The Debate and Fallout Continues (14 Aug)

The flack and debate from James Halliday's comments in his latest wine Companion has continued. (If you have not seen the initial Snippet – and all the feedback, - it was posted under the title “Yanks get their Knickers in a Twist”.)

Since then, a new four-page thread on the Mark Squires/Robert Parker Forum started, and this time it did not get out of hand and remained civil. Sparky himself entered the thread, behaving in a magnificent fashion, and answering loads of questions from participants. Robert Parker also joined the thread and made the following comment.

"I find the most fascinating aspect of the Dooker wines the following ...........why in the world do those who dislike the wines feel so insecure about their judgements that they have to rant on and on about how bad the wines are? Moreover, why insult anyone who does enjoy them?...based on the sales, people do actually enjoy them and I doubt point scores or critics' opinions play more than a minor role...a suggestion...if you don't like a wine...post a tasting note...give us your opinion...don't foolishly behave as if your taste represents that of every tasting prodigy in the world....I don't care for under-ripe vegetal Chinons...but I don't stockpile them in order to trash them either....and I wouldn't insult those people who are fond of the wines....just don't care....too many good wines in the world to be looking to insult somebody and behaving like some insufferable, arrogant jerk...let's not forget...it is wine...only wine...”

Interesting; certainly thought-provoking! Pity I don't have a bottle of Mount Mary handy to sip whilst I contemplate Robert Parker's thoughts.

Over the past few years, I have noticed any discernible drop off in the amount of Australian wine content on many of the US wine forums. Without doubt, the three overseas forums with the most Australian content are the Mark Squires site, the UK Wine Forum and Wine Spectator.

One of the US wine forums that manage to get some Australian comment is Wine Depot. In a semi-related thread, the question was posed Is there "an American Palate"? This thread remained very civil as well.

From my perspective, in some ways the most interesting thread related to this topic took place on the Wine Spectator Forum. In a thread titled Halliday on Mollydooker much speculation was made in relation to what Halliday's comments actually meant and the motivation behind them. This forum is lightly moderated and has been known to turn into a bear pit, and become nasty fairly quickly. Thankfully, this does not happen with anything like the frequency that occurred in days gone by. Although there were some rather pointed and rude digs, by and large the thread was fairly civil and the participants well behaved.

I was one of the active participants in this thread. In one of my posts, I had the temerity to reference a post on the Robert Parker Forum, and criticised the comments and conclusions a poster had made. Well, did that cause an unholy fuss! The post in question was authored by Jeff Leve, and as luck would have it, he is a moderator on the Mark Squires forum. He posts on the Wine Spectator forum as Pomerollvr.

Jeff took exception to my criticism of his comments on Wine Spectator, and felt I should have entered the fray on the Mark Squires forum. When I explained that that was impossible because I had been banned from posting on that site, and referenced a short explanation as to why I was banned, he came back with another post. Jeff had two major complaints. The first was that I “uncool” because I had “carried something from one board to the next”.  The second was that I had taken his comments out of context.

In his second response to me he states, “First, I did not know who you were until today. So, obviously I was not aware you had lost posting privileges until reading your post. I do not understand why anyone who has been booted from Parker's website would want to read what is taking place on it. But, that's up to you. Your post on your website about why you lost the right to post on Squires board is not completely true. You seem to have left out some facts. But, if that works for you great.”

In part, my response was as follows: “Now this is most interesting. In essence, by your own admission you did not know anything about my removal from the Squires board until today, yet you are quite prepared to call me a liar. And that is exactly what saying "is not completely true" implies.

From this, I can only guess that you have heard Mark Squires version of the events and are prepared to believe what he has told you.

This whole thing was played out in public with many witnesses to the events. I will be happy to get about a half a dozen well respected contributors to Squires forum that will verify that my account is factual and I have not left out any facts that have twisted the truth.”

My response continued to address other points he had made in his previous post.

It is worth reading page 2 and page 3 of that thread, because the exchange makes interesting reading.

In the article I recently wrote about Wine Bloggs, Daniel Rogov, in relation to the differences between Wine Bloggs and professional publications said, “The second category can be described by three words: accountability, accountability and accountability. To whom precisely is the blogger accountable? Quite simple – his/her own conscience and nothing else.” Whilst writing this snippet, those words of wisdom were firmly implanted in my mind. We should all be accountable for our comments on the Internet. Unfortunately the anomous non-deplumes or handles that many people use on some wine forums does not encourage accountability.

If the internet is to be taken as a credible medium, accountability must not just apply to Bloggers; it must apply to those who hold influential or positions of responsibility on the internet. The job of moderator on the world’s largest wine forum qualifies as a position of responsibility, and as such, people in these positions should be held accountable for their comments.

When someone publicly calls me a liar on a wine forum, and then does not have the intestinal fortitude to either apologise or to back up the allegations they have made with facts, then I'm happy to draw attention to it on TORBWine.

Feel free to submit your comments!

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2007