Effective immediately, Winethroplogy is instituting a long overdue change in reviews and content.
Since the inception of this site, all wines submitted as samples were reviewed. This policy was reflected in our samples policy page, as well as communicated to all the wineries and PR firms we deal with. The idea behind it was, send us your wine - good, bad, or ugly - and we'll review it.
This has turned out to be more to the benefit of wine marketers than readers; a backwards model that resulted in boatloads of mediocre samples showing up every week. A good problem to have? Believe me, the novelty wears off quickly, and the consequence was a lot of mediocre reviews. There are only so many reviews about average, indistinct wines readers can digest. Besides, the analysis component of wine reviewing sucks the life out of you after a while - especially when it feels like you're looking for a needle in a haystack.
So, with great faith that readers will value a) learning about wines that are truly worthy of their attention and, b) not having their screens cluttered with ignorable content, the change is going to look something like this:
If a wine is exemplary in any way (good or bad), there's a pretty good chance we'll publish a review about it, regardless of how we came by it: sample, wine bar, retailer, at a friend's house...whatever. It's foolish to limit our discovery based on what marketers are hawking. This does not mean that we will only be publishing reviews for artisan wines or from family-owned vineyards. Not at all. That $7 Sauvignon Blanc from Woodbridge? Hell yeah, we'll publish more reviews like that. And that $125 Cab from Carte Blanche? Yup, that, too. And many, many wines in between. We just have to separate the song from the noise, that's all.
This will also give more space for non-review pieces about everything from new sources for great wine deals to people and everything in between.
Finally, if there's something you've been curious about or would like to see covered, don't hesitate to reach out and speak your mind.
Cheers,
Steve
This has turned out to be more to the benefit of wine marketers than readers; a backwards model that resulted in boatloads of mediocre samples showing up every week. A good problem to have? Believe me, the novelty wears off quickly, and the consequence was a lot of mediocre reviews. There are only so many reviews about average, indistinct wines readers can digest. Besides, the analysis component of wine reviewing sucks the life out of you after a while - especially when it feels like you're looking for a needle in a haystack.
So, with great faith that readers will value a) learning about wines that are truly worthy of their attention and, b) not having their screens cluttered with ignorable content, the change is going to look something like this:
If a wine is exemplary in any way (good or bad), there's a pretty good chance we'll publish a review about it, regardless of how we came by it: sample, wine bar, retailer, at a friend's house...whatever. It's foolish to limit our discovery based on what marketers are hawking. This does not mean that we will only be publishing reviews for artisan wines or from family-owned vineyards. Not at all. That $7 Sauvignon Blanc from Woodbridge? Hell yeah, we'll publish more reviews like that. And that $125 Cab from Carte Blanche? Yup, that, too. And many, many wines in between. We just have to separate the song from the noise, that's all.
This will also give more space for non-review pieces about everything from new sources for great wine deals to people and everything in between.
Finally, if there's something you've been curious about or would like to see covered, don't hesitate to reach out and speak your mind.
Cheers,
Steve