In Steve Heimoff’s most recent post regarding the controversy surrounding Robert Parker’s independent consultants (you can read the Wall Street Journal article on it here) he writes these words:
Look, folks. Every wine writer with any influence or connections has partaken of gourmet meals for free. Every wine writer with any influence or connections has been hosted, or limo’ed, or accommodated, by his or her hosts, to some degree, and at one time or another. I have, and so has each critic I’ve ever known — because over the years I’ve run into them at the same feasts, in the same hotels, at the same festivals whose entry fees were waived for members of the media. I don’t know Dr. Vino personally; perhaps he is that rare bird, a wine writer and critic who has never taken a dime from a winery or winery organization. If that is so, he must be independently wealthy, which few wine writers are.
In response I worte this comment. Looking at it after I hit submit, I was dismayed at some grammatical mis-steps, and missing words (my wife copy edits all my posts). Also it’s important enough that I wanted to reproduce my thoughts here on my blog.
Nice post Steve.
I fault no critic for taking free meals, free private jet rides, free admission and free lodging. I have no problem with reviewers tasting wines non-blind while on junkets and then scoring them. You folks have to eat after all, and you need a ride to get there. Why not do it in style?
While I don’t condemn Parker for what’s happened, I am extremely pleased at recent events.
Why? Because it has given me the perfect opportunity to convince key influencers to stop comparing themselves to the pseudo high standards set forth by Parker in the WA and in his books.
Citizen reviewers on Twitter, blogs, cellar tracker and vinfolio should all be viewing themselves as mini Kermit Lynchs, not mini Robert Parkers.
The same way that bloggers can post affiliate links to books that they review and earn a commission from Amazon, I believe that bloggers and others in social media should be able to post links for others to purchase the wines that they review and earn a set dollar commission.
Further, I believe those links should go straight to the winery’s website. Reviewers should acknowledge the fact that they are earning a commission. They should also be paid handsomely for it, because they are the channel of the future.
It’s transformational. Imagine social media links on multiple platforms all driving recommendations and reviews right to the source, to where the wine is made. All done transparently. All done ethically.
How? As you point out, credibility is earned and folks must take critics on their word. They won’t read you if they don’t trust you.
The same logic applies to citizen reviewers. And if they disclose that they are getting paid if you click a link after a good review, there can be no conflict of interest. Why? Because if their readers begin to sense that they are giving wines that they earn money from good reviews simply to earn a comission, they will stop clicking those links. They will stop trusting those reviews. No readership, no trust, no revenue.
The system is self policing. This disperse channel will coalesce, and it will be the most transformational event in wine since the repeal of prohibition.
These are exciting times. And we will have Parker, Jancis, and you Steve to thank for helping speed its arrival with your candor.
Agree? Disagree? This was not tongue in cheek stuff. I mean it. And while some conservative wineries may question the legality of affiliate links, I am firmly in the camp that believes that set cash commissions for affiliate sales though links does not endanger a winery’s license.
And as for the ethical questions: to use Heimoff’s term, it truly is a tempest in a tea cup.
charlieolken
5 months ago
Does it not strike you that you are trying to have your cake and eat it too?
If the only standard for people who write about wine and then sell the wine they recoommend, is that you don’t get a bellyache from the wine, then you are, bu analogy, licensiing every reviewer in every field to selll the very products, services and entertainment that she or he is supposed to be reviiewing.
After the fact standards are no standards at all. If that is the transformational world that the Internet will bring us, we will all be worse off for it.
Josh Hermsmeyer
5 months ago
Hi Charlie,
Thanks for the comment!
Wine is subjective, and no real review can capture the Truth of what it is. Therefore every review will fall short of whatever standard you wish to posit. What has prevented people from enjoying wine has been a perception that it must be understood in all its wondrous complexity to be properly enjoyed. That myth is crashing, along with the idea that the top reviewers are somehow completely insulated from the producers, importers and PR agents that are trying to sell the stuff.
The transformation is simply this: people don’t really need anyone *except their trusted circle of acquaintances* to tell them what to like anymore.
Reviews as we know them, well aren’t as we thought we knew them. This opens the door for regular people to share their considered opinions on wine, and to profit from it in the process.
