Gault Millau

Following the recent controversy, Armin Diel, the editor of the Gault Millau Wein Guide for Germany, has resigned. According to a statement issued earlier this week, Diel felt he had to protect the Wein Guide, the VDP, his winery and his family from what has turned into attacks on his person. In another statement, the publisher of the Wein Guide also referred to increasing personal attacks on Diel. The publisher reiterated that will be completely independent of wineries opting to pay for the voluntary 200 Euro package that triggered the conflict. Despite resigning from his role as editor of Gault Millau, Diel will continue to be involved with VDP, the association of Germany's premier wine makers - the fact that Diel was both vintner/functionary and reviewer was certainly not popular with everyone.

The current controversy is finding its way into mainstream media. The Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany's leading newspapers, published an article entitled "Aufstand der Winzer" (rebellion of the vinters). This almost sounds like the title for Star Wars 7, and inevitably it would have to be followed by "The Publisher strikes back" - which they did. But first things first.

The Süddeutsche article starts with an introduction to Gault Millau's Wein Guide and explains the 195 Euro "voluntary" contribution issue. It then quotes Werner Knipser who thinks it is outrageous to pay to be reviewed. Knipser feels this would be a dingy practice and equivalent to paying for the actual ranking. He said he wanted to start a broad discussion. Contrast that to Jörg Bauer, who is quoted saying that charging was a common practice with regards to tests and that it was only to be expected that Gault Millau would introduce that; Bauer also feels that less well known wineries needed the publicity of the Wein Guide.

I'd like to point out one more aspect of the Gault-Millau debate, namely that the way scores come about plays an important part in the sorts of arguments that can be made against a wine guide.

Gault Millau tastes openly, that is to say every taster knows which wine he is about to score. That has a positive side, as a wine can of course be appreciated more fairly when you have some context to go with it, some experience of the kind of quality that a certain producer has shown in the long range, and other things. The negative side is this: Faced with one producer's range of wines, any taster will tend to give scores that reflect the hierarchy of quality that the pricing suggests, rather than a strictly objective evaluation of every individual wine.