Wine Writer Gone Wild

Have you ever noticed that big time wine writers and wine reviewers rarely make fun of themselves and their profession, despite the fact that when you back up and really observe what reviewers do, it's kind of funny: The lengths they go to inoculate themselves from bias, the formality, the special glasses, the palate cleansers. All the things that go into tasting, rating and reviewing wine has to be kind of absurd for someone on the outside looking in.

But the potential for real comedy lies in wine writer making fun of his profession for an audience of wine geeks and wine professionals. The potential for inside jokes is just truly great.

We finally have a wine writer willing to do just this, and I take pride that I may have somehow done something to inspire it. But what makes it work is that he's among the best and most experienced wine reviewers.

You can find Steve Heimoff's send up of wine reviewers HERE (click on the link...it'll get you to the video)

I'm particularly fond of Steve's send up of the notion of bagging wine and tasting it blind.

It doesn't really take much bravery on Steve's part to pull off this video. His place in the wine reviewing world is safe. He has no ladders to climb. As the Wine Enthusiast Magazine's West Coast Editor and as one of the folks with the most experience reviewing wine for a consumer audience in America, the Wine Enthusiast has a real prize on their hands with Steve.

Steve's video reminds us that those of us in the Wine Industry and those who are close to it often suspend our incredulity in order to get our work done. Let's face it, despite the talent of someone like Steve or the other top wine reviewers in America, and despite the talent of America's many fine tuned palates, we aren't doing brain surgery. We aren't fighting fires. We aren't saving lives. We aren't educating the next generation. We are talking about wine.

Whether you appreciate Steve Heimoff's parody of himself (and others), you have to give him kudos for saying what often goes unsaid 

Comments

[Richard Smith]

Tom, I admire and like Steve - he and I are the only wine writer's I know who include fiction and now video in our blogs. But I think Steve may have had muses more potent even than your good self.

On July 29th (fully 21 days prior to Steve's posting), Rufus - another equally reknowned and qualified wine expert - and I, posted the first episode of our weekly Video Blog.

I encourage you and your readers to check it out, either through my blog "Corked" or directly on You Tube at;

http://www.youtube.com/RichardandRufus

Upon refelction, I suppose the chances that the 64th viewing was Steve Heimoff and not my mother....again, are probably slim to none.