Wine Critics in Hell Act 8

ACTS 1-7 ARE HERE

Everyone’s starting to feel a little cooped up here in Hell, which turns out to be a Natural Wine bar somewhere in Lodi. If there’s a somewhere in Lodi. Weary of the first seven acts of the play, and aren’t we all?, the wine critics are scattered about the bar sitting quietly, seemingly contemplating their horrible fate. As it turns out, Act 8 is part of that horrible fate… It’s the Stranger who breaks the silence.


Stranger: (standing up from the table where he’s been playing with his Tarot cards) I thought it would be a lot more fun to be in a bar with six famous wine critics. Instead, it’s like “The View,” only everybody’s Whoopi. It’s like talking to the starting lineup of the NHL’s All Head Trauma Team. I brought you all here not just because you deserve it, but because I thought I might enjoy your company. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Galloni: Sorry to disappoint. I’m happy to take my Vinous elsewhere.

Stranger: I thought you learned this already, Antonio. Nobody gets to leave this room, not ever. There is no elsewhere. I can leave, and I’m sure I will soon the way this play is going, but the rest of you…well, you’re my little repertory company. So you know, this is just the rehearsal. It’s going to get a lot better.

Kramer: What do you mean, “I brought you all here?” Who are you? I keep thinking I’m just dreaming and I’m going to wake up any minute now.

Stranger: Oh, you’re sort of dreaming, Matt. But you’re as awake as you’re going to get. (He pauses and looks around at all the critics.) It doesn’t matter who I am. Everyone I meet sees me as someone, or something, different. In here, I don’t know, maybe think of me as the Wine Buying Public. The Wine Buying Public getting its Day of Reckoning.

Suckling: So you’re like a blogger?

(The Bartender loudly slams a baseball bat against the bar. Everyone but the Stranger is startled.)

Laube: Fuck, I wet myself again.

Feiring: (she holds up her wine glass) Oh, I thought that was this Vin Jaune I was drinking.

Stranger: (angrily) I’m not like a blogger, James. Be careful about insulting me. The Bartender is very protective of me. Wine bloggers are fools. They have no power, no clout. Tell me, honestly, what’s the difference between a dick and wine blogger?

Suckling: Beats me.

Stranger: Not much. Only a dick has a mind of its own. (Laube laughs a little too much.)

Parker: So, Stranger, we’re here, and we’re here for eternity, according to you, but what’s the point?

Stranger: Now there’s irony. Parker asking me about points. What if there isn’t a point? Oh, then it could be like an Alice Feiring wine review—not just without points, but naturally pointless. There doesn’t have to be a point to all this, Bob. Who says there has to be a point? Every wine critic’s life is either a comedy or a tragedy. But it doesn’t necessarily have a point. I think you’d all agree with that.

Parker: So which was my life, Oh Great and Powerful Oz? Comedy or tragedy?

Stranger: (after a long pause) I’m glad you asked me that, Bob. That’s an interesting question. And it gets to the very heart of why we’re all here—here in this God-forsaken natural wine bar. (Looking around.) You know, I really could have done better. Oh well. It’s a question each of you has to answer for himself, or, dear Alice, herself. Was your life, in particular, your life as a wine critic, a comedy or a tragedy?

(No one is looking very eager to participate in the discussion. Introspection isn’t on the list of qualifications for being a wine critic. In fact, it’s a significant handicap.)

Stranger: Nobody? (He walks back to his Tarot cards, which are laid out on the table.) Maybe think of your life as one of these Tarot cards. (He holds one up.) Look at it right side up, and it means one thing. Turn it upside down, it means something else entirely. (He holds up the card for everyone to see.) Comedy. (He turns it upside down.) Tragedy. Or (he tosses the card as far as he can), perhaps, worthless.

(The door to the bar opens and a young woman walks in. She looks utterly lost. She’s very pretty, well-groomed, and openly surprised to be in a strange bar with a bunch of old people.)

