The wine had a whiff of the barnyard . . . hoax review leaves noses out of joint
he hard-to-find Osteria L¡¯Intrepido in Milan is honoured in the next issue of Wine Spectator, the American magazine, for its list of 256 vintages.
The restaurant offers a 1998 Amarone Classico La Fabriseria for a mere €185 (£143) and a 1993 Amarone Classico Gio¨¦ for €110, although Wine Spectator claims that the 1998 bottle ¡°smells like bug spray¡± and the 1993 has ¡°just too much paint thinner and nail varnish character¡±.
That was before the magazine, the taste-maker for wine snobs around the world, discovered that the restaurant did not actually exist. It was made up by a writer who styles himself as ¡°The Fearless Critic¡±.
Robin Goldstein set up a fake website for Osteria L¡¯Intrepido ¨C a sly nod to his ¡°fearless¡± reputation ¨C and sent off a $250 (£135) cheque and a copy of the restaurant¡¯s bogus menu to apply for one of Wine Spectator¡¯s coveted Awards of Excellence.
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Winning an Award of Excellence gets the restaurant a plaque to hang on its wall and a listing on the Wine Spectator website. Mr Goldstein deliberately included some of the magazine¡¯s lowest-ranked Italian wines in the restaurant¡¯s reserve list.
¡°While it¡¯s interesting that the reserve list would receive such seemingly little scrutiny, the central point is that the wine cellar doesn¡¯t actually exist,¡± he said.
¡°While Osteria L¡¯Intrepido may be the first to win an Award of Excellence for an imaginary restaurant, it¡¯s unlikely that it was the first submission that didn¡¯t accurately reflect the contents of a restaurant¡¯s wine cellar.¡±
Mr Goldstein is the author of The Wine Trials: 100 Everyday Wines under $15 that Beat $50 to $150 Wines in Brown-Bag Blind Tastings, which contends that people think wine tastes better just because it is expensive.
In blind tastings of 6,000 wines that ranged in price from $1.50 to $150 a bottle, he found, for instance, that two thirds of people picked a $12 bottle of Domaine Ste. Michelle Brut, a sparkling wine from Washington State, over a $150 Dom P¨¦rignon.
Wine Spectator has removed Osteria L¡¯Intrepido from its website and condemned Mr Goldstein¡¯s ¡°act of malicious duplicity¡±. Its statement only uncorked further embarrassment by revealing its prize-giving methods, citing bogus customer reviews on the internet.
¡°We called the restaurant multiple times. Each time, we reached an answering machine and a message from a person purporting to be from the restaurant claiming that it was closed at the moment,¡± Thomas Matthews, the executive editor, said.
¡°Googling the restaurant turned up an actual address and located it on a map of Milan. The restaurant sent us a link to a website that listed its menu.
¡°On the website Chowhound, diners (now apparently fictitious) discussed their experiences at the nonexistent restaurant in entries dated January 2008 to August 2008.¡±
The hoax caused a storm in a wineglass among sommeliers, who vie for Wine Spectator awards. Almost 4,500 restaurants paid the $250 fee to apply for a Wine Spectator Excellence award and all but 319 won one, earning the magazine more than $1 million.
¡°They are taken quite seriously. It¡¯s one of the most well-regarded wine magazines in the country,¡± said Juliette Pope, wine director at Gramercy Tavern in New York, which holds one of the higher-level ¡°Best Of¡± awards. ¡°There is a certain slice of the dining public that takes the awards seriously. I think it¡¯s unfortunate. I hope it¡¯s not indicative of their standards.¡±
Frank Stitt, a chef who has three well-regarded restaurants in Alabama, said that he withdrew from the Wine Spectator awards several years ago after the magazine began increasing the application fee. ¡°You can buy advertising. You can pay the Wine Spectator to say you would like to be known as a wine destination,¡± he said. ¡°But that is different from being known solely on the basis of the quality of your wine.¡±
Tyler Coleman, a wine writer, said: ¡°It does call into question the awards. When you¡¯re in the business of rating wines and, in this case, restaurants, you need to be beyond reproach. They generate over $1 million for the magazine each year . . . and the plaques hang in the entry halls or outside bathrooms of the restaurants, generating publicity for the magazine.¡±
The final word on the scandal is perhaps best put by Wine Spectator in its review of another wine on Osteria L¡¯Intrepido¡¯s list: ¡°Smells barnyardy and tastes decayed. Not what you¡¯d hope for.¡±