Snobs, Critics, and Wine Lovers

There will be no wine reviews this week. I’ve been fighting flu symptoms for days—beginning the day after getting a flu shot, funny that. I couldn’t smell a skunk if it sprayed my face. So detecting subtle hints of lemon verbena is out of the question.

When I can’t enjoy my wine I get curmudgeonly. So it’s a good day to quote the Wine Curmudgeon who is ranting once again about wine snobs.

Scott [film critic A.O. Scott] writes that: ” ‘Snob’ is a category in which nobody would willingly, or at least unironically, claim membership,” so I must assume he has never read wine criticism or discussed wine with the too many people who are too proudly snotty about what they drink.

Scott laments the decline in the influence of critics in an age of Yelp, Facebook and other media where everyone is a critic. But in the wine world (some) critics have inordinate influence and snobs tend to rely on them for their talking points, bragging about Parker points and Wine Spectator scores.

But as the Wine Curmudgeon points out there is irony in this relationship between snobs and critics

…there is a difference between snobbishness and criticism, and I’m surprised Scott didn’t make that point more strongly. A snob rejects anything he or she confiders inferior, even if there isn’t a good reason to do so. The best critics, and Scott is certainly one, detail the whys and wherefores, allowing us to make up our own minds. Good or bad isn’t even the point, which is why wine scores are so useless and why something as stupid as “Animal House” can be so much fun to watch. Rather, did that wine or that film or that restaurant do what it set out to do, and did it do so honestly and with respect for both the form and the consumer?

Yeah. Most of the wine snobs I encounter know the Parker scores of the wines they drink but haven’t a clue about vintage variation, picking strategies or oak treatments.  Snobbery has little to do with criticism.

But I want to point out another distinction—the distinction between wine snobs and wine lovers. Snobs care only about maintaining the perceived quality of what they drink. Wine lovers, by contrast, drink everything always exploring unfamiliar wines and new approaches because wine lovers are enthralled by the rich diversity of the wine world and the breadth of experience it offers. Some of these wines won’t be of the highest quality, many are rustic and unpolished, but they nevertheless reveal something important about their region, the winemaker, or winemaking practices.

Or to put it succinctly, wine lovers seek experience, wine snobs seek approval.