Woman: Oh. Hi. You’re all staring at me. I’m kinda lost. I was just looking for a glass of wine.

Bartender: (as he speaks, and he speaks loudly, everyone is astonished that he is able to) You got any ID?

Woman: Why, yes, I do. (She takes her driver’s license out of her purse, walks over to the bar and hands it to the Bartender.) I’m 25.

Stranger: We’ve been expecting you! Welcome. Allow me to introduce you to this marvelous cast of characters. (One by one, he introduces the wine critics to the woman.) This is Robert Parker. The gentleman with the wet trousers at the bar is James Laube. That’s Alice Feiring. The guy salivating is James Suckling. Matt Kramer is off by himself in the corner—you get used to it. And, finally, that’s Antonio Galloni.

Woman: Nice to meet all of you.

Stranger: Anyone’s name ring a bell?

Woman: No. I don’t think so. Should I know any of you?

Laube: Oh, Jeez. Fucking Millennial.

Wine Critics in Hell Act 7

ACTS 1-6 ARE HERE

Things are getting messy in Hell. The Bartender has just shot Suckling, who was threatening to stab Matt Kramer with a broken piece of Riedel (“Riedel—The Official Stemware of Eternal Damnation”®)—broken pieces of which are about as hard to find as insect parts in your breakfast cereal. This begs the question, can you kill someone who is already confined to Hell? Antonio Galloni tried to exit the Hell that is a Natural Wine bar in Lodi only to find that there is no escape—there never is from our own private Hell, is there? Laube hasn’t moved from his stool at the bar much. Alice Feiring seems either repulsed, or slightly aroused, by the senseless shooting of Suckling. OK, by the shooting of Suckling. Matt Kramer seems to be in a state of shock, while Parker seems bemused. The Stranger is looking at the Tarot Cards on the table in front of him and nodding in affirmation.

Galloni: (to the Bartender) Shoot me next! I want out of here.

(The Bartender casually replaces the gun beneath the bar and goes back to washing wine glasses. Suckling hasn’t moved. There is little concern.)

Laube: (wearily, and angrily, he rises from his bar stool and begins to speak, suddenly articulate) That sucking Fuckling tried to kill Kramer. What the hell? What’s the point of trying to kill Kramer, except that everyone hates him? We write about wine. All of us here. We just write about wine. We don’t do anything important. Nothing we write is important. We’re among the least important people in the universe. Not one of us has any real talent. We deal in adjectives. We sell myths. We put countless wines in our mouths and assign them arbitrary numbers. There’s no talent there. A good waiter in a good restaurant has more importance to wine than we do. We each chased our selfish little fixation on wine, our fascination with the romance of wine, our devotion to overindulgence in wine, and we stumbled into careers handing out recycled advice and completely worthless numbers. We think we’re important. Now we’re in this wine writers’ Hell. Trying to be the most important of the inarguably unimportant. We’re small people.

(Laube pauses. He takes a deep breath and gazes down at the motionless Suckling. The other writers are silent, dumbstruck at the suddenly loquacious Laube.)

We sell bullshit! We write countless articles and stacks of books that talk about the importance of wine, the beauty of wine, the almighty wonder of wine… And it’s all bullshit. In the next breath we lump all those wonders into lovely little bunches of scores. Ten thousand wines that are all 89s. Another ten thousand that are 90s. We take all that is beautiful and wondrous about wine and we reduce it to two digits. But it’s not the scores that are bullshit. No. The scores are right. Everybody thinks the 100 point scale is a joke, that the 100 point scale is the problem. The 100 point scale isn’t the joke. Most of what you need to know about 99% of the wines in the world is a number. 85. 88. 93. That’s all anyone needs to know. The joke is that we make a living saying the same old bullshit about wine that has been said for two hundred years. The joke is that we go from region to region, variety to variety, winemaker to winemaker, and, like yeast excrete alcohol, we excrete bullshit. Utter, complete, unmitigated, relentless, tireless, certified bullshit!

