It didn’t take long for Kathy to criticize me for not saying something to another visitor to a winery tasting room on our recent wineries visits. The other visitor was from Ohio and after discovering we were writers said, “The wines in Ohio aren’t very good.” Normally I would seize the opportunity of a teachable moment and discuss what was said. However we were interviewing the winery visited and not the other wine enthusiast, so I deferred my comments until now.

Kathy and I have tasted wines from 30 Ohio wineries and we only had suspicions from one of those wineries that there may have been faults with all of their wines. The other 29 wineries visited in Ohio were making wines that were not faulted. To say, “The wines in Ohio aren’t very good” is an objective sentence that denounces the Ohio wine industry. This isn’t fair and certainly not valid. On the other hand if the visitor would have stated “I don’t like the wines in Ohio,” I wouldn’t have a problem with a subjective sentence. Wine is a subjective topic and no one has to like a particular wine, or wines from a particular region or even a particular state. Keep opinions subjective. Issues arise when an opinion is stated as a fact. Some wine writers and bloggers are challenged by this when they state as a fact that a wine isn’t good and then do not proceed to back it up with objective reasons.

The vast majority of Ohio wines we tasted were not faulted. Would we purchase some of them? Absolutely! Would we serve Ohio wine to others at a dinner? Absolutely! Did we like every Ohio wine that we tasted? No! If a wine were indeed bad, we would explain what was wrong with it. If it were a case that we didn’t like a wine, we would state that subjectively.

Cheers,
Terry