At the Marlborough Wine Weekend Grand Pinot Noir tasting, I made an plea for wineries to stop bombarding me with impersonal press releases detailing every last gong, medal and trophy success. Instead, (and here's a novel idea), I asked for winemakers to send an email, perhaps a couple of lines, letting me know about the wine being released. I appreciate that winemaking is a full time job and most winemakers don't have lots of spare time to email all and sundry, but personal contact, however small, can make all the difference to a wine writer looking for a story.
A comment about a wine from Jackson Estate prompted Mike Paterson to get in touch and as a result of our visit to see him in September, we have a better understanding (I hope) about him and the wines he makes. Likewise Framingham's Andrew Hedley pens his own emails, sending thought provoking commentary (or in the case of the last one) alerting us to the fact that the Buzzcocks were playing Auckland and Wellington.
But for most winemakers, it seems that once the wine is in bottle, many hand over responsibility to a third party (be that their own marketing department or outside PR agency) to espouse the virtues of the latest release.
Why ?
On Sunday an email arrived alerting me to the fact that a Marlborough winery had won a trophy. Written by a third party, not the winemaker, it was addressed to "Dear Wine Officiando". I presume the author meant aficionado, but I wasn't certain. After all, just to make sure I hadn't missed the point, the word was repeated again, this time as officiando's. Leaving aside the misuse of the apostrophe I am surprised no spell checker was used. Or dictionary consulted. The email continued, asking me to 'enjoy and endulge' but by that point I had lost the will to live.
It isn't only smaller wineries that make mistakes. The latest release from The Ned talks of terrior which I assumed was a typo until I saw it repeated on the glossy, and no doubt expensive, website.
I am not a winemaker, but I am positive that had I put a whole year's worth of hard work into producing my latest vintage, I wouldn't let someone else send out a bottle of my wine together with a couple of A4 sides of incorrectly spelled, grammatically incorrect PR spin.
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