Leading US Wine Critic Flies Solo

© The Wine Independent
| Wine lovers need a trustworthy voice in a world gone mad.

You’re sitting atop the wine world, a Master of Wine degree under one arm and the editorship of the world’s most influential wine publication under the other – so what do you do next?

Well, in Lisa Perrotti-Brown’s case, you quit for the altogether less secure world of independent wine writing.

She’s not alone; plenty of people have successfully done so in the past – names like Galloni, Dunnuck, and Anson spring readily to mind – but downing tools at the publication that reinvigorated wine criticism back in the 1980s is a big move, even if Perrotti-Brown is partnering up with experienced Swedish photojournalist Johan Berglund.

Her new venture, The Wine Independent, goes live today in its first iteration. It’s a subscription site that will offer a comprehensive range of tasting notes and video content and is aimed at putting the consumer – rather than producers – first. She spoke to Wine-Searcher about her history and her future.

So what prompted this? Why did you leave one of the most enviable jobs in wine?

You know, when, when I was first thinking about this, I kept asking myself the same question. You know, obviously, I’ve loved my job, you know, for the 13 plus years that I was at The Wine Advocate. Not loved every aspect of it, of course – it had its ups and downs. But then, I think these long-term relationships with employers become like a marriage. Your relationship has its ups and downs, and then, you know, finally one day you say: “Okay, well, maybe that’s enough.”

So you start taking each other for granted?

Exactly, but it was never any one thing I don’t think. I leave The Wine Advocate very amicably. It’s just that I feel like we were a bit like a relationship going in different directions and wanting different things. And I felt like it was time to explore something that I absolutely want to do, creatively and ethically, in a wine publication. If I don’t do it, now, I will never do it.

Maybe I could have gone on, you know, happily for the rest of my career with the Advocate, but then I would still have this question mark hanging in my head. I felt very strongly about creating a publication like this. And then obviously, the opportunity came up with Johann, my co-founder; he’s got this creative visual gift, that could really take a wine publication to a whole new level.

Particularly because, we’re a wine criticism publication, and these publications can be notoriously dry, you know – it can be like watching paint dry, sometimes, reading these things, unless you’ve got somebody who’s very clever with their writing and can really evoke an idea of what a wine tastes like. And that’s what I always aim to do, really, putting so much energy and emphasis on the tasting notes, but then being able to bring that to life as visually with evocative photography, and we’ll be doing videos as well.

The Wine Advocate kick-started the current obsession with wine scores. What are your thoughts on scores?

You know, I think we need to take wine criticism to that next level where it takes some of that emphasis off just the numbers, the scores; it can be very misleading. 

I drink a lot of 87/88/89-point wines; many of those are my go-tos. Because, for me, first and foremost when I’m looking for wine to drink on a particular night or a particular occasion, what’s important to me is the style that I’m looking for. And if I can’t get the 93/94/95 point example of that style, I would rather have, you know, an 87/88/89 point wine, because that’s what I’m in the mood for. That’s what I want to drink and that’s what is going to make me happy.

I want to help readers to understand this concept, and to help them find those styles of wines that they’re looking for within their price range that’s available locally to them.

© The Wine Independent
| Wine Advocate alumnus, Lisa Perrotti-Brown is co-founder of new publication, The Wine Independent.

Your new site is called The Wine Independent – independent from whom or what?

Well, again, it harkens back to what Bob [Parker] started back in 1978. Independence, basically, from the trade so that we are working purely for consumers – they pay our salaries basically, with the subscriptions that they buy. And there’s no behind-the-scenes hidden agendas or anything like that. Just getting back to basics.

I’ve looked at every sort of business model you can possibly imagine out there for wine publications. And you know, you’re not going to become rich out of doing a subscriber-only publication, but I do think that you can have a very successful and comfortable business model with doing just that. And that’s exactly what we intend to do – that gives us the integrity and the creative freedom to do exactly what we want to do without being in anyone’s pocket.

A lot of consumers aren’t aware of how much influence producers can have, are they?

There are other models now where you get wineries to pay huge amounts of money – I mean, thousands of dollars – for an event table, or to do this or that. And that’s happening behind the scenes, and everybody’s like “Oh, yeah, no, they don’t do pay-to-play, you know, there’s none of that going on”. It’s just hidden and nobody realizes.

We all know the shenanigans that go on, but I’d say, 90-95 percent of consumers have no idea that any of this is going on – all they see is a score, and they just believe that it’s got some meaning behind it. But the problem is, you know, the penny is starting to drop [with consumers], because they’re starting to say “What’s the big deal about this 95-point experience that I’m supposed to be getting? This is a mediocre wine at best.” What’s going to happen is wine criticism is going to become meaningless. So because there is too much emphasis on scores, scores are being inflated, you don’t know what’s behind those scores in terms of agendas, and ultimately the consumers are being had. They’re, they’re the ones that are getting a bad experience when they follow scores. And that’s just wrong. You know, there needs to be somebody out there who’s just working for them.

Is score inflation really happening, do you think, or is it simply that we make better wines now than ever before?

That is a good point that, yes, we’ve got better viticulture now, but that would only explain part of what’s happening.

So what about these wines that appear out of nowhere and suddenly get 99-point scores? Should they be scored differently than, say, a winery with a track record?