Every new wine we discover, every new region we discover, every new variety we discover, we write about in the same breathless, authoritative, and completely disingenuous double-talk. Terroir, biodynamics, natural wine, minimal intervention, authentic wine—it’s just crap. It’s shit we’re making up, shit we’ve agreed to promote, a sort of vinous mysticism that intends to befuddle, and intends to make ourselves seem wise. We can’t prove any of it. We can’t explain with any degree of accuracy what the fuck we’re talking about. But we have to say something. The numbers, which are what really express the value of the wine, aren’t enough. Not enough to justify our prestige and presence, our salaries, the fancy letters after our names, anyway. We’re wine writers, goddamit, not wine statisticians, we need to write.

Only, maybe we are wine statisticians. We crunch our imaginary numbers and try to make sense of them. The problem is, when you crunch numbers that have no actual relationship to wine, you get results that have no relationship to wine. So we make up stories, we sell marketing untruths, we spend our time selling ourselves in the guise of educating the public. Or we spread history on top of our work as a kind of horse manure, as though history is what makes wine great, or that history will make us seem more intelligent. But what we’re doing is selling bullshit. We’re bullshit salesmen. And now we’re all here in Hell because, finally, we got caught with our foot in the door.

(From the floor, Suckling does a sarcastic slow clap. Laube walks back to the bar and unceremoniously tosses back a full glass of the house red wine in Hell—Lodi Zin.)

Suckling: Hell is a place where Laube holds forth. God knows, he’s never been anywhere near first.

(Alice rushes over to Suckling.)

Alice: James! You’re alive! We thought you were dead. Which gave us great hope.

Stranger: Alive? Dead? What’s the difference, Alice? There’s no difference here. There’s no difference anywhere. Life and Death are just two sides of the same coin, like natural wine and every other wine. Grapes no longer have life after you make them into wine, Alice. And yet you ascribe “life” to the wines they produce. You ascribe “energy,” and “authenticity” to them. So where’s the line? Is it just your line? Are you the one who decides what “alive” means? If a woman who practices a healthy lifestyle gives birth to a child, is that child better, more valuable, more important than a child of a woman who isn’t completely natural? Is her son fake, less interesting, less authentic? Is nature that simple? Is wine that simple?

Alice: (under her breath) I hate this fucking place.

Stranger: Oh, Miss Feiring, the fun is only starting. (He looks down at his Tarot cards.) Here, look at the cards. (Alice gazes over the Stranger’s shoulders). More visitors are coming. Wait, are they visitors or permanent customers? Hard to tell from the cards. Are you a visitor? Or have you found your eternal residence? (He laughs.) And, look. Here, these cards. Do you know what these mean?

Alice: No

Stranger: 2017 is going to be the vintage of the century in Bordeaux.

Wine Critics in Hell Act 6

ACTS 1-5 ARE HERE


If this were an actual natural wine bar in Lodi, it wouldn’t be this crowded. So it must be Hell. It certainly is for the wine critics involuntarily drinking orange wine, Lodi Zin, or Prosecco, which is what they serve by-the-glass in Hell. It is possible to get Meiomi Pinot Noir by the bottle, unless you’re Laube, because he rated it 92 points. Which is but one reason he’s condemned to eternal wine critic damnation. Alice Feiring seems to be enjoying the orange wine, though she has lost several teeth to it, and it’s apparently turned her hair the same orange shade. Suckling is convinced that this isn’t Hell generally, it’s Parker’s Hell specifically. But if that were true, where’s Jancis? Matt Kramer feels pretty comfortable in Hell, having made life a living one for so many before he died. Laube seems pretty drunk. He’s begun talking to himself, declaring that he’s a “Denizen of Hell to Watch in 2017.” Galloni is pretty sure this whole play is all about him, though, much like when he was a living wine critic, there is no evidence to back this up. The Stranger, who seems to be enjoying all the nastiness and drama of the wine critics in Hell, seems the most energized of the group, while the Bartender just keeps refilling everyone’s wine glass, and listening.

