Good Grape Wine Company

September 19 2009

The Closed Loop

Have you ever been in a discussion with your husband or wife and said something that you thought was inconsequential and suddenly your fecund discussion takes a left turn for the worse and is prolonged for 40 minutes while you bear the wrath of a furrowed brow and animated gestures?

It’s no different than the grade school recess conversation that inadvertently bruises feelings and leads to the loud proclamation, “You must be Crazy!”

I’ve been on the receiving end of the, “You Must be Crazy” this week after writing a post questioning a column Matt Kramer wrote in the October 15, 2009 issue of Wine Spectator.

Normally, I let posts stand as an individual slice of time and perspective, but I want to re-visit this one to ensure my point is clear.

And, apparently, nobody gives a rip when you take a shot at Robert Parker, folks will even help you align your sight adjustment, but people come to the defense of Matt Kramer, bedecked in hunters’ orange in the wine world of life. 

In particular, I wrote a sentence that wasn’t the main point of my original column, it was a small point within a larger point, and was obviously ill-explained based on the feedback I received.

I said:

While they talk about credibility, they don’t acknowledge the brand boost that they get writing for Spectator, Enthusiast, or other traditional outlets. Speaking of credibility, I really have no idea what gives Kramer and the rest of them any more individual credibility then Joe Blogger down the street, but I know that they write for outlets that help burnish their own image. With due respect to Matt Kramer, without Wine Spectator he probably doesn’t get a chance to write books. Ditto that for others. I’d hazard a guess and say that the Wine Spectator masthead has done more for affording wine writer’s ancillary opportunities than anything else in the modern wine era, 1970’s – to present day.

Specifically, I got some grief for the sentence, “Speaking of credibility, I really have no idea what gives Kramer and the rest of them any more individual credibility then Joe Blogger down the street …” Comments were unfortunately closed on the post due to a technical issue, but several people took issue after the fact and let me know that I was, essentially, an idiot.  Certainly, that’s fair criticism in the realm of “perception is reality.”

However, let me explain my reality with a little more context to the sentence … The column and sentence in question was neither a head-in-the-sand attack nor muckraking.

Matt Kramer is a very talented writer, one of the few reasons I subscribe to a certain magazine, and the author of three books that I have read and own.  I’ve read his seminal book Making Sense of Wine three times, in fact.  It might be the most valuable book I’ve ever read on wine.  In fact, if you search my site for “Matt Kramer” you’ll see numerous references, all of them reverentially tendered.  In addition, if you go to the “Good Grape Recommends” section you’ll see a recommendation for Making Sense of Wine.  My writing style, where I take a long-form columnist-style approach with a beginning, middle, and end with a point, is heavily influenced by Kramer.

So, yes, I know the Matt Kramer of today, a writer with, apparently, 33 years of wine writing experience, according to one blogger who took me to task, explaining he has been writing about wine since 1976. I know he has written for Wine Spectator since 1985 (when I was a 6th grader playing Nerf football during recess at St. Jude’s and drinking Capri Sun’s at lunch). 

Of course, I know who Matt Kramer is now, after he has written books, after he has written for Spectator for almost 25 years.  But, what was Matt Kramer doing when he was six years into his wine writing career circa 1981, five years hence to his work at Spectator and eight years prior to writing Making Sense of Wine?  Where was he, what was he doing and what were his credentials at that point in time?

This is an important question, because the lifetime of wine blogging is but 6 years old. 

The point that I glanced at, but obviously didn’t get across is: if somebody is going to make suggestions for credibility with online wine writers, then let’s compare apples to apples.  The longest tenured wine blogger has been doing it for 6 years.  Okay, great.  What was Matt Kramer, Jim Laube, or anybody else doing when they were six years into their wine writing career?

My guess is that they were probably somewhere along the same learning curve as many of the best online wine writers.

Credibility is really a function of time and is intrinsically linked to reputation.  The former is the inspiration of belief and the latter is public perception.

Yet, to play the credibility card, to mix apples and oranges, based on their tenure relative to others, seems a trifle off to me … particularly because there is a scant difference between reputation and credibility, and mainstream writers trade heavily on reputation, reputation that is built by several factors. 

First, most mainstream wine writers trade on the brand established by their employer and their historical reputation that gives them a credible whole.  However, their credibility, separate from brand, tenure and reputation, is questionable.

Does that make sense?  It’s a really nuanced point for a blog post and goes to the core to the thumping bass line that is mainstream wine writer’s principal point about online wine media. 

Let me put a fine point on it:  absent Matt Kramer’s reputation, and long body of work what makes him credible? 

People are credible based on their reputation, which is based on their body of work.  Their reputation is built based on who they associate with and their whole.

Perhaps it might have been better if Kramer took the tone of mentoring with open arms instead of delicately rebuking. He could have suggested that online wine writers work on their craft in long form to build reputation and he could have done so in a paternal sense instead of questioning sense.

So, overall, no, I’m not crazy, but when I say I have no idea what gives Matt Kramer any more credibility than Joe Blogger, what I am really saying is, “All things considered, strip away the books and the brand, and the modern day reputation, and what gives Matt Kramer more credibility than an online wine writer aside from tenure that can’t be duplicated?” And, what precisely was he doing when he was 4, 5 or 6 years into his wine writing career that can act as an equivalent reference point?

Overall, my comments weren’t a statement of lunacy, or a delusional lack of context, not knowing what I don’t know, it was a statement of sobriety.  And, if somebody can help me better understand then I might be more inclined to improve upon my sixth-grade progress report given to me when Kramer started writing for Spectator, “Jeff enjoys recess with his peers, is bright and confident and shows leadership capabilities, but he regularly questions the institutional structure of authority.”

And it’s that institutional structure of authority that is really what this is all about.

*Note* For a differing tact that focus on technical assessment of wine, check out my editorial at Palate Press.

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