Tim James: Confronting different conflicts of interest in talking of wine

There are topics and debates in wine discussion that seem to periodically re-emerge. Not a bad thing when they’re important – though many of us are a touch bored by them – as there are always newcomers to our world. Blind versus sighted tastings is one of them, and it had a little outing on this website recently. Another is conflict of interest, which raised its head in a remarkably forthright piece by Michael Fridjhon directed at some views expressed by Christian Eedes and including a sideswipe at a “material disclosure usually missing in all the plugs which promote Ex Animo wines on the Winemag website”: the fact that Christian’s wife works for Ex Animo. Ouch.

Christian took it all mildly enough, resisting the temptation to attempt retaliation, while asserting the independence of his judgements, but comments didn’t go much further into the basic question. When the topic does come up for broader discussion, however, there’s very seldom mention of an inherent issue that, in fact, is a significant and occasionally troublesome one for me personally. I’ll return to that later.

The basic reason why wine critics and commentators so often confront the question of conflicts of interest is, I’m afraid, simply because only a tiny number of them can make a living from that business (unless they have full employment at, say, a wine magazine) without getting involved in some sort of dealings with wine producers. (Some – like me – avoid that by having an entirely unrelated supplementary source of income.) And once you have any sort of financial dealings with the producers of the wine you’re writing about, it’s extremely difficult to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

Let me say immediately that I’m not accusing anyone of conscious – or perhaps even unconscious – corruption of their values or tasks. Perhaps I am naïve, but so be it. The problem remains, however, in all sorts of ways, some of them less obvious than having a family member benefiting inevitably from your enthusiastic scores. Critics who lucratively sell bottle-stickers advertising their ratings (such as Tim Atkin), for example, or who want to encourage producers to expensively submit their wines again next year or participate in a competition or show, face a subtle but obvious pressure to inflate their scores. Actually I’m a touch less naïve about that….

That’s clearly less of a problem for competitions where the wines are tasted blind. And for critics who do their own tastings blind – like Michael Fridjhon for his website. But Michael does also taste sighted in various venues (launches, etc), and does write general articles. There must be a similar sort of pressure there, to avoid writing even vaguely negatively about the wines of producers who, he would hope, might submit wines to the competition he owns (Trophy Wine Show) or participate in his wine show (WineX) – or even employ him as a consultant for something or other. And, incidentally, he does fairly frequently mention those business enterprises – or “plug” them, to use his word – in articles he writes.

How much of a problem there is in this sort of thing, I don’t know. I suspect things get hazier and more problematic in the big, blooming, buzzing world of social media than in more traditional venues for wine journalism. “Influencers” of varying degrees of venality? It’s perhaps seen too easily as just another way of earning a living, and who cares about integrity?

But there is also the problem I alluded to earlier as affecting me. In fact, it affects all those critics, judges and journalists who live and work close to wine-producers and specialise in their wines – as applies to most of us in South Africa, especially those based in the Western Cape.

I’ve been around South African wine for a while. I’ve looked a lot of winemakers in the eye and chatted to them. Some of them many times and we’re on good enough terms; I often have their phone-numbers and can give them a call when I want to know something about their wines, or when I want a soundbite on something or other relevant. A smaller number I’m ”friendly” with to some degree. And just a tiny number have become genuine friends over the years, a friendship that would survive one or other of us leaving the wine industry. I’m not in an unusual position over this.

The consequent problem for a critic assessing their wines is pretty obvious. Although, it must also be pointed out that a critic can benefit greatly from close relationships with winemakers. I used to get quite a bit of flack from a few grumpy readers who disliked what they thought was my favouritism for the Swartland. It was admittedly a special focus of mine, and one that I’d chosen, and I think the non-exclusive focus was acceptable and even useful. The friendly relationships I’d developed in the area, including one or two serious friendships and some lesser ones, was, I confidently believe, a genuine help in my gaining understanding – from the inside, as it were – of a crucially important development in Cape wine.

That’s the counter-side of the problem of living amongst and getting to know the people who produce the wines one is assessing. The question of how one honestly assesses the wines of someone you were sharing a family braai with the day before is another. One can evade the issue by silence. Or just try to respond to it positively.

In all these situations of conflicting interest, I do think integrity is possible, if one really tries. The first crucial step is to be self-aware in the context of the problem; and then to cope with it, both openly and honestly – strenuously, if need be. One must also realise that merely ticking the box of rectitude, by making a token footnote acknowledging a possible conflict of interest, is certainly not enough.

• Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. His book Wines of South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013.