I don’t know about having my cake and eating it too, but I sure am excited!
Thanks for the conversation!
RichardA
5 months ago
Ok, let me take a stab at a response, especially on the ethical issues. I’ll preface that I have long been interested in, and have studied, ethics/morality, since acquiring my BS in Philosophy.
You feel that “citizen reviewers” should be more like Lynch than Parker. Maybe I am wrong, but that seems to me like you want them to be more sales people rather than critics. I don’t think that is what is needed, or what most bloggers want to be. Plus, I would say that if they were sales people, that raises different ethical issues.
As for the affiliate program, I do forsee potential ethical issues. Could those ethical issues be avoided? Probably, but it requires careful consideration.
You stated reviewers should be paid handsomely, yet the more money that is involved, the greater the chance of bias and confict of interest. If I receive $10 for referring a wine, it probably would not be a big deal. If I receive $1000, that would be a big deal. As much as someone claims the money won’t affect their opinion, that is much harder to put into practice when lots of money is involved. That is one reason most professions usually try to limit the dollar value of permissible gifts.
You stated: “And if they disclose that they are getting paid if you click a link after a good review, there can be no conflict of interest.” I don’t agree with that at all. Mere transparency does not guarantee the absence of conflict of interest. It certainly doesn’t in other professional fields such as law.
A biased citizen reviewer is not going to tell his readers he is giving a wine a good review just for the money. And how many readers are actually going to take the time to investigate that? I don’t think too many readers will do that. They will generally only react if something is blatant. And that is sometimes hard to determine. And a single incident is unlikely to drive away all readers.
For transparency, would you require these citizen reviewers to tell their readers exactly how much money they gain from all their affiliate links? For example, say the reviewer gained $1000 from all the affiliate links of a single wine. Should they have to tell their readers about the total amount they received? The more money the reviewer receives, the greater the chance of bias, so that probably should be revealed as well.
The system won’t be self-policing as insufficient readers will follow up to determine whether bias actually exists or not.
Thanks
Josh Hermsmeyer
5 months ago
Richard,
Thanks for a typically well reasoned comment.
In re: what bloggers want to be, I don’t think we’re talking about a homogenous group. Some want to monetize, some don’t. I’m simply for giving them the choice. Also: I’m not limiting this to bloggers. Links on social media like Facebook are in play, Twitter etc. That’s why this is such a big deal.
Now my view of this future and yours are quite different. Yours is more cynical. You see money as being a distorter of Truth, delivering a taint so powerful that folks will change their reviews simply to get more of it. But we’re not talking about 1000s of dollars here. The typical affiliate pay check from Amazon is less than 3 dollars a month.
The actual payment I propose would be around $20 for my wine price point. It will be different for each winery. But it won’t be high enough to tempt a reviewer into a short term decision that could cost them their credibility.
You are also much more cynical about the power of people to unearth bad apples than I am. If any one blogger, Twitterer, Facebooker, Cellar Tracker etc gains enough influence and he stands even a chance of being thrown off his pedestal, there will be a line of folks waiting to do it. It’s human nature.
Finally the key point here is that the people we’re discussing are not professionals, They are not putting on airs. They are simply saying, I had this wine, and I liked it enough to recommend it to you, my circle of friends. Oh and by the way, if you do buy it through my link, I’ll get enough cash to buy another bottle of wine for our next party.
That is beautiful, and I can’t wait for it!
Thanks for the conversation!
RichardA
5 months ago
Josh:
I agree that I have a more cynical outlook but I also think it is realistic. Money is a very potent motivator for people in general. But I did not state that money always leads to bias. But, it is only natural that the greater the money, the greater the potential of bias. That $3 Amazon check would most likely not lead to bias.
Now is the payment you are proposing of $20 per bottle or month? Per month, that probably again would not be a problem. Per bottle, I could see potential bias as the total amounts then could get much higher.
We also have to note that it can only hurt their credibility if they are caught. And that can sometimes be difficult to do. How exactly could it be proven? Does a person get the benefit of the doubt until they make a blatant mistake?
I do believe that many people are too lazy to unearth bad apples. Who currently checks on the credibility of bloggers? Basically only other bloggers. I don’t recall any significant issue where the general public initiated an inquiry. It is hard enough to get the general public to post comments on blogs, let alone hunt down errant reviewers.
