Cork heads

Well, what do you know. Suddenly one is a wine critic. Or wine writer? I think I'm going to stick with w(h)iner for the time being.
Anyway. I now understand how crappy reviewing happens. See, I'm on the inside now. I know that the clever PR-reps send bottles of their latest bottled bastardzation of a wine complete with a well-written table on the tasting notes as well as some references to previous vintages and snazzy comparisons to wines that average Joe will have heard of. Fab! Copy, paste, publish. Unfortunately; I swear it's the case in more than one magazine. Well, it's not true in MY case, but I've seen more than one ctrl+c/ctrl+v-job both on the internet and in print. Scary, huh?
I can only speculate as to the reasons why this happens. Maybe my wine-writing colleagues drank the bad bottle rather than doing the taste-and-spit routine and had to suffer the very unfortunate consequences of drinking freebee booze. Which, I might add, probably doesn't make the best setting for writing inspired pieces about bouquet. That part I understand, but the copy-paste deal? No. I don't get it.

So, having said all this I want to get the message out to all you ambitious public-relations people in the wine business. I love getting bottles of actual wine (made with actual grapes) in the mail. I also love getting background information on the wineries that you represent. I positively adore being invited to wine tastings. What I do not appreciate at all is being sent bottled shite, and spammy emails marketing the said shite on a daily basis. For that stuff, I'm not your target audience. Do yourself a favour and start a facebook page instead. Thank you.