Maybe I'm weird, but...

[Thomas]

Roberto, you slay me...

Bucko, my broad brush is intended more toward attitude in the business than it is toward individuals--although there are many individual writers with whom I completely disagree. I have been writing about wine and food for seventeen years, and what goes on sickens me. I have met many people like the one's Roberto mentions, and I am familiar with the many shortcomings of magazines.

Machforce1 taps into an important thing: the relative value of a wine. Is it the marketing. the name recognition or the wine that a consumer buys? As a retailer, I grow weary with people who come to my store, magazine or newspaper article in hand, and all they are interested in even trying is what some writer gave a 90. There is more baloney in that concept than in Oscar Meyer's distribution network. Besides, we eschew stocking such wines, so they cannot be bought at my shop.