I think some of the citizen reviewers do consider themselves “professionals.” And not all “professionals” put on airs.
I am not opposed to afflliate links but I do feel there are many potential pitfalls that need to be considered. And those ethical pitfalls need to be considered realistically and yes, even cynically.
Thanks.
Dr. Horowitz
5 months ago
That would be cool to walk in to a tasting room and see “social media links on multiple platforms all driving recommendations and reviews right to the source, to where the wine is made.”
Definitely more interesting then some gold medals and 90+ point scores on the bar!
Tim Elliott
5 months ago
I think wine bloggers tend to benchmark against Mr. Parker is because he has reached the goal we all aspire to at one level or another. It would be great to taste thousands of wines, write up reviews and get paid enough to make a good living. But I’m not convinced the economics of today’s social web will allow any of this to happen… or if it does, it will for a very small handful.
No matter who pays for anything, I will always write or podcast my honest opinion. I disclose and avoid any appearance of conflict of interest in order to keep trust with readers/listeners. It’s really as simple as that because all we have is our credibility. And samples are really nice, too.
Josh Hermsmeyer
5 months ago
Richard,
The $20 would be paid if someone clicked on the link and purchased. This is typically a rare event on blogs, but in social media like Twitter and Facebook I think there is much more promise. And, in those environments, people can block you or not be your friend in the first place, so the trust level is high, and the penalties for screwing over your friends can be severe (no more friends).
I think your points are resonable, and certainly what you describe will occur in places. I just don’t think it will be rampant, or harmful enough for us to decide collectively, or allow old school critics – no offense! – to berate us into believing, that we shouldn’t allow affiliate links at all. After all, no one is being forced to participate
@ David Thanks!
Barbara Drady
5 months ago
Hi Josh,
To your point, I think much of this is a tempest in a teapot (or wine glass). The potential ethical problems with or without affiliate programs is a minor concern from my point of view. While there are a few wine critics/reviewers who take no advertising dollars, there are many that do. Most publications claim that there reviews are unaffected by dollars spent, but I but question that and know from personal experience that #s can be purchased in some publications with full page ads.
Our citizenry is much more informed today than ever before. Consumers are not fools. Viewers can choose to listen to CNN, Fox or network news. Do you believe that viewers are unaware that the news personalities are paid huge dollars to state their opinions? Consumers are not fools. With newspaper, magazine, radio, television, and blog reviews consumers should subscribe to caveat emptor (buyer beware).
Many newspapers and magazines that review wines also have wine clubs. What is the selection process of the wines that are featured? Are they wines that just happened to get a wonderful review or…?
However, all of this may be moot based on current laws. If I’m reading the Vintank Social Media report correctly…“revenue sharing is not permitted and is considered by regulators to be the act of the marketing agent ‘availing’ itself of the privilege of the license of the seller.”
We hope that in the future, “Marketing Agents” will be allowed to earn an actual percentage of the transaction for their services (the capture and transmission of customer, order, and financial information). Advertising activities for revenue share or commission, however, should be shunned by the industry until the regulations change.” The full report can be viewed at http://budurl.com/7l49
Josh Hermsmeyer
5 months ago
Barbara,
Thank you for the comment!
The point is not moot, I assure you.
While I have the utmost respect for Vintank (and have even engaged them in a project) I do not agree with the opinion set forth by Hinman.
Now, I’m not a lawyer, let me be clear. But folks like Philip James at Snooth are arguing vigorously that Hinman’s interpretation of the laws in question is flawed. Also, Vintank notes that the credit card companies take percentages of each sale, and they are legal.
Moreover, what I’m advocating for is not a percentage fee, which is the real thing in question. I’m advocating for a flat rate commission based on a sale. If the bottle purchased is $30, the fee is the same as a sale for a wine costing $60. This type of structure is altogether different, and rests on much stronger legal foundations.
Thanks again for the comment and for your insights!
Michelle Keller
5 months ago
Hi Josh,
Thanks for your post. I agree with you – if you want to accept gifts or earn money by recommending a product, you should disclose it. It is completely irresponsible for Robert Parker to continue claiming on the newsletter that the reviews are independent when his people are getting free meals and trips. At least there should be disclosure.
