Re: 2014 UGC (Vin 2011) Standouts for me. What are yours?
Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 9:42 pm
http://forums.winespectator.com/eve/for ... 9157028442
A few excerpts:
"... I have essentially seen and heard it all. Yet it is extremely difficult to bite one's tongue and hold back comments when a vociferous minority are perpetrating nothing short of absolute sham on wine consumers."
"[The internet is] also a breeding ground for the perpetration of myths, half-truths, innuendoes and at times outright falsehoods. How frequently do we see such individuals passing off as conventional wisdom things that have been created and manufactured by one person and then bouncing them off hundreds if not thousands of people in cyberspace. Of course, this becomes a self-reassuring circle of group think, or it may be called "Kim-Jung-unism". Those that start this nonsense care little for the truth or about actual quality, even though it would seemingly be easy for most people to see how self-serving and agenda-driven their rhetoric is. The worst results can be that perfectly reasonable people come to blindly accept these statements as fact. Of course, that is the intention of the perpetrators. The propaganda machines of totalitarian regimes work the same way."
"Obviously 35 years of [RP's] comprehensive writing about the wines of the world doesn't leave too many stones unturned, and so it is difficult to impossible for new wannabes to get attention, and even more unlikely to monetize their internet site. So they do what many people do in many fields when they can't stand on their own merits and credibility - they simply try to discredit the people at the top and use both the producers and their readers alike in their self-serving scheme."
"It is easier now than it was 35 years ago to enter the "wine writing" field and - at least theoretically - become a "wine writer/critic", but because of that, it is also quite difficult to make money at it. And money, one's livelihood, ultimately becomes the real truth serum. Few website owners make a living from their sites, largely because many of them are 1) lazy, 2) have narrow agendas, 3) offer little in the way of content and substance, 4) appear to be constantly whining about the failure to monetize their sites, or 5) are the antitheses of consumer advocates."
"This sort of vaudeville, thinly veiled behavior is intended to divide the wine-consuming public into an elite minority of "truists" (they are not really; no real truth there) versus the "oh so uneducated masses" or downright stupid consumers blindly drinking supposedly unhealthy, reprehensibly made, compromised, industrial crap. The absurd heights of this have even added phony words such as "spoofing" or "spoofilator" to the wine lexicon to suggest some omnipresent evil laying waste to "authentic" wine. Don't these people consider how offensive they are to you - presumably a wine consumer? Of course, these false prophets of doom are simply putting forth self-serving propaganda..."
"What we also have from this group of absolutists is a near-complete rejection of some of the finest grapes and the wines they produce. Instead they espouse, with enormous gusto and noise, grapes and wines that are virtually unknown. That's their number one criteria - not how good it is, but how obscure it is.... just how absurd this notion is becomes evident when the results are oxidized, stale, stink of fecal matter as well as look like orange juice or rusty ice tea being poured into a glass and passed off as "authentic", "natural" or "real" wine. This is the epitome of cyber-group goose-stepping, a completely deranged syndrome that somehow the internet has allowed to persist. Again, there is only one reason for this type of writing, and that is not to bring greater pleasure to readers and wine consumers, but rather a lame and fraudulent effort to get self attention to the detriment of the wine consumer."
"In conclusion, please realize this was motivated first and foremost by the fact that I am a wine consumer advocate. While it is usually my inclination to take the high road and just avoid these firestorms, widespread deceptions and distortions mandate an intelligent response."
"I desperately have tried to find merit in these movements, and would love to invite well-reasoned arguments that support them. The fundamentals of open and cordial discussion and debate are essential."
A few excerpts:
"... I have essentially seen and heard it all. Yet it is extremely difficult to bite one's tongue and hold back comments when a vociferous minority are perpetrating nothing short of absolute sham on wine consumers."
"[The internet is] also a breeding ground for the perpetration of myths, half-truths, innuendoes and at times outright falsehoods. How frequently do we see such individuals passing off as conventional wisdom things that have been created and manufactured by one person and then bouncing them off hundreds if not thousands of people in cyberspace. Of course, this becomes a self-reassuring circle of group think, or it may be called "Kim-Jung-unism". Those that start this nonsense care little for the truth or about actual quality, even though it would seemingly be easy for most people to see how self-serving and agenda-driven their rhetoric is. The worst results can be that perfectly reasonable people come to blindly accept these statements as fact. Of course, that is the intention of the perpetrators. The propaganda machines of totalitarian regimes work the same way."
"Obviously 35 years of [RP's] comprehensive writing about the wines of the world doesn't leave too many stones unturned, and so it is difficult to impossible for new wannabes to get attention, and even more unlikely to monetize their internet site. So they do what many people do in many fields when they can't stand on their own merits and credibility - they simply try to discredit the people at the top and use both the producers and their readers alike in their self-serving scheme."
"It is easier now than it was 35 years ago to enter the "wine writing" field and - at least theoretically - become a "wine writer/critic", but because of that, it is also quite difficult to make money at it. And money, one's livelihood, ultimately becomes the real truth serum. Few website owners make a living from their sites, largely because many of them are 1) lazy, 2) have narrow agendas, 3) offer little in the way of content and substance, 4) appear to be constantly whining about the failure to monetize their sites, or 5) are the antitheses of consumer advocates."
"This sort of vaudeville, thinly veiled behavior is intended to divide the wine-consuming public into an elite minority of "truists" (they are not really; no real truth there) versus the "oh so uneducated masses" or downright stupid consumers blindly drinking supposedly unhealthy, reprehensibly made, compromised, industrial crap. The absurd heights of this have even added phony words such as "spoofing" or "spoofilator" to the wine lexicon to suggest some omnipresent evil laying waste to "authentic" wine. Don't these people consider how offensive they are to you - presumably a wine consumer? Of course, these false prophets of doom are simply putting forth self-serving propaganda..."
"What we also have from this group of absolutists is a near-complete rejection of some of the finest grapes and the wines they produce. Instead they espouse, with enormous gusto and noise, grapes and wines that are virtually unknown. That's their number one criteria - not how good it is, but how obscure it is.... just how absurd this notion is becomes evident when the results are oxidized, stale, stink of fecal matter as well as look like orange juice or rusty ice tea being poured into a glass and passed off as "authentic", "natural" or "real" wine. This is the epitome of cyber-group goose-stepping, a completely deranged syndrome that somehow the internet has allowed to persist. Again, there is only one reason for this type of writing, and that is not to bring greater pleasure to readers and wine consumers, but rather a lame and fraudulent effort to get self attention to the detriment of the wine consumer."
"In conclusion, please realize this was motivated first and foremost by the fact that I am a wine consumer advocate. While it is usually my inclination to take the high road and just avoid these firestorms, widespread deceptions and distortions mandate an intelligent response."
"I desperately have tried to find merit in these movements, and would love to invite well-reasoned arguments that support them. The fundamentals of open and cordial discussion and debate are essential."