line where there is somehow no validity to one’s involvement in these sorts of things?
It’s possible one might think of Chile, with many of their corporate wineries producing hundreds of thousands of cases annually. On a recent extensive trip there, I was witness to every winery we came across, crossing the threshold into sustainability (agricultural, cultural, financial) while pushing for greater integrity of product. That and, their employees are totally taken care of, in many cases the wine companies provided assistance, support and finances (not loans) to help their employees rebuild their homes and lives after the earthquake.
So when you say, “I wonder if it is possible to support wines that aren’t made in ways that do harm to the environment or that rely on underpaid labour”, the answer is – of course it is, and that’s occurring in each issue of this magazine and many others. Frankly I find it bizarre that you don’t see this happening in magazines/media large and small, let alone wondering if it’s even possible.
Awards issues, competitions, end-of-year lists etc. always do well on newsstands. Why? People love that shit! People are going to buy $10 wines whether you like it or not. My job (and the magazine’s) is to help them find the good stuff. It’s a tough economy and many magazines are folding, small and large. To come down on Wine Access for wanting do well and sell issues is preposterous.
And, as to what you would like to see being written about in Wine Access, they have an editorial team to tackle that. If you were to give it a perusal (have you?), you would see in the current issue (May/June) alone:
- An opening article commending Australian wineries for becoming and promoting carbon neutral practices by Karin Nybo.
- A piece by John Schriener on the popularity of rosé wines that focuses on Heidi & Mike at JoieFarm, my across the street neighbours who carry many of these values you seek.
- A full page on Ontario’s Charles Baker wines (production: 550 cases a year) by Rick Vansickle.
- Craig Pinhey’s fun (full page) piece on L’Acadie Vineyards. Organic certification, 1500 cases a year, etc.
- A piece entitled “The Next Big Thing” by Gismondi (cover story) calling for winemaking practices to go back to their roots, respecting terroir and losing negative corporate influence.
- Karin Nybo writing again, this time on Natural Wines, the places that promote them, and why they are important.
I could go on, but my point is that when you say, “I wonder if wine journalism provides consumers with any added value when they simply become a vehicle for corporate marketing.” and go on to say “The production chain for these products becomes hidden…without mention of other factors that should be important considerations for consumers” , you are obviously barking up the wrong tree here.
I’m not saying there aren’t companies and corporations that have unsavoury practices, but to somehow apply this mentality so broad in this particular case is misguided at best.
I’m all for fightin’ the good fight, but it’s always a little give and take to get the word out, and some of that give might be letting some bigger corporate entities pay some of the bills.
Isn’t that why you currently have an ad for Buick/General Motors running on your website?
KK
June 21st, 2010 at 9:43 am
Thanks for your response. Lots of interesting info here. I have a couple things to address.
First off the ads on my site are not there to pay the bills. It was more of an experiment and a test about how I felt about using ads on my site – one that has earned me a grand total of $7. There is only one small add halfway down the main page on the right hand column. I also have put in explicit requests not to allow any wine brand messaging (I’ve yet to check if they are keeping that end of the bargain or not). I’m not sure if I will continue – I’m still looking into the advertising practices and service issues. I have also paid for every bottle of wine I’ve consumed other than one series where I accepted samples, and then wrote about the experience of accepting samples and the impacts of this on journalistic integrity after the series.
In any case, perhaps I did not articulate my concern effectively. I wasn’t talking about these issues as a high horse ‘moral’ dilemma. Rather, I am thinking about them with respect to the idea of journalism as the “4th estate”. That is, good journalism has a responsibility to look behind the obvious and to be critical. This is one of the problems with magazines whose business model relies on things like free samples, press junkets, corporate ads, and, yes, competitions that have entry fees. Journalism is about being brutally honest and good journalism essentially means that you will have no friends and that you cannot have personal or business relationships with the subjects of your journalism.
As an example, personally I’ve seen many industries green wash, etc. on press junkets. It’s easy to hide the dirt when the journalist’s trip is being paid for by the subjects he/she is support to be researching. That’s just shitty journalism and it doesn’t get to the real issues (of which there are always some). I’ve personally had to put my own time and money into delving into some issues more deeply than wineries and other industry organizations wanted or were willing to show.
I understand that the business model for journalism has changed now and that consumers are less willing to pay fees that support this sort of quality work and so media has to look for other sources of revenue. But, then to me that still doesn’t mean that media that does not operate truly journalistically is respectable. It becomes downgraded in a ‘race to the bottom’. I guess the problem becomes one of if a magazine can only support itself by using practices that are counter-journalistic, then is it really a piece of journalism anymore? Maybe I’m just hoping for too much.
That said, the list of articles you posted and the ones I perused at Wine Access’ website do show that there is some journalism going on. I have to concede that having other content in the magazine that is actually journalistic counterbalances some of the concerns I have about the competition.
I also think it is really fascinating what you told me about the wages and production practices of those wineries. It is good that media is supporting businesses like this. My argument would be: that sort of stuff should be made much more transparent in the awards and by the magazine generally. This is still information that most people don’t know, and it is hard to appreciate it when wines made with attention to production concerns are sitting right next to corporate wines in an awards list.
I would say that I’m also concerned because I think BC (and Canada generally) has so many legal mechanisms set up that make it difficult for small businesses. In wine, there are laws that support and laws that work against our local wineries – but there are also laws and regs that strongly work against smaller wineries or medium sized business from elsewhere. And our laws certainly don’t encourage supporting better labour practices or environmental stewardship. So, I guess I just wish that journalists would push these issues more strongly. Right now I think BC has a lot of vanilla journalism, and it’s not helping things. Of course, I was very happy to see Gismondi’s piece in the Vancouver Sun on the new markup. It’s too bad that the myriad of other issues see no press time/space.
In the end, I suppose this is just a disagreement about acceptable practices for journalism. You argue that it is more about give and take and that it makes more sense to bend the rules and principles somewhat in order to achieve a few good results. I argue that I want journalism to have more strict principles and journalistic integrity. Your argument is probably more realistic in the current economic situation and the decline of traditional models for media. I suppose that my hope is someone will figure out a solution that preserves journalistic integrity and adapts to the issues and demands of the new media and new economy.
In any case, it’s a great debate and I appreciate the excellent points, arguments and supporting information you have used. I’ve learned a lot. Cheers.