But I do find it would be problematic if these critics started accepting free trips from everyone who would be willing to pay for them to visit. I work for my family’s winery and hell, we’d love to pay for Robert Parker and his fellow critics to come visit us, but imagine if everyone did that? What if it got to the point where Parker would review only those places that flew him out to the winery/region? If you were an influential critic, wouldn’t it become more and more tempting to take free trips everywhere with the intent that you were only “getting to know the region?” It’s a slippery slope. We do need independent critics out there.
Additionally, research has shown that doctors who accept free lunches, gifts and trips from pharmaceutical companies ARE influenced by these gifts, even if they think their opinions are completely unchanged about the drug at hand. The number of prescriptions go up after a pharm sales rep comes to call. Check out my blog post for more on this issue – http://tinyurl.com/pgwemn.
Thanks for the great discussion,
Michelle Keller
Keller Estate Winery
Tris (aka CycleFreak)
5 months ago
This is an interesting discussion / topic. And not something new and/or unique to the wine industry. Many years ago, computer related product review sites went through a similar renaissance. It was discovered that unfavorable reviews were not being published due to the fact that the manufacturers would then stop sending samples for testing & reviews.
The credibility of these sites (such as SharkyExtreme.com and TomsHardware.com) was called into question as a result. Turns out that it was the small up-start hardware sites that were causing the issues and the “teacup tempest” passed over eventually. The end result being that the “tainted review” sites no longer exist.
So that begs the question: What is a wine blogger / critic to do with a negative review? To me, that is an interesting question to which I would love to have an answer. If all the wines reviewed on a given blog are “stellar” (or some similar adjective), then something is fishy (or corked
) to me.
However, if you (the wine blogger) are relying on affiliate revenue, why would you post a negative review? No one – or very few – are likely to click through and buy something which you thought was mediocre at best.
Or, what if a particular winery has been a consistent performer both in wines and affiliate revenue for you and then you taste a wine from them that is just plain bad. Do you go ahead with the post? Do you risk the winery halting the affiliate program with you at that point?
Last thought: sites like Snooth and CellarTracker are good point-of-reference sites for me. Like determining an Olympic skater’s final score, I always throw out the highest and lowest scores since the truth always lay somewhere in-between. But I always read professional reviews before making a decision to buy or not. This is especially true for wines which I cannot buy locally.
Josh’s point about social media is spot-on since, without Twitter, this whole matter would have escaped my radar. And the radar of just about every one else as well.
(I tried to keep this to 140 characters, but failed miserably)
tom merle
5 months ago
Ultimately, the Zagat model, improved upon by Yelp.com and Tripadvisor.com will prevail. Soft corruption gets diluted by quantity of reviews. Some critiques are tainted, but they are nullified by the far greater number that are not. Individual wine writers are just more skilled at stringing words together; they don’t necessarily have superior palates. The best wines are the wines that appeal to more wine drinkers, particularly enthusiasts who have wine with their meals. (”The Wisdom of Crowds”)
.
Incidently, this is why Barbara Drady’s Shoot Outs offer the best assessments. Panels of panels are good; but “core” consumer (”enthusiasts”) panels of the whole–i.e., those who attend the public tasting and rate the finalists–are best of all.
Josh Hermsmeyer
5 months ago
Tom,
But what about the vast hordes of people using Facebook, Twitter and other loosely structured communities? THAT is where the action will be, and affiliate links in those areas stand a huge chance of driving real sales.
Again, the idea is: Hey, I like this wine, you should try it. And if you click my link, I’ll get enough money to buy a bottle of wine for our next party! Win!
Tris,
As I said on Twitter, incredibly insightful comment. All of those questions will have to be answered by the individual blogger/Twitter/Facebooker. My only real contention here is that affiliate links should be accepted in the community, not that they will be perfect for everyone, or that adoption will be without any hiccups. Your comments illustrate the landscape of such a world very clearly.