Parker: (walking over to the Stranger’s table and staring down at the Ouija board) You know, Stranger, I’ve been thinking. How do we know we’re actually dead? I don’t remember dying. (he turns to the bar) Does anyone here remember dying? And all of us at once? What is this, some kind of 100 Point Rapture? A wine blogger wet dream? Death of the Scalesmen? And when it comes down to it, how do I know that I can’t just walk out of this dump? What happens if I try?

(Parker has everyone’s attention. The Stranger is just staring down at his Ouija board, smiling to himself a bit, and shaking his head in exasperation.) 

Stranger: (calmly) Oh, Bob, I expect you to try. I expect all of you to try. There’s just one problem. You can never escape a Hell of your own making. Walk out that door, and it won’t be any different. Out that door is this same room. Filled with these same losers. Even the same bartender. Thinking you can escape is just part of the fun of being in Hell. Even when you leave, Bob, there’s no way out. You’re all here for the same reason. It’s not that you’re dead. No one cares if you’re dead! It’s that you’re dead to the wine business. You’re dinosaurs, lady and gents. You’ve turned into noxious fossil fools.

Suckling: Wait. So I’m not dead, but I’m in Hell? Jeez, I feel like a vegan.

Stranger: I didn’t say you weren’t dead, Suckling. I didn’t say you were, either.

Galloni: (angrily) This is stupid. I don’t like anybody here, no matter how much you all admire me. I’m leaving.

(Galloni exits the door stage right, and, but a moment later, enters the door stage left.)

Parker: Just like when he’s reviewing. Never knocks.

Galloni: What the hell? That’s not possible. What is this place? (to the Stranger) Listen, whoever you are, I need to get out of here. I have hundreds of wine reviews to write. My subscribers are waiting. I can’t waste time here with this bunch of…of…has-beens. I have wines to score, and maps to make. I’m not like these clowns, I’m a full service critic! I don’t just recommend the party wine, I’m also the Mercatorer.

Laube: (loudly, but to himself) I think I’m gonna like it here. Yes. It’s nice. You know, when you said you were going to put me in assisted living, I was afraid I was going to be lonely. But look at all the new friends you’ve made here, Jimmy! And I think the redhead has a thing for me. Yes, she does. I think so, too. The Italian guy is kinda creepy. His head is too big. He looks like he’s a bobblehead doll. Fuck, I need another drink… (his voice trails off)

(The wine critics look nervous. Galloni’s failed escape has flummoxed them. Only Laube is content, off in his own little world. Alice comes over to sit near Laube in an attempt to stop him from talking to himself. She offers him a taste of her orange wine. He looks at it with the cocked head and confused look of a terrier listening to a squeaky toy.) 

Feiring: It’s OK, Jimmy. Try it. It’s really good. I can’t believe they have my favorite wine here in Hell.

(Laube takes a sip of the orange wine, and quickly spits it all over the bartender. The bartender never flinches.)

Laube: What is that shit? Christ, it tastes like Kramer writes. A little flowery, but there’s that really bitter edge. Where’s the fucking Meiomi? Papa needs some sweets…

Kramer: Oh, just shut the hell up, Laube. You’ve done the same goddam thing for 30 years. And you know what? You’ve got nothing to show for it. You’ve written thousands of wine descriptions and given out thousands of numbers. And what did it all mean? Not shit. 30 years of “wine writing” and you’ve used twenty different numbers and twenty-eight different words. You’re the Magic 8-Ball of wine writing. You can divine about 16 different things, and you’re full of some really creepy fluids.

Suckling: (eyeing Kramer) Listen, everybody, Bob might be on to something. I don’t remember dying either. And what about this? (He loudly breaks his Riedel glass on the bar) If we’re dead, then if I stab Kramer with this broken wine glass, it won’t hurt, right? (waving the broken glass around and approaching Kramer) Or it won’t kill him, anyway. And I won’t go to Hell because I’m already there. I’ve always wanted to stab Kramer with a broken Riedel. (He feints at Kramer, who doesn’t blink.)

