Wine Library TV Bashing...

You can read Craig Camp's "The 60 Second Taster" in its entirety here with portions stated below:

"I finally saw my first episode of Wine Library TV. There before my eyes was that retailer of my past, only with a Riedel glass instead of a plastic cup. That, at least, is a little progress. I had tried to avoid watching his programs after first seeing him in a horribly embarrassing segment on the Conan O’ Brien Show, but I kept getting so many hits to this site from a link that someone had placed to one of my posts that I had to check it out. That was a mistake as I should have followed my instincts and stayed away, but like someone passing a car wreck I could not avert my eyes.

Under cover of supposedly witty banter, with a minute or less thought tells you all you need to know about the wine he is tasting. Not only that, but he actually gives you points so you can have an exact reference to how a wine tastes and can rank it among other wine choices. Well actually he only gives you an accurate reference point if you only drink a wine for sixty seconds before moving on to the next bottle. Once again someone is gaining influence by rating wines in a situation that has nothing to do with how we actually drink them. Many writers over the years have complained that Robert Parker’s method of tasting sometimes hundreds of wines in very short periods, often giving wines scores after only seconds, did not allow for wines of elegance to show their true character, while big alcoholic wines that were not very good to drink full glasses of stood out under the onslaught he put his palate through...Let me try to elaborate on what I object to here. What bothers me is the following style of tasting:

swirl, swirl; sniff, sniff; sip, sip; give points next wine please

Every time I see this happen I cringe...as long as Gary Vaynerchuk awards points in such a rapid fire way and then presents those points as a quantifiable ranking that consumers should base their buying decisions on I find the show less than entertaining.