Decanter “Most Powerful” List Built Upon Snobbery Rather Than Power

Decanter’s annual “Powerful” list is based not so much on power, clout, or the ability to move markets, but on a snobbish gaze at a small self-indulgent world that is increasingly irrelevant to the vast majority of the globe’s wine drinkers.

Indeed, the wine industry’s obsession with the navel-gazing worship of sacred grapes blessed by the gods since 1855 is one key reason wine remains  a self-marginalized beverage.

Small wonder that so many people who have a real life choose to punt on haut vin’s rituals and mumbo-jumbo and order a vodka or an IPA instead.

The smattering of truly powerful in Decanter’s list — those with the clout to move markets — are buried amid all too many high-profile, but irrelevant, personalities whose presence is due more to the fact that they are all part of  “The Club” rather than actual power. And a fair number of the names on the list seem there as part of the magazine’s way to suck up to those it needs to curry favor with.

The people on this list are highly learned, accomplished and clearly exercise an extraordinary power, but not all of them have the ability to change tastes and move markets as well as Bronco’s Fred Franzia, The Wine Group’s David Kent or Sutter Home’s Bob Trinchero.

It’s hard to see true global power when you’re staring down your nose through disdain-colored glasses.

Decanter List of 2011’s “Most Powerful”

Annette	Alvarez-Peters
Piero	Antinori
Bernard	Arnault
Lorenzo	Bencistà-Falorni
Simon	Berry
Jean-Charles	Boisset
Gary	Boom
Pierre	Castel
Nicolás	Catena
Sylvie	Cazes
Mathieu	Chadronnier
Jeannie	ChoLee
Ghislain	de Montgolfier
Eric	de Rothschild
Stéphane	Derenoncourt
Aubert	deVillaine
Mel	Dick
Denis	Dubourdieu
Wu	Fei
Peter	Gago
Gina	Gallo
Eduardo	Guilisasti
Pierre-Marie	Guillaume
Michael	Hill Smith
Yasuhisa	Hirose
Dan	Jago
Hugh	Johnson
Nicolas	Joly
John	Kapon
Tony	Laithwaite
Eric	Levine
Allen	Meadows
Robert	Parker
Pedro	Parra
Ch’ng	Poh Tiong
Pierre	Pringuet
Jancis	Robinson
Michel	Rolland
Frédéric	Rouzaud
Nobutada	Saji
Robert	Sands
Marvin	Shanken
Robert	Shum
Steven	Spurrier
Don	St Pierre Jr
Serena	Sutcliffe
Miguel	Torres
Gary	Vaynerchuk
amateur	wine blogger