Yes, I was turned down by the Wine Spectator, they just don’t have the time or, apparently the funds, to taste one of our wines this year.

Hello Craig,

• Thank you for your email and interest in submitting. Given tasting budgets, the small case production and editorial constraints, we will not be able to include this wine in our tastings this year. You're welcome to contact us again next year, with your new vintage, and we can consider the wine again at that time.

After five years of abstinence, I thought I would give the Wine Spectator another go. It was against my better judgement. After all, this is a publication that is focused on green-washed industrial wines. Larger producers with slick PR departments and large advertising budgets are are good to go. A wine with small production is simply an irritation for them. What you have to remember about the Wine Spectator is they’re not in the wine business, they’re in the magazine business. I have to agree with them, a three hundred case production of a viognier, marsanne, roussanne blend from a biodynamic vineyard in Oregon’s Applegate Valley is not going to sell many magazines for them. The publisher sees wine, spirits, cigars and now cannabis as simply as resources to be mined. Certainly they employ talented writers who are serious about their craft. It reminds of that old saw about Playboy Magazine, “I just read it for the articles.” Yes there are many good articles, but points are the real centerfolds and what sells the magazine.

This is why I have always been such an avid supporter of wine bloggers. First they taste wines like they were meant to be tasted. They take time with them, experience how they evolve in the glass and taste them with food. Wine bloggers are not wine spectators as they are fully immersed in the joys that wine can bring to life and communicate that energy to their readers.

Yes I know the Wine Spectator will claim they cover small producers and statistically I’m sure that’s true, but it’s also true they only do so when they feel it can be of benefit to them. Wine bloggers share their joy of wine, the Wine Spectator extracts joy and turns it into profit.

Thanks to the Wine Spectator for at least turning my samples down with an actual reply. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you again.