Comments on: I’d Rather Drink Water

By: Sonadora

Sonadora — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:43:36 +0000

Thanks for all the thoughts everyone!

By: Jim Wilkerson

Jim Wilkerson — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:21:51 +0000

I don’t mind posts/reviews of less-than-good wines at all. As a reader, if everything I read from a blogger is “this is a fantastic wine”, my brain starts to slightly discount their praise. The negative/meh reviews provide some perspective. And as you say, it gives a fuller picture of the writer’s palate.

On my blog (vinegeek.com), I write about good and bad wines for a few reasons:
1. I typically only open 3-4 bottles per week. (I drink about half of the bottle on night 1 and the other half the next day.) If I only blogged about the really good ones, I’d probably only post once per week. Until I win the lottery or the blog blows up (not likely) and I start getting overrun with samples, I’m viewing every bottle I open as blog content.
2. One of the reasons I started the blog was to be a record of my tasting notes and my on-going wine education. Writing about why I don’t like something helps cement it in my brain and lets it serve as a reference for the future, versus just dismissing/forgetting it. (Many a time, I’ve been in a wine shop staring at a bottle thinking “I know I’ve tried that, but is that the one I loved or the one I didn’t care for.”) I hope the negative reviews can serve that role for readers, too.
3. The secondary goal of my blog is entertainment. Sometimes describing a bad/boring wine is more fun! I can make references to sea-monkeys, the Spin Doctors, Bath & Body Works, etc.

Having said all that, I start to get antsy if I have 2 or 3 meh-to-negative posts in a row. That’s no fun for the blogger/drinker or the reader.

Thanks for this post. It’s good to hear another blogger’s thought on this and it helped me to think through why I do what I do on my blog. Keep the posts coming – good, bad and ugly!

By: larry schaffer

larry schaffer — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:54:05 +0000

Thanks for the blog – great topic. I generlly do NOT find ‘bad wine’ reviews to be helpful . . . other than to point out the variability that exists with many wines . . .

IF I were to review a wine and find it subpar, the first thing I would do would be to find a second bottle of the wine just to make sure that the wines were consistent. This is the same methodoloy used at all of the ‘leading publications’ – they always insist on receiving two samples of each wine . . .

But life is too short not to enjoy what you drink . . . Have I dumped my fair share of wines down the drain? Of course . . . BUT I have also saved a few of these and been pleasantly surprised how they ‘transformed’ in the bottle over a one or two day period . . .

The end result? Dunno . . . I guess just keep tasting (-:

Cheers!

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:02:43 +0000

Personally? Absolutely! I read something on the order of 300 blogs (thank goodness everyone does not post every day like you do). After scanning through to see which wines people are tasting, if they liked them or not, I could easily go into a wine shop and pick out a few wines, staying away from wines that you or others might not have liked. Why? It’s arbitrary, but not more or less so than choosing because of the color of the label. If I end up tasting EVERYTHING in the store except those few that people did not like, sure I’ll pick them up.

All reviews have merit.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:11:08 +0000

yeah, it helps. if you describe something as being “off”, folks can try to find the same off-flavor so they can recognize it in the future in bad wines. It’s pretty subjective, since all palates are different, but it’s a baseline, and a critical part of wine education and palate training.

By: Taster B

Taster B — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:31:47 +0000

To your point, I guess bad reviews can serve as a baseline to put good reviews in perspective with regard to the reviewer’s palate but, I also agree life is too short to drink bad wine, and its definitely too short to READ about bad/boring/blah wine!

By: e.b.

e.b. — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:28:18 +0000

“Do you find reviews about bad, meh, or uninspiring wines to be useful?”

Yes. Srsly.

By: themanfrommoselriver

themanfrommoselriver — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:25:47 +0000

I lived for far too long in Asia and therefore hesitate to write something unpleasant or outright negative. I just don’t give them a mention at all.