Pour Yourself a Glass of Fake News

Wine writers, who'd have them?

You'd be amazed how popular that attitude is among wine lovers. Dip into any online forum, social network, or even a live tasting for proof. And yes, they can be hard to like sometimes, especially in an age when people think that they know better than so-called experts; an age where a person's opinion is deemed (by the opinion holder, at least) as being equal to an education in a specific field. Watch a flat-earther argue with an astronomer, for instance.

People can complain all they like about wine writers, but at least most of them know whereof they speak. Those complaining about fake news in mainstream journalism aren't just self-deluded blowhards – things frequently aren't what they are claimed to be in the media.

It is especially noticeable when you see stories about wine or spirits in the mainstream media. The recent headlines that a bottle of wine a week is as bad for you as smoking 10 cigarettes is a case in point. The study, published in a British medical journal, is jam-packed with caveats and the conditional tense – X could happen, if Y is in confluence with Z and so on; the standard hedging of a scientific report.

Nevertheless, the media have trumpeted the story with headlines like "How Many Cigarettes Are in a Bottle of Wine?" and "Bottle of Wine Equivalent to 10 Cigarettes". A cursory perusal of the findings will show that these headlines are so far off the mark that they aren't even in the same county, but the important thing is that people – way more than you would imagine – will simply assume that two bottles of Bordeaux are now the equivalent of a pack of smokes. I know that's bullshit and likely so do you, but the headline will inevitably become the accepted "truth".

(It's funny how so many people will happily dismiss any viewpoint they disagree with as fake news, but happily – and frequently in the same breath – cite a newspaper story as proof to bolster their own particular prejudice. We really are a remarkable species.)

A couple of months ago an article claiming that drinking wine was more important than exercise for 90-year-olds who wanted an even longer life went viral. It appeared all over social media and was, inevitably, a complete crock. Not only was it misleading, it was plain wrong, using a 2003 study that relied on research from 1981, and the actual study it quotes concluded the exact opposite.

Who wouldn't want to think that a glass of La Tache, or Tokaji (or even a Yellowtail Shiraz) could replace boring old exercise? But pandering to our own prejudices is the most insidious form of misinformation and we've only got ourselves to blame.

In wider journalism, when professional news reporters report on wine they frequently get it wrong. A story that claimed (erroneously, naturally) that DRC was no longer the most expensive wine in the world swept the global newsdesks a couple of years ago, even though 90 percent of the journalists had completely misunderstood Wine-Searcher's data and procedures. People still quote that story to me, even though I have told them it is wrong.

A Canadian news outlet this week reported (and I quote): "Canada has One of the Best Wine Regions in the Entire World"

Now, I am a huge fan of the Okanagan Valley, but the day I say that it's up there with Vosne-Romanée, Rioja, or even Barossa in terms of quality production is the day they come and take me away.

"Canada is home to one of the best wine regions in the entire world, according to a new ranking," the story crowed, breathlessly. "Matador Network, which is one of the world's biggest independent travel publishers, has released a list of the 'most exciting places to travel to drink wine in 2019' and a wine country region in Canada has made it onto the list."

They couldn't even keep their story straight for a single paragraph. From "one of the best wine regions" to "most exciting places to travel and drink wine" in fewer than 50 words. In a way I'm impressed that such a paragraph could make it through the entire writing/subbing/proofing process intact without a single person realizing they are talking about two entirely different things.

You would think that journalists would perhaps understand the slightly less esoteric worlds of beer and spirits a little better, given the usual stereotypes around reporters and their drinking habits, but no.

A story that went nuts in the mainstream media in January baldly claimed that a $13 blended Scotch on sale in the Lidl chain of supermarkets was voted the best whiskey in the world. Instead, it was another stunning example of pure bloody wrongness. The Scotch in question had won its price-bracket category at the World Whiskies Awards – a wonderful achievement, but not what the headlines claimed.

Truth bedamned, though – it meant that Lidl's Queen Margot Scotch was suddenly in huge demand; our search statistics showed a 149-fold increase in searches for the brand, making it the most improved search stats for the month, lifting it a massive 23,652 places in our rankings.

To get to the point (finally, I hear you cry), I'm afraid we simply can't trust the mainstream media anymore when it comes to specialist subjects. For all the disdain (and, occasionally, contempt) that wine writers cop from the public, they do perform a vital service in translating quite complex information into more-easily understood language. Yes, they can be snippy, pompous, supercilious, condescending and downright offensive at various times, but they are necessary.

This isn't some self-promoting whine on behalf of what is fast becoming an endangered species, by the way. Wine needs educators and interpreters now more than ever – we simply can't rely on the mainstream media to do it. Trust me on this.