As for wineries pulling affiliates for a bad review: totally unacceptable, and would irreparably damage the brand. It might happen once, but after that I can’t see it ever happening again. The outcry would be immense. Remember: the fact that folks are getting commissions will be completely transparent. There would be nothing standing in the way of an individual to call the winery in question out, and bring down the hell fire of a thousand angry bloggers.
Charlile Olken
5 months ago
Tom Merle makes an interesting point about Zagat, but I do not think he took it far enough. At Zagat, one comments on restaurants (and other topics these days as well) but gets only the opportunity to comment. Yes, if you take an hour or so to fill out a form, as I do for San Francisco, I get a free guide.
But, I do not get any benefits from the restaurants I rate highly and I should not. The same is true for the wines I review in my “old-fashioned, sure-to-die” print publication. I get paid by no one, and while Barbars Drady carefully chose her words, she leaves the implication that graft is rampant among print publications. She knows better. When she owned a winery, she submitted her samples to my publication and they got reviewed in blind tastings. Sometimes the wines were wonderful, and sometimes they were, in my opinion, far less than wonderful. But no money changed hands, and no money should change hands.
The same is true for Michelle Keller’s wines. I accept her samples, and when I don’t get those samples, I buy their wines at the fifteen or twenty wine stores I visit every month with my inventory lists in hand.
Josh, you may be right that there is a new day dawning, but I will bet you a shilling or two that your proposed method will be utterly useless in terms of monetizing the blogosphere. Snooth and Yelp are a far different barrel of fish, and their model is not all that far from folks like WineAcces who use my reviews and Steve Tanzers’ reviews to sell wine in exchange for hosting our websites. On the other hand, neither Connoisseurs’ Guide nor Tanzer see a single penny for any wine our readers buy from WineAccess.
Finally, a practical note. If you want to make $20 for a single bottle sale, no one is going to sign up with you. Just ask Barbara or Michelle if their wineries would enter into such an arrangement with a thousand bloggers.
Josh
5 months ago
Charlie,
I’m not sure if this will improve or worsen your opinin of me, but I am in fact a winemaker. Were working on getting a loan for our winery right now.
And that being the case, it will be cone clear that I am the one offering the 20 bucks per sale, which if your analysis holds, will be furiously sougt after by thousands of bloggers.
Read Tris’ account of what happened tithe tech industry re: affiliate links. It’s relevant IMO.
Also note that I never said that traditional critics were going anywhere. You will always be valuable and needed.
Thanks for the conversation!
Paul Mabray
5 months ago
Great post. Unfortunately the fact that people can’t earn a % without potentially causing ramifications to a licensees is, according to John Hinman and more, not legal. I think that should be changed. HOWEVER there are ways to financially reward people through affiliate models that I will call you about. Citizen reviews represent the greatest recommendation asset for wineries to get better brand stability and penetration and they need to flourish by earning revenue for the health of the industry. Moreover, we feel strongly that wine bloggers can build their reputation by posting tasting notes on the best wine social network and create better authority for their blogs. Ok, back to work.
Charlie Olken
5 months ago
Josh–
I have no doubt that some folks will rush to your $20 idea, and I have no doubt that the blogosphere is going to get monetized to some degree. I also have no doubt that there will always be a home for writers who work in more independent ways and have people who pay them for their ideas.
You might want to look at The Motley Fool model (investing advice) to see how a public medium has now become a pay for info play. In the long run, it was all about eyeballs in order to sell product. You can spin that busniess model any way you like but it will always be about how one sells product and where people get information.
I can find hundreds of comments about gas fed barbecue grills on the internet. In the final analysis, I also pay Consumers’ Reports for their views. And, yes, I also asked my peers. But I still paid Consumer Reports, and I still buy Parker and Zagat for my overseas trips.
I appreciate now that your model is really about selling your wine. In that case, if I were you, I would stop talking about it until I was ready to roll it out. But, I would, if I were you, run it past a bunch of folks, and I would ask myself, what happens if this idea works and bigger wineries co-opt it and make it difficult for me to make the idea work in the long run.
And now, Josh, how about telling us about your winery?
Josh
5 months ago
Charlie,
Please forgive my last comment. I was posting from a waiting room on my iPhone, which is not conducive to good grammar or spelling.
As to keeping this idea under wraps, I actually need other wineries to adopt it to be successful. It’s very much a network effect – like having a fax machine, the more people that have one, the more valuable yours becomes.
