The harsh reality of the freebies.

(From Off Licence News)

Is wine journalism corrupt? The question may sound a little blunt, but a friend in Florida has just forwarded me something that appeared on the USA Today website which puts us hacks in the stocks, or whatever the American equivalent might be. Leg irons? An orange jump suit? The charge, levelled at the government as much as the Fourth Estate, is as follows: "Subsidised by the (American) Agriculture Department and the wineries, writers from Canada, Europe and Asia tour some of the country's most renowned wine regions..." So far, so unexceptional, I'd say. But what follows is a more serious allegation: "It is a violation of journalistic ethics to accept gifts or subsidies in return for stories about the donor's products or programmes." It's easy to be high-minded about the relationship between wine journalists and freebies, be it trips, dinners, or samples. In the best of all possible worlds, we journos would pay for all our own travel, meals, accommodation and bottles (buying them off the shelf, rather than from the winery). But this is financially impossible, unless you have an enormous private income. Even The Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator, two American publications that occupy the moral high ground where free trips are concerned, accept free samples and attend tastings.

If I had to buy all my samples, I couldn' function as a (solvent) wine writer. To purchase the 128 red wines that Waitrose showed at its recent press tasting (and there were also eight rosAs, 98 whites, 21 fizzes, eight sweet wines and 20 fortifieds) would have cost me AGBP1,750. Extrapolate that over a year, during which I taste around 10,000 wines, and you're looking at a sample bill that would rival the GDP of a small nation.

Most readers, I suspect, are comfortable with the fact that wine journalists attend tastings. They might even allow us the occasional free lunch. But what about press trips to wine regions? Would they be as indulgent if they knew that we are invited (and, in most cases, accept) all-expenses-paid trips to wine regions? It's still a job, especially if you visit eight wineries in a day, eat two large meals and end up next to a winemaker with the personality of a traffic cone, but it ...