Here at Elitistreview we are concerned with only the absolute best wine, food and drink with the occasional dip into other passions.
You will note the word “best” – this does not equate with “most expensive”. Elitistreview is not a snobbish organ obsessed with exorbitant fripperies but a meritocratic publication happy to point out the pinnacles of pleasure at all price points.
The Elitistreview team consists of Davy Strange BA(Hons) MA MStd DPhil WSETDip, loudly attired lunatic and site owner. Author of the first 800,000 words on the site. His love for wine began at an early age.
Davy is also fifth top red trouser wearer in the international wine trade.
Ten reasons why Davy loves wine.
Davy
The Editor, sometimes known as Dani Lindholm, it’s an excellent and experienced blind taster with a huge experience of fine wine. He is also better at spelling than Davy (although he does not know as many obscure words). He spots all of Davy’s mistakes and provides valuable backup in tastings. Davy is disabled and Dani is his carer. Davy has given him the full Oxford Blind Tasting Team training and far, far more. He has drank more Grand Cru Burgundy than you. No, I am sorry, but he has.
The Editor
Ricard Giner-Sariola‘s life has been entangled with wine since childhood. His mother joined the Wine Society in the early 1970s when women were as rare in wine as pleasure in Pinotage. Growing up in the UK, of Catalan heritage, wine was always at the table. And in summers, in Barcelona, Ricard’s early discovery of simple, savoury, sapid Rioja Crianza, started his journey in wine. Tondonia was the first epiphany, almost 40 years ago, and ever since, the passion – more accurately, obsession – only grows deeper, like the roots of Mas Doix’s legendary 120-year old vines of Carinenya. Ricard had the good fortune to serve on the Committee of the Wine Society for 11 years, and through this and other activities in wine, he has accumulated many friends similarly disposed, many bottles, many memories, many tastings, and a large amount of informal knowledge. An old friend and admirer of Elitistreview and its legendary author David Strange, Ricard is thrilled to be an occasional contributor. His wine loves are Burgundy, Riesling in all its forms, Alsace, Northern Rhône, occasionally Southern Rhône, Barolo and Barbaresco, Rioja, Priorat, Galicia, the new wines of the Canaries, South Africa, and a long list of others. Ricard can be very very rude about Claret, and even ruder about expensive wines that want to be like Claret.
Leon Marks has loved food and drink since he was a young boy, and has been seriously drinking (and unseriously collecting) wine since 2005, back in the days when auctions still had ridiculous bargains. His tastes are largely classical – he loves Burgundy, Champagne, Northern Rhone; off-dry Riesling still baffles him. Leon loves wine that tells a story.
Peter Palmer has been collecting and drinking fine wine since the 1980s, when he first had enough spare cash to spend on it. A veteran of the Oxford University Blind-Tasting team, where he and Davy first met, he has spent most of his professional life working and travelling in eastern Europe, especially the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. While he loves the fine wines of France, Italy and Germany, his travels in eastern Europe gave him the opportunity to sample the wines of those regions, to learn about their unique traditions and grape varieties, and to follow the development of their winemaking since the end of communist rule. He writes about his travels under the moniker “BlackSeaRoamer.”
About the reviews
Despite the whole unemployed lunatic-gig not paying for much fine wine – Elitistreview is not for sale.
With ever increasing frequency I get offered free bottles to taste and review. This is exceedingly kind of those people who offer such wine. However, a free bottle does not mean a free positive review.
I get a large amount of email saying how much people like my notes and, more satisfyingly, how they trust my buying suggestions. As I am a person of little income myself (see above), I know that a good buying tip is hard to beat; when you have limited funds you want them to be spent on only the best and not waste them on the mediocre.
Firstly, the best is what Elitistreview is all about. Secondly, as so many put their trust in me with advice in which direction to push their pennies, how could I look myself in the mirror if my loyalty were not to my readers?
No matter how flash and fancy a bottle of wine I get sent, if it is not good, I will not tell you it is. I would be letting you, my valued readers, down and I will have cheapened and sullied my organ. I would be lying to myself!
Everyone who sends wine to Elitistreview has this explained to them, and they can either choose to stand by the qualities of their wines or not have them reviewed. I have to say, that those who have stood by the qualities of their wines have almost always been right to do so. I have had some great free stuff.
Those who do not stand by the qualities of their wines? One fellow said, “I am not sending you a twenty-pound bottle of wine unless you praise it to high heaven!”. I had to laugh.
I laughed more when at a large trade tasting and I got to try the wine in question. He was right not to stand by its qualities! The only wine of that tasting I reported on my social media channels was his. I outlined the failings of it and mentioned in passing that he tried to buy Elitistreview.
Elitistreview reviews are not for sale!