For citizen reviewers to really adopt the affiliate idea, there needs to be many wineries in the marketplace. It helps shield honest reviewers from accusations of favoritism.
As for talking about my winery, thats what this here blog is all about! For more info, you can read the About Us page linked in the upper left of the blog, as well as Our Story So Far.
There are links to media, newspaper articles (including the Wall Street Journal) about what I’ve been up to the last 3.5 years, Wine & Spirits etc.
There are also some really kind words from Tish about the Mini Doc I participated in called Robert Parker’s Bitch with Vineyard and Winery Management EIC Tina Caputo.
The winery is named in honor my great grandmother Maria Giovanna who was a bootlegger during prohibition. She would make wine in her garage using the wine bricks that they would ship with warnings about “Do not put in a gallon of water or fermentation may occur!”.
I’m certain the wine was absolute rubbish, but its a great story.
Hope this helps.
Andy
5 months ago
You have my head spinning.
I like what you write (have no idea, if it is practible what with the various laws and regulations out your way — but actually, why should there be a problem?).
In any case, you opened a can of worms. I am just considering the talk over at VinTank with them guys sticking their necks and $100K out for 4 hopefuls and the up-for-grabs Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent job… (what a hey-day).
What Paul wrote on his blog is ringing in my ears here: the chances for the four choice candidates to go on to other wineries and move the scene is greatly increased.
Unlike Paul, I doubt that you would need to restrict it all to 4 people (although I do understand how little time they have to “donate” $100K worth of services to just anyone). What if there was a combination of the two ideas: VinTank/Murphy-Goode on the one hand and your ideas you posted above?
What if everyone who is apt to leverage the social media could go out there and beat the drums for the winery of their choice and if that generates leads and sales, then WHY WOULD WINERIES NOT GET INVOLVED?
This is for various reasons slightly over my head. I mean — you & Paul (and no doubt all other commentors here) know way more than I do about the industry and legalities… but you do have my head spinning (I mean, look at Amazon… they sell everything… why do publishers not make mini-amazons? Or would the better way to go be through a AmaWine setup?… thousands of questions.)
Anyway, thanks for opening this can and letting me have a view of it, I have a few things to think about… yes I do.
Mike Duffy
5 months ago
I think the wine industry (as usual) is shooting itself in the foot by not offering and promoting affiliate sales links. Yes, there is always the possibility of skullduggery (love that word), and it would be nice if people were transparent about their affiliation. I’m not sure of the legal aspects (hey, it’s two in the morning).
Given what I see on some winery Web sites, I truly believe I could write more convincing sales pages than what they do one there own. If I go to wine.com or wine.woot and buy a wine because of their clever copy, isn’t that a good thing? Why not let a thousand flowers bloom. (note: wine.com has an affiliate program)
I believe a winery should be willing to pay me 5-10 percent of every sale I bring to their door. It sure beats giving a much larger percentage to the retailer or distributor. And chances are, I care more about their wine.
Will Amazon allow Amazon Affiliates members to link to wine? Now *that* will be interesting.
The Winery Web Site Report
5 months ago
Lazy Sunday: Conflict of Interest…
There’s been a lot of talk about what constitutes a conflict of interest for wine bloggers and wine writers (and now I’m contributing to it ). Josh over at pinotblogger has his usual thoughtful take, along with a lot of……
Tish
5 months ago
Fascinating thread. We are in the midst of a huge digital age reinvention of both wine criticism and the marketplace. It is unfortunate that the marketplace is so saddled with restrictions, and we are having to shake off decades of very presumptuous wine media.
The great unknown here is what effects all this democratization of wine opinioin will have in the wine marketplace. We won’t know for a long time, but the first step is to acknowledge that it is happening. And it’s happening in blogs already, which is putting extreme pressure on the traditional wine media.
I find it hilarious that the multiple pointed discussions over wine marketing and direct shipping and wine topics in general are happening online. The mainstream media continue to act as arbiters of taste while ignoring the opinions of all others — and they seem to be ignoring the groundswell of activity online. The whole nature of how wine is shared is being transformed on the web — but you won’t read about it on paper.