An issue that animates the world of wine blogging revolves around accepting samples of wine from producers and importers or their public relations representatives. Some bloggers state unequivocally on their home pages that they never accept samples, therefore ensuring the high-minded quality of their integrity. Others mention in every review where the bottle came from or was encountered, that is, if the blogger bought it or had it at a restaurant, tried it at a trade tasting, sipped it at a friend’s house. The implication of both of these positions is clear: Accepting a free bottle of wine is tantamount to open bribery and public corruption.

That’s sheer hooey.

I mention these matters because Tom Wark at Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog — and, bless his heart, Tom really does keep us all on the crackling edge of the wine industry’s most important concerns — had a post (Oct. 25, “For Immediate Release”) about the supposed or potential effects of press releases on wine writers and the characteristics of a good press releases, about which he knows more than anyone. In the midst of a typically provocative column, Tom quoted from an essay written on Thomas Pellechia the previous day on his blog VinoFictions. Let me also quote from that essay:

“When I stopped posting tasting notes my original intent was that since I get paid to write articles and books about wine I did not want ever to be accused of shilling for one or more wine producer.”

And:

“I cannot imagine how to explain having written a tasting note that agrees with a press release concerning a free bottle that I had received, even if I knew that I hadn’t cheated — to me, the perception of a conflict of interest is damning enough.”

Now Pellechia is a thoughtful and sincere writer (whom I have never met), so I don’t mean what I’m about to say personally, but I believe that these sentiments are off kilter, or, let me put it this way, so punctilious that they are self-defeating.

When Michiko Kakutani, chief book reviewer for The New York Times, and Jonathan Yardley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book columnist for The Washington Post, give positive reviews to books, they are not shilling for the author or the publisher. They’re doing their jobs, as they are when they write negative reviews. I reviewed books for the newspaper where I work for 20 years, and I was book page editor for 15 of those years. We received in the mail an ungodly amount of books, thousands of books, piles of books a year. So when we reviewed books, we were writing about books we received free. This is the practice at every newspaper, magazine and online media outlet in the world that reviews books. Nobody worries about conflict of interest because there is none. The book is not a bribe; it’s a copy to be read, used, written about for good or ill, that is, if the book is chosen for review.

Over 20 years, I wrote many negative reviews of books, ranging from mild objections to outright scorn. Guess what? The publishers didn’t stop sending books, and they made no attempt to adjust my attitude toward them as publishers or the authors whose work I criticized. It’s the nature of the reviewing business, and when it comes to reviewing anything of cultural or monetary worth that reviewers have access to for free — books, movies, music, wine (restaurants are different because the presence of the establishment and the experience are immediate and very close to home) — the coins of the realm are not chiming shekels and crisp currency but honesty and respect.

I’ve been reviewing wine since 1984, in a nationally distributed weekly print column for 20 years and on the Internet thereafter. As is the case with every wine reviewer, I have written about wonderful, legendary wines; nice little quaffing wines; real dogs of wines. Many of these wines were sample bottles, and when I have felt obliged to point out that a wine is as worthless as rust in a drainpipe, then I have done so, neither with exhilaration nor with heavy heart but simply as part of what I do. People — producers, publicists, the public — need to know these things. Everyone is harmed when mediocrity is not exposed. In fact, it’s by exposing mediocrity, as well as passing out praise when it is due, that we earn reputations for honesty, objectivity and fairness. That’s all part of being professional.

So when Pellechia says that he originally stopped posting tasting notes because he gets paid to write articles and books about wine, I think he’s on the wrong track. Tasting wines — whether sample bottles or not — and posting informative notes seem to me an inextricable part of experiencing and thinking about wine and providing opinion, information and education to readers, whether on a restricted level of friends and colleagues, or to the public. And let’s face it: Americans, even those who drink wine, don’t know a lot about it, where it comes from, how it’s made, how it gets to their tables; opinion (that is, opinion based on knowledge and experience), information and education are exactly what they need.

Pellechia goes on to say, in his essay, that he also decided that he didn’t want to post tasting notes because (1) he wouldn’t base his own wine buying on someone else’s opinion and (2) he didn’t think that anyone else should buy wine based on his opinion, and I have to respect that personal point of view.

