If You Get A Chance To Write About Wine, At Least Make An Effort

It’s a worthwhile story if a little fawning. But this pretty good story about new wine clubs on the scene is ruined out of the gate by its reliance on old tropes, red herrings, stereotypes and downright fables:

“Millennials love buying wine so much it’s shifting sales of vino to the internet, as is the natural progression of all things beloved. Millennials “getting into wine” is the antithesis of what was once deemed an elite hobby, much to the chagrin of wine snobs. But at last, the democratization of wine is here — and there’s nothing they can do about it”

Drinking wine was never considered an elite hobby by anyone younger than 80 years of age. But it does have a nice “barbarian-scaling-the-walls” quality to it.

Then there is that reference to the “chagrin” of “wine snobs”. How do you sit in front of a WORD doc and start off a story about innovative wine club companies by disparaging a group of people you don’t know, don’t know exist, nor can confirm they are what you say they are: chagrined. I just don’t get why a writer would so willingly degrade their own work so quickly out of the gate.

What I don’t understand, in the end, is why a writer is so ready to fall into disparagement. Did he meet some snobs who were hoping to “do something” about these wine clubs, but are upset they can’t? 

Moreover, all this comes in the story’s first paragraph…right up front. Yet, he never comes back to it. He never confirms there are wine snobs anywhere who care about, let alone know about, these wine clubs. It’s terrible writing and reporting.

One thing is clear. The quality of writers today being asked to write about wine has been downgraded considerably from years past.

Posted In: Wine Media

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7 Responses

  1. Eric Meyer - March 22, 2018

    Even worse than the disparaging opening paragraph, the author of this story doesn’t sound to me like he even likes wine?

  2. Colin MacPhail - March 22, 2018

    Interesting. Gabriela Barkho is the name on the piece so it looks like ‘he’ is a ‘she.’ The headline premise is a loose collection of tired images run up the flag pole to imply conflict and drama. Unnecessary bluster for a hustling effort.

    The previous article noted by the author at Inverse is ‘Millions of Americans Are Buying Their Weed Online.’ (Presumably no longer from those elitist weed snobs…)

  3. Austin Beeman - March 23, 2018

    The writing style that you justly criticize read like just another hackneyed ‘click-baity’ piece of internet content. Maybe even ‘marketing copy’ by someone who doesn’t actually understanding marketing.

  4. Blake Gray - March 23, 2018

    Ugh. Thank you for doing this takedown so I may remain in my lair.

  5. Tom Orsat - March 23, 2018

    If you don’t think there are wine snobs, and age doesn’t play a part, just go to one of those Carmel or Santa Barbara “wine experiences”. You know…the ones where they’re also showing off their 1948 fully restored MB! Just watching their body language and how they hold a wine glass is enough to make you belly laugh to exhaustion. Even more telling is to ask a wine related question and watch their faces turn Rose’ pink with the shakes!

  6. Patricia - March 23, 2018

    Hmmm…We meet these sorts in the City (of London, UK) all the time. I promise you that many so-called wine snobs simply look at price and believe the wine must be good. And of course, the wine must be even better if it’s old. In the UK, the adage is ‘Old is good; new is bad.’ Sometimes old is just ‘too old’. Well, I promise you some of these (mainly) blokes wouldn’t know good from poor or even faulty if it hit them or bit them. Best thing is to simply ignore the wine-snobs and search for the good wines and bon-rapport-quality-prix wines, of which there are plenty, even in the UK. Buy those, instead. After all, would we all like 1997 Chateau Count every night? Maybe, but would we appreciate it every night?

  7. Bob Rossi - March 25, 2018

    “Even worse than the disparaging opening paragraph, the author of this story doesn’t sound to me like he even likes wine?”
    Or even knows about it.


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