Wine Writing - Who Knew The Complexities?

We must say that we are strict amateurs at this wine writing game.  We have chased this experience as a labour of love but we have become more and more aware that this truly is a business beyond our sheltered little Blog.  Over the last week or so, we have been following an unfolding story that has come up online about Canada's own Wine Blogging Maven Natalie MacLean.  For those unfamiliar, she is the author of a couple of Wine Drinking related books namely "Red, White, and Drunk All Over" and "Unquenchable".  Natalie has appeared on many TV talk shows discussing wine and being, well....a personality.  She has a Blog, a Mobile App, and has been given a number of wine writing awards.  All the while she presents herself as a simple wine lover who wants to share her love of wine with the world.  Fair enough.

Well, the reality is that she is a shrewd business woman who understands very clearly that there is a market for her talents.  She looks to have a number of revenue streams including charging for access to her wine reviews, she has personal appearances for which we are sure she is compensated, and as a published author she obviously gets paid for that.  None of this is inappropriate nor surprising.  Heck, in our minds, if you can make a halfway decent living writing and talking about wine then have at 'er.

The trouble is that she has left a few details out when it comes to her wine reviews.  Over the last week or so we have read a number of articles and comments about her business practices and her general character when it comes to being part of the wine writing community.  None of this commentary has been too flattering for Natalie.  There are accusations of plagiarism (copying and pasting from other sources and claiming them more or less as her own with little attribution), having wineries sign-up for her pay blog in order for her to do wine reviews and the list goes on.  You can read more on that at:

The Palate Press (They were first to report this)

and more Commentary from:

The Joseph Report

However, there are always two sides to every story and you can see Natalie's response here:

NatalieMacLean.com

Of most interest are the comments after each.  There are comments of support on her Blog and comments warning against a witch hunt, but overwhelmingly there are comments of complaint and misdoing some seemingly supported by some level of documentation.  There seems to be a lot of ill will towards her, and if the facts check out across the board, this would be deservedly so.  It is interesting to see that the mainstream media has not generally picked up this story.  It has stayed somewhat in the realm of the Wine Blogosphere; which has been characterized in a few places as being incestuous.  That said, in today's world of 24/7 Social Media access this tempest in a teacup has all the markings of turning into a real live tempest.

We do not subscribe to Ms. MacLean's Wine Reviews nor do we have any dealings with her other than an odd Twitter interaction so we really have no opinions on how she operates.  That said, this has opened our eyes to the business side of wine writing.  We have received wine for our enjoyment from external sources and we have obliged to review some of them on this Blog, but we have never asked for payment to do that.  In our minds, the wine itself is payment enough.  However, we have also said clearly that we will judge what we review and we will actually review it ourselves.  We have an unofficial policy that if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.  So there have been a few wines we have received that we truly didn't enjoy and thus didn't review them.  Maybe we should have reviewed them for transparency sake but we didn't.  At the end of the day, Pay-for-Play wine reviews just seems wrong, especially for smaller wineries that really can't afford extra expenses when trying to get positive reviews for their wines. 

After all of that, we are now more aware than ever that our words and policies have an impact, however minor, beyond our little Blog.  We will absolutely respond to anyone who feels that we have said something inappropriate or not referenced a source for anything on our site.  We feel bad for Natalie, but again, if what has been said about her is remotely true then the hens may be coming back to roost.

It is interesting to say the least.  Gotta love drama....especially when it comes to wine.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Let us know.

Keep on tasting!

Chris & Shannon