On the other hand, if I’m out and about and someone comes up to me and says, “Hey, I bought that Wine of the Week from your website and it was terrific” or “I got a case of that wine you recommended for a party and everyone enjoyed it,” then I feel as if I’ve provided a public service, made some consumers happy and perhaps imparted some knowledge and awareness about wine, and I don’t give a damn if the bottle I tasted and recommended was free or not.

Image credit: Productdose.com.

Yesterday — Oct. 6 — The New York Times ran this “Editor’s Note” in its Corrections area on page A2:

An article in the Dining section on Sept. 26 by Eric Asimov reported on the restaurant scene in Portland, Ore., and one of the establishments mentioned was Paley’s Place, owned by Vitaly and Kimberly Paley. Mr. Asimov said that it had “a warm and intimate dining room” and that Paley’s Place “is recognized as one of the top restaurants in the Northwest, if not the country.” He also wrote that Paley’s Place was one of several restaurants that had “served as an incubator for much of the talent that is making its mark today.”

Even though Mr. Asimov was not reviewing or assessing the restaurant, he should have disclosed in the article his friendship with the owners, and he should have not created the appearance of favoritism toward them by participating in the wine dinner, for which he accepted no compensation.

Well.

This brouhaha started when journalist and blogger Kevin Allman posted to his blog Oct 1 questioning the ethics of Asimov’s favorable mentions of Paley’s Place, in the article in the Times and earlier this summer on his official blog The Pour, in light of the fact that at a wine dinner at Paley’s Place, Asimov was a featured guest and selected the wines for the event. The restaurant promoted the dinner using Asimov’s name; in the press release, the wine writer was called “our dear friend.” (In its food events listings for that week, The Portland Mercury stated: “Fancy pants New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov makes an appearance at Paley’s informal Wednesday wine tasting.”)

So it looks as if Asimov participated in a special event at a restaurant owned by his friends and then wrote favorably (extremely favorably on the blog) about the restaurant.

But are Asimov and the Paleys friends? Allman uncovered the fact that Vitaly Paley’s mother, a piano instructor at the Mannes School of Music in New York, has taught Asimov’s younger son Peter since 2000. In an email message, Asimov responded to Allman by saying that that relationship was “irrelevant” to the article, and I agree with Asimov. If the brother of my daughter’s dentist made wine in California and sent me some bottles to review, I would not recuse myself from the task, though if I wrote a negative review I would recommend that my daughter find a new dentist. Perhaps the Paleys like to think that Asimov is their good friend, or perhaps (more likely) the phrase was a touch of hyperbole, not an uncommon factor of press releases.

Nor do I agree with the “Editor’s Note” that Asimov should not have participated in the event. Critics, reviewers and commentators of all sorts are constantly asked to make presentations, serve on panel discussions, act as judges in contests and perform in other ways befitting their status as voices of opinion and authority. Would the Times require Michiko Kakutani not to speak at a convention of writers, publishers and editors or A.O. Scott not to be a juror at a competitive film festival? I imagine that diners at Paley’s Place that night in July were thrilled to meet Eric Asimov and taste wines that he selected for the dinner.

But conflict of interest is not merely about facts and real relationships but about appearance. While an aside on his blog and in the article in the Times about his son’s piano teacher being the chef’s mother would have been interesting and amusing, the necessary point that needed mentioning was Asimov’s involvement in the dinner. Chances are that the event where he was featured (”our good friend”) had nothing to do with the praise that he lavished on Paley’s Place; the fact that the event and his advertised participation were mentioned neither on his blog nor in the article is a serious lapse in judgment.

Having said that, I’ll mention that many of the responses to Allman’s blog and others that picked up the subject exude an unseemly air of schadenfreude, as if the “fancy pants” wine critic is getting his due, as if because Asimov writes for the Times and a national audience he’s automatically too big for his britches and deserves to be taken down.

Sorry, but Asimov is not being outed as a corrupt journalist; what he did is called in civilized circles “a mistake.” He got enthusiastic about a restaurant; perhaps he was swayed slightly by that peripheral relationship to his son; maybe he just had a lot of fun and thought the place was great. Is he human? Guilty as charged. Should the Times have taken note of this lapse and explained its position in the “Editor’s Note” yesterday? Of course, but pardon me if i say that this episode does not represent the downfall of journalist ethics.

By the way, Asimov lists this blog and my website, KoeppelOnWine, on the blog roll of The Pour. Gotta problem with that?

Photo credit: Brent Murray/NYTimes.com.