Should Negative Wine Reviews Be Published?
By Tim on Jul 24, 2006 in Wine News
Like a lot of people who write about wine, I have chosen not to publish negative reviews although my scale allows for low marks. If you do a search here, you’ll not see any wines under 7, although my tasting log has some 6’s recorded. This policy doesn’t seem like such a bad idea watching what is happening with fellow wine blogger Cam from Appellation Australia. Even though he prefaced his notes in the nicest possible way, the winery, Graeme Miller Wines, has threatened legal action based upon his negative review. So if you Google Graeme Miller Wines now, you’ll see 4 negative posts on the first page of 10 results. Nice job keeping the bad review quiet, guys. As more bloggers write about this, the more bad (online) press will spread. This is what makes wine blogging so compelling to me. While the wine press keeps these things silent (for the most part), wine bloggers provide another way for consumers to be better informed before buying wine.
This whole episode has me reversing my policy of not posting negative reviews. The next bad wine I taste will show up here with the details of what I didn’t like. With so many good wines on the market, it makes sense to warn readers of the wines to avoid.
