I WRITE ONLY FOR YOU

My Allegiance is Not to Wineries. Not to vintners. Not to Winemakers

Charlie Geoghegan, writing for Decanter the other day, posited this in his subhead: “Wine critics should feel compelled, obliged even, to publish the bad as well as the good.” The title of his opinion piece is, “Honesty should be the best policy for wine critics”.

Charlie Geoghagan: “Some producers have the financial muscle to absorb bad press, but many don’t.”

Of course honesty should be a journalist’s watchword; and by extension, not just a Boy Scout trope, but must be the credo of every journalist. Of course, we scribes, many of whom do not adhere strictly to this fundamental practice of the craft. The reasons are myriad, from afraid of losing access, fear of offending the recipient of a negative post, and even scared of losing one’s job at the hands of a myopic editor.

During a three-year period in my wine journalism career, I found myself toiling in the belly of the beast: Napa Valley, which is to wine as the New York Yankees are to baseball, and the current presidential administration is to the globe.

But from day one as I began writing about wine, when I sat down at the typewriter/computer, my charge was to the readers of my work, mainly people who were looking for some advice as to which wines(s) they should plunk their hard-earned cash down for a bottle of wine. My allegiance was not to the wineries. Not to the vintners. And not to the winemakers.

While I often liked and admired that troika of wine producers – many of whom were the nicest, smartest, and funniest people I’ve met along the way, who made some good wines -- I always endeavored to keep a professional distance. I wasn’t their friend.

Thus, I adopted a strategy that I picked up as a kid in Brooklyn, who was desirous of becoming a sportswriter; and who did: Humor, irony, and satire was the way to go. Employing drollness – not unlike in the Shakespearian manner (I’m not delusional, I ain’t no Shakespeare) -- gives the illusion of pulling the punch. My wine writing style has been patterned after a young group of New York sportswriters, who came to prominence in the late ‘50s-early ‘60s, as the so-called Chipmunks, which to this day, the reference eludes me. But not their raison d’étre.

I’m not bald, but I read Vic Ziegel and Maury Allen, sports columnists called The Chipmunks for my wine writing inspiration.

Anyway, these guys (yes all men in those days) used humor to poke the bears of the time: The Mantles, the Auerbachs, the entirety of the start of the Mets’ existence. One of those writers – and my favorite – Vic Ziegel, wrote this on the occasion of covering a horserace:

“An unheralded horse named Drosselmeyer won the Belmont Stakes, the last leg, thankfully, of the Triple Crown. That’s right, Drosselmeyer, pronounced Drosselmeyer, but not too often in the week before the race. His winning time was 2:31.57. Secretariat, who won his Belmont in 2:24, would have beaten him by, oh, 40 lengths. Drosselmeyer must never be told.”

Chipmunk satire allowed the writer to live another day in the dugout, in the clubhouse, and in the locker room. Simply because they were funny -- but had hidden a shiv under their notebooks.

The political climate in those daze was just beginning to inculcate the young folks who lived the hippie life through the ‘60s and changed a nation, which in turn led to today’s political retribution.

Heretofore, sports columnists until the late ‘50s rode the buses, planes and stayed and dined in the same hotels as the players. An atmosphere not at all conducive to unbiased journalism. But when the Chipmunks came along, Mickey Mantle, drinking at the same bars as the newspaper guys – and sometimes drinking with – some of those writers began taking the wraps off The Great Mick, and wrote about him and some of his Yankee teammates’ drinking habits and how the imbibing may have deleteriously translated to the field.

This place reminds me of a dining room at the famed Mama Leone’s in Manhattan were I and The Chipmunks sports columnists would sometimes break bread and drink vino with New York’s pro athletes. (See the sports pics on the wall.)

It may not be necessary to take those kinds of barbed “shots” at wine people. Unless, like sports, there’s prop bets on wine? But it is mandatory to call out a wine that’s not as advertised, or on a wine charity whose donations didn’t all land in the pockets of its intended beneficiaries. Nor is it good journalism to not alert one’s constituents i.e. the reader, that a winemaker is sexually abusive.

The political climate today sees the media as an enemy, but the vast majority, especially in the print sphere, which serves as a warning signal to corruption and egregiousness.

Thankfully, transparency has begun sideling up to wine journalism. Because you, our readers, are for whom we write and report in the first place.

As examples, below are some of my earlier wine and restaurant writings that go back almost 15 years:

“A restaurant wine list is supposed to be a living, breathing document. At Capo’s, the second North Beach Chicago-style red sauce speakeasy for Tony Gemignani., the wine list swims with the fishes. Which is more the pity because the food – for this genre – is very good, the portions can choke a horse, and even many of the wines, are good. But indulge me for a sec as I riff on Capo’s Chicago-land gangster theme: The moleskin bound carte dei vini seems to have a garotte wrapped around its throat.”

***

“I once went to a restaurant, schlepping to Ojai because I read that it had one of the largest and best wine lists in the world. Indeed, there were a gadzillion wines in a book that could give you a hernia. I selected my meal, chose a wine and anticipated a great experience. The wine indeed was beautiful. The food? It made me nauseous.

“The moral: The food was so bad that this was the kind of restaurant where you bring your own food – and they should charge you forkage!”

***

“In the end, the new winemaker at Big Wine Corp. was charming and knowledgeable, but the wines were as mediocre as I had suspected they would be; and they weren’t even the wines of the new winemaker, because he hasn’t been on the job long enough to enjoy his first crush at the BWC.”