Critique the Critic #1 - Gary Vaynerchuk

Parker, Parker, Parker. All we hear in the damn wine trade is “what score did Parker give a wine?”. With all due respect to him, Parker is only one man, but the world seems to revolve around him when it comes to advice on whether a wine is good or not. Link that to the large corporations making and selling wine, the romantic, enjoyable element of wine consumption is slowly dying. But there is one man trying to change all that.

You are likely not to have heard of him if you live in the UK, but he is big in America. Gary Vaynerchuk is not only a successful businessman, but has become a huge internet celebrity by producing a daily video blog where he tastes wine and rates them. Plenty of people are doing this already, so the concept isn’t unique – I even flirted with the idea a couple of years ago until I realised I looked and sounded like a pompous ass – but where Gary succeeds over others is in his insane enthusiasm for the subject and the fact that he has a natural gift for being in front of the camera.

He loves wine, pure and simple, and the way he expresses it is like a hybrid of a Master of Wine and a Muppet! His larger than life explosive gesticulations, his tendency to wander of subject, particularly when the conversation can turn to his favourite American football team, has won him thousands of fans and shows that this man isn’t the uber geek who obsesses all his time to one subject, and that Gary has many passions and layers to his life.

A lot of the old guard of wine buffs won’t like Vaynerchuk – thinking he is too boisterous, and his unconventional tasting terms like “oak monster” (whilst growling at the camera) certainly won’t appeal to Major Bufty-Tufton who has been in the wine trade since he was demobbed after the war, but that is exactly the point. His slogan of “Changing the wine world, whether they like it or not” is a middle finger, albeit a respectful one, to all that have gone before, yet scorn him for being different.

He is also his own worst critic, disapproving of rating wine, pointing out the flaws of an ‘instant rating’ for a wine that, six months down the line, it may not justify or may be too harsh. Yet he rates every wine anyway and tells you to pay no attention to whatever he, or any critic, says and that you should go out, get the wine yourself and see if you like it and to “trust your pal(ate)”. Immersed in popular culture of the 1980’s, his desk is adorned by Thundercat and WWF action figures, which targets the thirty something market head on, reminding them of their childhood and establishing an instant connection with this wonderfully hyperactive wine critic.

What makes Vaynerchuk different from the majority of wine critics, and it is something that he and I have in common, is that he is a retailer. Not only does he rate wine based on if it is good or not, anyone with a decent palate can do that, but he rates it based on it’s value which is often overlooked by a lot of critics. Ultimately, everyone in the wine trade is in it for the money (even ‘independent’ commentators need to earn a living from the publication they write for), and GV understands the wine business from the customer, retailer and wine lover perspective and gives all three opinions. He just happens to have used the biggest microphone available to air his views and was the first to get a lot of exposure doing it.

Vaynerchuk’s biggest success, however, will come not from wine lovers like you or I but through his breaking down barriers into the wine world. His realisation that personal branding is now everything makes him a pioneer not only in wine but in business. Certainly he might act like Animal on speed, but this is an astute businessman who appears to have a good grasp on where he wants to do with his life. Developing his family wine shop has brought him success, his next job is promoting the ‘Gary Vaynerchuk’ brand, and he will be remembered as one of the pioneering internet celebrities. By going into other fields, Vaynerchuk will bring people who don't currently have an interest in wine into our domain and give this stuffy world we love a much needed breath of fresh air.

I was speaking to an older gentleman in the trade who I respect enormously, and he told me a story of when he started in the trade forty years ago he would get together once a month with the old gentlemen of the trade for a dinner where they would drink fine wine and discuss the trade and new ideas were given a chance to be aired. There was a need for fresh blood then, and there is a greater need for fresh blood now, as more and more the wine trade becomes big faceless companies. There is one face in America that is trumpeting the wine trade, and alcohol consumption in general, as a positive thing, a thing of joy and pleasure and a thing for sharing and interacting with people over.

That face is that of Gary Vaynerchuk, and the wine world needs him – badly.

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Gary Vaynerchuk
Wine Library