As a UK wine enthusiast, the WS ratings have absolutely no value or interest, so I remained unmoved by the whole event except for a chuckle or two. What annoys me, and it happens EVERYWHERE not just in wine journalism, is the nastiness, back-stabbing, frothing-at-the-mouth commentary (and it isn’t just @Sonadora having been bitten by a dog) when such stories come along.

A balanced review like this does help to put things in perspective, and one I happen to agree with .

thanks again for another in a long line of very interesting posts

Thanks for the comment!

I don’t necessarily disagree with you about the public’s perception, but I think it is important to examine both parties motives.

Goldstein may be a professor, but this wasn’t scholarly work he was doing, it was promotion. If you lose sight of that, you lose sight of the big picture.

And the big picture is that in the market for attention Goldstein is winning.

Also: isn’t “betrayed” a rather strong word. The details of the award and the process are freely available. They traded on their name and reputation, sure. But what commercial entity in the world doesn’t?

As long as folks are transparent, I don’t feel that many supposed “conflicts of interest” in the wine industry are truly compromising. Same goes for the Wine Spectator.

Thanks again for the conversation!

The publication wants to be respected as authoritative and trustworthy, but by relying on a record message, a claim that Osteria L’Intrepido is closed at the moment and/or a site on the web, it betrayed its readers. Executive editor Tom Matthews’ unapologetic explanation demonstrates how unjournalistic the publication really is. If a trade association chooses to honor a member to satisfy some agenda, that’s one thing. For a publication to do so is reprehensible — and accusing Robin Goldstein of malicious duplicity” and calling him an “unscrupulous person” compounds the journalistic felony.

Claire @ http://culinary-colorado.blogspot.com

An “Award of Excellence” means little or nothing.. a mention in the magazine, at best. These restaurants submit a wine list by mail and are judged SOLELY on that… What are there like 2000 restaurants with this award now? When I ran the program, there were almost 1600!

Second of all, I find it disturbing that Jim Gordon is taking a stab at his ex-employer(he was editor of the ‘tator for years)…

Basically, I don’t find it a problem that someone invented a restaurant and a wine list and got an award. It’s all for the sake of selling copies…