{"id":8514,"date":"2013-07-02T08:11:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-02T08:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leaandsandeman.co.uk\/blog\/?p=8514"},"modified":"2013-08-15T23:16:07","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T23:16:07","slug":"tim-atkin-on-taster-bashing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leaandsandeman.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/07\/tim-atkin-on-taster-bashing\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Atkin on ‘Taster-bashing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim Atkin MW on crackling form in this week’s edition of the trade rag ‘Off-Licence News<\/a>‘ (bet quite a lot of you did not even know it existed). Following-up on a headline-grabbing article in the Observer at the weekend, he roundly rebuts the idea that tasters cannot tell one wine from another or judge quality…<\/p>\n

The article prompted a flurry of online responses, most of them agreeing with the premise that tasting expertise is questionable at best or, as two of the 346 comments put it, \u201ca crock of shit\u201d peddled by \u201cpretentious nobheads\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Features bashing wine experts with their \u201cflowery language\u201d seem to appeal for two main reasons: first, they enable some members of the British wine-consuming public to indulge the muddle-headed notion that cheap plonk is \u201coften superior\u201d to more expensive stuff (that deal-driven, lowest- common-denominator mentality that has done so much damage to average wine quality in the UK) and, second, to give vent to a deep-seated insecurity about their own senses, invariably expressed as reverse snobbery \u2013 \u201cI know what I like\u201d, etc.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As so often, online name-calling rebounds on\/shows up\u00a0those who indulge in it. Read the whole piece here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Atkin MW on crackling form in this week’s edition of the trade rag ‘Off-Licence News‘ (bet quite a lot of you did not even know it existed). Following-up on a headline-grabbing article in the Observer at the weekend, he roundly rebuts the idea that tasters cannot tell one wine from another or judge quality… […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,74,144,191],"tags":[264],"class_list":["post-8514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","category-the-observer","category-tim-atkin-mw","category-what-is-fine-wine-and-what-it-isnt","tag-tim-atkin"],"contentshake_article_id":"","yoast_head":"\nTim Atkin MW on 'Taster-bashing' in the Off-Licence News - Observer Article<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tim Atkin MW on crackling form in this week's edition of the trade rag 'Off-Licence News'. Following-up on a headline-grabbing article in the Observer at the weekend, he roundly rebuts the idea that tasters cannot tell one wine from another or judge quality...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.leaandsandeman.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/07\/tim-atkin-on-taster-bashing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tim Atkin MW on 'Taster-bashing' in the Off-Licence News - Observer Article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tim Atkin MW on crackling form in this week's edition of the trade rag 'Off-Licence News'. Following-up on a headline-grabbing article in the Observer at the weekend, he roundly rebuts the idea that tasters cannot tell one wine from another or judge quality...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.leaandsandeman.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/07\/tim-atkin-on-taster-bashing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lea & Sandeman Wine Merchants | Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LeaandSandeman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-02T08:11:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-08-15T23:16:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog-2207a.kxcdn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/taster-bashing-tim-atkin-lea-and-sandeman.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Charles Lea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@leaandsandeman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@leaandsandeman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Charles Lea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tim Atkin MW on 'Taster-bashing' in the Off-Licence News - Observer Article","description":"Tim Atkin MW on crackling form in this week's edition of the trade rag 'Off-Licence News'. Following-up on a headline-grabbing article in the Observer at the weekend, he roundly rebuts the idea that tasters cannot tell one wine from another or judge quality...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.leaandsandeman.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/07\/tim-atkin-on-taster-bashing\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tim Atkin MW on 'Taster-bashing' in the Off-Licence News - Observer Article","og_description":"Tim Atkin MW on crackling form in this week's edition of the trade rag 'Off-Licence News'. 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