Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Another Wine writer takes a swipe at bloggers

Whilst reading the current (March 07) copy of Olive magazine (my wife's magazine subscription as opposed to my Decanter) I came across the wine column (how very surprising!). Headlined "Net Gains" Wine Nerds have always loved the Internet, and now they are busy setting up blogs to tell the world about their favorite wine.

Max Allen, starts by introducing the idea of wine websites, and the fact there are indeed spawns and spawns of wine related blogs out there, and admits that they do range from fascinatingly addictive to just plain awful (just, he says, like all other blogs out there). So far so perfectly fair. He then goes on to make generalisations - most blogs are either - what I drank last night or what a lark this would be I hope people send me some free wine. These, he says, are not the blogs he liked preferring blogs that give him an eye on another corner of the globe (has he never realised that everywhere is another corner of the globe to someone!) or "quirky" blogs!
He does recommend some good sites, and then goes on to remind us that most, general wineblogs are mundane - well I'm sorry Max - if you ever read any blogs anyway - which I somehow doubt - but most blogs aren't actually written for you to read anyway. You seem worried that anyone can do it - and immediately you're then telling us about Neal Martin and Jamie Goode - who are admittedly the two greatest bloggers out there in the UK scene - but I think you've given yourself away a bit - could it be that as a writer your concern is not that the writing is bad, or that it's just plain boring - let's face it - if they're bad then you have no worry about them because noone will read them - could it actually be that your worried that not being called Jancis yourself, not being well know that perhaps your services are under threat. After all if everyone can read what they like about wine online free of charge, why would anyone want to pay you to write something?

1 comment:

farley said...

And that, my friend, hits the nail on the head. I'm reading blogs so much these days (esp. since I started writing one, right?) that by the time Wine Spectator comes out, there's no urgency to read.

Not that there ever really was, as most articles are by a group of older white men with far more wine resources than I have.