And more points! Daniel Posner rant

Daniel -

As the others have said, welcome to the WLDG. I read much of the e-Bob stuff and I have a hard time understanding the brouhaha. It appears that you were giving your clients, who most likely have some understanding of your tastes, an honest opinion on the WA's scoring and writeups for certain wines. As a wine drinker, I find that to be a data point. Assuming I had some knowledge of your tastes, this could lead me to either hold off on buying any of the wines based on Dr. Miller's scores or maybe to buy them up like crazy. Either way, you're supplying another data point. Given the prices of wines that get 98+ points in the Advocate, I think we need all of the data points we can get. While I understand that some participants on the other board will always be defensive regarding the Advocate, it is disappointing that someone like Pierre Rovani could not take your comments with a grain of salt and just let them be.

Mike

I also saw the thread about "terroir" Victor!!! Things have not livened up yet, it`s all so friendly. Seriously, Spain and "terrior" would make for an interesting discussion. I am thinking of the Toro region which seems to be making some serious wines. Sorry, back to the Daniel matter!!

Because it was largely civilised Brits making most of the discussion. A few of the 'anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot' posters could still make a mess of things...
cheers,
Graeme

I got some free press

Always useful in order to sell those undrinkable high-points wines, isn't it?

I also saw the thread about "terroir" Victor!!! Things have not livened up yet, it`s all so friendly. Seriously, Spain and "terrior" would make for an interesting discussion. I am thinking of the Toro region which seems to be making some serious wines. Sorry, back to the Daniel matter!!

Because it was largely civilised Brits making most of the discussion. A few of the 'anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot' posters could still make a mess of things...
cheers,
Graeme

Personnal thought, if I wanted to troll (is that the right word?). I would have the word "terroir'in the heading. Guaranteed to draw a large crowd over there!
Thinks we have had a good discussion here, somewhere. I am really keen to know about Spain`s terroir however. BTW Graham, how relevant is terroir in your opinion regarding Australia?

BTW Graham, how relevant is terroir in your opinion regarding Australia?

Oh, as relevant as anywhere else, Bob. I guess there are regional differences which are clear enough amongst the better-known areas. And there are doubtless specific sites which speak clearly enough - Henschke's Hill of Grace shiraz perhaps being the most obvious example; a single vineyard wine from a 140-year-old site - the only difficulty being that for the 50-odd years it's existed as a stand-alone wine it's only been made by two people. I figure you sometimes have a tough time distinguishing between the site speaking and the winemakers voice under those circumstances. If you accept that the grand crus of Burgundy speak their own language despite being interpreted by many different makers each year, then it might be hard to find something in Australia anything like that. There aren't many 'distinguished sites' that are owned by more than one person...

Many of Australia's other great wines are either from recently (30-odd years) established sites, or don't have a history of being made from the same source year-after-year. And the great sites often see their produce go to places where it can't be specifically identified. Penfolds own some of the country's best vineyards, but you don't see them consistently bottled alone and identified as such.

In short then, yes, there's plenty of terroir, it's just not so easy to find, nor quite so promoted as elsewhere. And where it is, there's often not a lot of history to show yet.
cheers,
Graeme

Because it was largely civilised Brits making most of the discussion.

I shall have to have a word with my countrymen they're letting the side down