Parker: Put it down, Suckling. It’s the wrong goddam glass. You have to use the right glass. You need the wine glass the hip sommeliers are using if you’re going to commit a Zalto and battery.

(Suckling continues to menace Kramer with the wine glass. Making quick jabs at his neck, he’s creeping closer and closer. Everyone else seems frozen in place, captivated by the threat of violence.) 

Kramer: (in a low tone of voice) Go ahead, Suckling. I don’t care anymore. Kill me first. Then finish off the rest of these washed-up wine critics. You’d be doing us a favor.

(Suckling draws his arm back, looking determined to gash Kramer’s throat. Before he can drive the broken Riedel home, the bartender draws a gun, aims, there is a very loud “BANG.” Everyone gasps. From the gun comes a white flag that reads “BANG!” Suckling grabs his own shoulder in pain. The bartender fires again. BANG! Another white flag emerges from the gun that reads, “I’m a 100 on that!” Suckling falls to the floor and is motionless.) 

(Everyone is silent. Then Alice screams loudly.)

Parker: Well, there you go. A whole lot of Miss Feiring in Hell…

Wine Critics in Hell Act 5

ACTS 1-4 ARE HERE


Hell, recognizable as a natural wine bar in Lodi, is crawling with dead wine critics. Much like an editorial meeting at Wine Enthusiast. Parker is at a table in the corner, a 97 on the Marlon Brando scale. Laube is at the bar passed out, mustache-deep in the peanut shells. Suckling sits alone, contentedly staring at his image in the large mirror behind the bar. Matt Kramer is pacing, agitated about something. Feiring is sitting at the bar upset that no one is paying attention to her—it’s as if Hell is her life on endless replay. Galloni, who has just entered Hell, is looking around, taking his measure of the place. There is also a Bartender, who only observes and never speaks, and a Stranger, who is at a table by himself, and now seems to be playing with a Ouija board.


Kramer: I need to get out of here. I don’t understand this place. What am I doing in Hell with a bunch of wine critics? Where’s everybody else? I thought Hell would be full of all kinds of people, people from all walks of life. Not just wine critics. I hate wine critics. I have to spend eternity with other wine critics? I mean, I was an asshole and everything, but even I don’t deserve this. What are we doing here?

Stranger: You may as well sit down, Kramer. You’re not going anywhere. You’re never going anywhere. It’s been decided.

Kramer: What do you mean, “It’s been decided?”

Stranger: (he looks up from his Ouija board and takes a deep, contemplative breath) I mean, it’s been decided. It’s done. There’s no appeal. OK, look at it this way. All of you here made snap judgments about wines. It’s what you did for a living. You tasted them, you maybe sat with them for an hour or so; or maybe you just Sucklinged them, gave them an off-the-cuff rating. No matter. You made a judgment, and you moved on. The wine was forever stuck with your rating, with your pronouncement. It would be, eternally, an 89-Point wine. You know what an 89-Point wine smells like? It smells like failure, my friends. And now all of you have been rated. You’re stuck with the pronouncement. There’s no changing the reviews. You’ve suffered the same fate as the wines you wrote about, the wines you rated. You’re in 89-Point Hell. Where all decisions are final.

Kramer: But why put us all together? And why here?

(The Stranger just stares at his Ouija board, his hands following the planchette as it moves over the board’s letters. He occasionally smiles.)

Galloni: (standing over the Ouija board, following the movements) The real question, Kramer, is what am I doing here? It’s pretty obvious what all of you are doing here. You’re old. The only thing you could smell at the end was your reputations decaying. Notes of forest floor and hubris. Your scores were starting to creep up annually, just like your old-man-pants. Your subscribers were dying off like polar bears—lumbering old white creatures, living fossils of a different age, destined for extinction in a world not meant for their kind anymore. The whole wine business was focused on selling wine to Millennials, and using wine critics a thousand years old. Perfect. But, still, what the Hell am I doing here?

