Is Wine Criticism in Crisis?

In an article at “Hyperallergic,” art writer Hakim Bishara confronts the alleged crisis in art criticism in terms uncannily reminiscent of the hand-wringing that plagues wine criticism. The parallels are striking.

Bishara argues that what many decry as a decline is, in truth, a transformation. While traditional roles in legacy media have diminished, and the field is awash in amateurs and influencers, he  insists that art criticism is thriving, just not in the forms nostalgics recognize.

Much of the so-called crisis is attributed to structural shifts: “full-time art criticism jobs in legacy media have become scarce; negative reviews are harder to come by; and nobody reads reviews anymore,” now that the internet has democratized opinion. But these laments, he argues, are less about the health of criticism and more about the loss of control by the old guard. Far from dying, criticism is mutating, spreading across platforms from Substack to TikTok, attracting a wider, younger audience:

“It’s a buzzing genre that attracts readers of all ages, from septum-pierced college students to cigar-puffing art collectors.”

What has disappeared is not criticism itself, but the cult of personality that once allowed a handful of elite critics to make or break an artist’s career. What is in crisis, however, is the space once reserved for slow, serious thinking.

The real problem with art criticism today is a profusion of bad-faith actors, useful idiots, vapid scenesters, pitiful star-fuckers, press-release recyclers, dull theorists, hopeless graphomaniacs, paid influencers, cheap provocateurs, and apolitical, nihilist hacks.

But even this, Bishara claims, is the sign of a healthy ecosystem. The weeds are proof the forest is alive. The real threat comes from the market’s desire to replace criticism with public relations. Big galleries and auction houses now fund and publish their own glossy magazines, creating a “dealer-critic system” that dates back to the 19th-century Paris salons.

The market preys on this self-perpetuating crisis, eager to co-opt writers with above-market-level pay for dutiful press releases and catalog essays, lavish trips, and access to their VIP circuit.

Still, despite the structural precarity, critics persist, not because they are naïve, but because they believe in the craft: “Many stick with it for the love of the craft, and resist pressure to write market-friendly fluff pieces.”

Much of this could be said of wine criticism as well.

In both worlds, there’s a long-standing entanglement between criticism and commerce. Just as art criticism has often served the dealer-collector apparatus, wine criticism has been complicit in shaping market hierarchies, price points, and consumer behavior.  Think of Parkerization in the 1990s—a single critic’s palate transformed global winemaking. In both cases, critics once held quasi-tyrannical influence over taste, and the loss of that centralized authority is not necessarily a tragedy but a recalibration.

Today, anyone with a palate and a platform—be it TikTok, Instagram, or Vivino—can fashion themselves a wine critic, just as anyone can publish art takes on Substack or YouTube. This democratization brings noise, but also vitality. Critics in both realms bemoan the glut of unserious, market-friendly, or algorithm-chasing commentary. Yet the abundance of “bad criticism” is arguably the price of a living culture. As the article notes,  every forest needs its parasites. Wine criticism, like art criticism, is accused of irrelevance in an age when fewer people read long-form reviews and more rely on aggregated scores or influencer content

But just as the article insists that good art criticism still shapes discourse, good wine criticism that is sharp, reflective, and historically and culturally situated continues to exist. Writers like Andrew Jefford, Jancis Robinson, Eric Asimov, or Jamie Goode still engage in that deeper, more interpretive mode.

Whether on Substack or in the pages of The World of Fine Wine, serious wine criticism remains a live genre, even if the economic scaffolding that once supported it has eroded.

Just as the article by Bishara challenges ossified notions of what counts as “real” art criticism, we might also ask, what qualifies as wine criticism today? A TikTok sommelier pairing Pet-Nat with Doritos, or an Instagram reel on supermarket Chianti—are these forms of criticism, or just entertainment? The answer may depend on whether they engage not only the senses but the social, historical, and material structures that shape what we drink and how we value it.

Both fields are haunted by their proximity to marketing. In art, as in wine, the line between criticism and advertorial has grown perilously thin. Whether it’s a glowing bottle review slipped into a lifestyle mag or a sponsored tasting disguised as editorial content, both domains suffer from the market’s desire to smother real critique with soft praise. And yet, the very presence of such pressure affirms the enduring value of unbought criticism.

Wine criticism, like art criticism, is not dead. It is undergoing a metamorphosis. It is dispersed across platforms, often stripped of authority, occasionally compromised, but still capable of insight and provocation. The real question is not whether criticism survives, but whether we still have the appetite for writing that unsettles, for judgments that resist easy pleasure, and for voices that call taste itself into question.

Just as the best art criticism is the crisis, the best wine criticism doesn’t reassure us—it ferments trouble.