Launching a New Wine without a Critic's Review

The premise of my January 11th post, entitled Wine Tasting Notes - The Public Gets Involved, was that the Internet has a number of valuable resources for getting information on wines other than through wine critics. I received several emails from winemakers challenging my assertion. Could I name one wine that had become famous through Internet forums that had not already received a review from a major critic? No, I could not.

In the best circumstance, an avid wine forum poster would discover an unreview wine, and enjoy it enough to post a glowing recommendation on a well trafficed wine forum. Visitors to that forum, who respect this amateur reviewers opinion would buy the wine based solely on his recommendation. If they enjoyed it, they too would post their tasting notes and recommend it to their friends.

I don't know of anytime this has happened. An Internet savvy winery might emulate what a lot of the consumer electronics companies do - put their wine in the hands of a few respected online pundits. The pundits may taste the wine and post a positive review online generating a little hype and possibly some sales.