You know, that’s a good question. I used to run into that, even when I was doing Australia, and I used to do some soul-searching about whether or not to review certain wines – these almost fly-by-night labels were, for the most part, okay. But, if the consumer is investing hundreds of dollars per bottle, then, I don’t think that they want just a winery that’s going to make one or two vintages, or take advantage of maybe a grape surplus or whatever situation that might be going on out there. And as a critic, you’re recommending that people buy or not buy these wines. And I think, you know, there comes a point where you need to be completely unbiased, and everybody has to get the same treatment. But also you have to step back; sometimes, I think, in these circumstances, it helps to know what a wine is, when you’re tasting it. Because I always have it in the back of my head that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

As a critic, you need to be questioning all these things before you make that recommendation. Because ultimately, what you’re doing is you’re advising people, and I think that the good thing about wine criticism in recent years is that it’s gone beyond the scope of your own personal preferences and tastes. I think the modern wine critic is, you know, looking at a whole range of different styles. I review a lot of styles of wines that I personally, don’t prefer, but I understand that there is a market for that style. And I think “this is a great quality example of that style”, so I’m happy to recommend it to people – as long as they know exactly what they’re buying.

© The Wine Independent
| Swedish photojournalist and co-founder Johan Berglund brings his eye to the new publication.

I think there is something to be said for having a track record [as a producer] – somebody who’s being serious, and really wants to start a label. And if you’re a collector, you want to follow that label over years. And you want to know, for example, where the fruit’s coming from, something about the vineyard, or the area, or something about the winemaker. The more that you’re paying for a bottle of wine, the more information that you want, and some reassurance about the future of collecting that wine, as well.

Wine criticism has changed hugely and it’s still evolving. Can you simply rely on your reputation?

I think so. Yeah. I think, to a certain respect, you have to rely on your reputation.

I mean, while I’ve been in the wine trade for more than 25 years now. And the contacts that you’ve built up, the following that you’ve built up, and the experience that you have, as well – I think integrity is almost taken for granted. Also that ability, I guess, to be able to call it right. Often as a critic, you’re tasting wines that are so, so young, and you have to be experienced in tasting, in the case of Bordeaux en primeur wines when they’re still in barrel and making a call on how great they are. There’s a lot of money at stake for some people when they’re investing in these wines. You really have to have a proven track record of getting it right.

It’s about knowing what these wines are going to do and how well they performed in a given vintage. And, for me, I really love doing that, because it’s like detective work. I always think, if I hadn’t been a wine person, I could have been a great police detective, because I love solving mysteries and tasting a wine [can be like] great detective work – you have to use your palate, and you have to have a good palate, and you have to be able to pick things out and know what they are, when you see them.

Some wines are now fetching prices that are simply crazy, particularly in Burgundy. Is there any real point in tasting and rating these wines, given so few people will ever get to taste them?

Burgundy is in a weird position. It’s up above the clouds of the realms of critics, almost, which is a good and a bad thing. It’s almost, I feel, a very dangerous situation for Burgundy to be in. Because it has got to the point where some producers don’t need to be good. Or some vineyard sites don’t need to be good, because they’re going to be at that price, and they’re going to be sought after anyway, regardless of what the critics say. And that’s a dangerous situation because it’s almost a bubble situation. And you can’t really maintain that because, once people turn their eyes somewhere else, then the bottom falls out of that whole situation.

It’s a game almost, and it’s a dangerous one. So, yeah, Burgundies it’s its own thing right now. And I do agree with you to a certain extent, it’s almost above that sort of critical thought. 

Well, it’s an interesting one, you know, I mean, there are wines like that, not just Burgundy, for that matter. You know, plenty over in Napa that are getting beyond the reach of anybody but the rich. I mean, you know, who drinks heroin on a regular basis? I mean, I could afford to buy it, but I wouldn’t on principle, because, you know, I’m not spending 1000 US on a bottle of wine. It’s crazy. It’s just crazy money. I could go get a weeks holiday for that.

Yeah, even the opening mailing list prices. Some of these wines are just astronomical, really. But you know, wine is ultimately worth what people are willing to pay for it. And it isn’t just Burgundy; what about Screaming Eagle Sauvignon Blanc? I’ve reviewed it a number of times, and I think it’s very good, there’s no question about that. But I look at the price tag and I’m like, “Well it’s good. But is it $6000 good? It just gets crazy. 

You kind of fell into wine by accident, didn’t you? 

I did, definitely by accident. I didn’t you know what, when I was a kid, or even when I was, you know, a young adult, I had no idea that this job even existed. I probably would have gone for it, if I had, but it just wasn’t even on my radar that wine critic was an option, or even a job. I studied theater and literature. And yeah, I wanted to be a playwright, but play writing these days pays even less than wine writing, believe it or not.

After a long and distinguished career as a critic, are there any wines or regions that still excite you?

I’m constantly finding them and new areas and new places to explore. Just here in California, for example, I mean, there are so many little areas that we have never even reviewed at The Wine Advocate. I’m constantly discovering new wines, and even plantings of grape varieties that are quite mature, going back 80 or 90 years to pre-Prohibition times. But nobody knows about them. And I am constantly on the lookout for what can we shout to the world about. What’s something that people should be looking out for?

Having said that, even in the traditional regions like Bordeaux there’s so much innovation going on right now. I love that the new generation is starting to step in, and putting their own stamp on things – evolving wine styles from very traditional châteaux that we all know and love. You know, this is it; this is wine – it’s constantly evolving, it’s constantly changing. And you can’t be a wine lover and not be able to be constantly excited. I know, as a wine critic, I am. keeps you fresh.

The full version of the Wine Independent site will go live in May. The interim site can be accessed here.