Wine Lover Takes On ‘Wine Spectator’ – And Wins
It’s always fun when people stump so-called experts in their area of expertise, right? Robin Goldstein, naughty American extraordinaire, did just that by duping the folks at Wine Spectator magazine into thinking his imaginary upscale restaurant was real. Not only that, these wine experts gave high scores to wines that had been previously poorly reviewed at the publication!
Food and wine writer Robin Goldstein, a New Yorker, is a naughty American who pranked the editors at Wine Spectator by creating an imaginary restaurant that only featured wines that had received low rankings in the magazine.
Robin Goldstein just might be a Naughty American. Certainly, he is to the staff at Wine Spectator, which is perhaps the best known wine publication in the United States.
Goldstein is currently writing an academic paper about the standards used for wine awards. As part of his research he decided to see just how particular the Wine Spectator staff was about who receives one of its coveted Awards of Excellence, given to restaurants based on the quality of their reserve wine list.
So he created a fake restaurant called “Osteria L’Intrepido,” supposedly set in Milan, Italy, made up a menu that he says featured dishes that combined too many fancy ingredients, and made sure the reserve wine list was only composed of Italian wines that had scored very low marks from Wine Spectator reviewers.
For instance, Wine Spectator’s own review for the $200 bottle of the 1998 Amerone Classico “La Fabriseria” says it “smells like bug spray,” while the review for the 1993 Amarone Classico “Gioe” ($150) gripes about how the wine has “just too much paint thinner and nail varnish character.”
Luckily, Goldstein says trying the wines wasn’t necessary.
“I just wanted to see the degree of scrutiny that Wine Spectator would give to the reserve wine list, because if they had just gone through and looked at their own rankings and ratings, that might have raised some eyebrows,” he said. “I don’t know anything about how their process works so I don’t want to speculate.”
But while Wine Spectator editors may not have analyzed the wine list for the Osteria L’Intrepido, they had no problem carefully analyzing Goldstein’s $250 application check.
“The one additional point of contact I got during the process was when they asked if I wanted to buy a larger advertisement,” he said.
Goldstein insists his prank was “not some attempt to smear Wine Spectator,” but rather the beginning of what he hopes is a dialogue about the standards for rating wines.
“I want to open a conversation about the standards for awards in the restaurant and wine world,” he said. “I definitely didn’t experience much of a connection for the base level award of excellence with good wines and good restaurants, so I was wondering what the standards were. I did it to satisfy my curiosity and to open this dialogue.”
Goldstein is quick to point out that he’s not singling out Wine Spectator, just the standards for the awards that these “elite arbiters of taste in our society” are giving out.
The list came out in early August and was accessible on the Wine Spectator Web site until Goldstein spilled the beans during a speech at the meeting of the American Association of Wine Economists in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 15.
Since then, Goldstein has been interviewed all over the world and Wine Spectator has removed the embarrassing listing from its Web site. Other than that reaction – which Goldstein expected – he says the reaction has been extremely positive.
“It’s stirred up some feelings that people had been having about the degree of scrutiny of these particular programs,” he said. “I think people have become skeptical of these elite awards programs. When you’re accepting payments from the restaurants being considered, is there any compromise of integrity? I think that’s been on a lot of peoples’ minds.”
Goldstein realizes his method of testing his theory is somewhat naughty, especially in the rarefied pretentious world of fine food and wine, but he’s okay with being called a Naughty American as long as the higher purpose of his prank is understood.
“Some aspects of this are going to make people laugh. There is an element of comedy to it, but, to me, the research question is serious,” he said. “There are many millions of dollars at stake here for wine producers, restaurants and the magazine. The magazine makes more than $1 million a year in its awards program so the question of what the standards are for these awards and their connection with payment is, I think, a serious question.”
