There is an outstanding, and I do mean outstanding, article by JamieGoode on TimAtkin's blog:
JamieGoode:WineJournalism
This is exactly the rant I've been making for yrs & yrs on the sorry state of WineJournalism. But nobody listens. And I seriously doubt anybody will listen to Jamie's version of wine hell. So we're probably all destined to "drink from the firehose of wine scores" (JonBonne's term) for the rest of our lives. It is truly sad.
This last weekend, as I was cleaning out some stuff in my back room, I sat down and read a few issues of Vintage magazine and WineWorld magazine. Damn....there were some very/very interesting articles in there (some even written by yours truly) that are still very interesting. Heck, even some of those early WineSpectators (back when it was a National Enquirer style of publication under BobMorrissey, out of SanDiego) had some interesting articles in them. For the record, I have a complete collection of the WS from Vol#1/Issue#1. Don't let my kids throw them out when I croak (not gonna happen very soon, though).
It's awfully easy to poke fun at the life-style magazine called the WineSpectator. But I do have to give them credit, you'll, on rare occasions, find an actually piece of wine journalism in them. Not at the level of NormRoby/BobThompson/JasonBrandtLewis/etc, but something that approximates "wine journalism".
Tom