Parker: Oh, doing what you always do, Antonio. Following me.

Feiring: (rather meekly) I didn’t rate wines. Why am I here? I saved the world from Parkerization.  I was the antithesis of what these…gentlemen…stood for. I championed the little guys, the natural winemakers, the men and women who strove to make honest wines, wines that spoke of terroir, wines made with minimal intervention. How is that the same as what these men were doing? Assigning numbers to an endless parade of wines that essentially taste exactly the same. Wines made by formula. CBS sit-com wines. Parker’s numbers were just the laugh track. Laugh tracks exist to convince you the sit-com is actually funny when you know better. Scores are there to convince you the wine is great when, really, you know better. Ratings are canned, just like more and more wines will be. (On the verge of tears) I can’t believe I’m stuck here with these human laugh tracks.

Suckling: Oh, get over it, Alice. The truth is, you should feel honored to be here. We’re all more powerful and influential critics than you ever were. We don’t know why you’re here either. Although it occurs to me that maybe we’re not actually here.

Kramer: If only.

Suckling: (excitedly) No, listen, Matt, what if this is not Hell? I mean, what if this isn’t our Hell? What if we’re just in Parker’s Hell?

(The bartender laughs loudly. Everyone turns to look at him. He grins sheepishly and goes back to polishing the Riedels, most of which break off at the stem—“Riedel: The Official Stemware of Eternal Damnation”®.)

Kramer: So, Suckling, you’re saying we’re not dead, we’re just here in this stinking natural wine bar because we’re in Parker’s Hell?

Suckling: Oh, we’re dead alright. Doesn’t take a genius to know that. We’re dead as a Samsung smartphone. But maybe this is Parker’s personal Hell, and he’s summoned us up, or someone has summoned us up, because our presence here makes this his personal Hell.

Parker: (laughing) I like it! Christ, Suckling, that might be the only smart thing you’ve ever said. I was kind of thinking along the same lines when Antonio walked in here. “What fresh Hell can this be?” That’s a quote from another Parker.

Suckling: Somewhere there’s a personal wine Hell for all of Us! If this were my Hell, for sure Shanken would be here. And the guy who does my hair. But look around. Feiring, Kramer, Suckling, Laube, Galloni—enemies and impersonators. This isn’t our Hell, Matt, it’s Bob’s Hell!

Stranger: (still fiddling with his Ouija board) That’s an interesting theory, Suckling. I have to say, it makes a certain amount of sense. And I’ve just finished consulting with my office (he nods towards the Ouija board). Guess who’s coming to dinner?

(The Stranger hands the piece of paper he’s been using to write down the letters transcribed from the Ouija board to Suckling. Suckling reads the letters one at a time.) 

Suckling: J-A-Y M-I-L-L-E-R

Parker: Shit.

Wine Critics in Hell Act 4

Act One is here   
Act Two is here   
Act Three is here


Our four dead wine critics, Parker, Laube, Suckling and Kramer, are listlessly hanging around in Hell, which appears to be a natural wine bar in Lodi. Alice Feiring is sitting at the bar deep in conversation with Laube, who is visibly inebriated, while she sips from a bottomless glass of natural rosé. There is a Stranger sitting alone in the corner who listens intently to everyone’s conversations. Everyone appears to be waiting for someone.

Laube: (drunkenly) I don’t know what I’m doing here with these idiots, Alice. I’m a lot more influential than any of them. I ran California! If I said a wine was 95 points, then, goddamit, it was going to get somewhere around 95 points. Give or take. I mean, there were other factors, weren’t there, Alice? I’m not to blame for that. There’s always other factors…(he drifts off).

Feiring: (consoling him) Oh, Jimmy, you did your best. And isn’t it better to be here in this sort of Hell than the one of your own making? I mean, Honey, you stayed at Wine Spectator for all those years. You had the courage to stay, not go out and try to make something of yourself like other wine critics. You were dependable, like a morning bowel movement. You had no aspirations to be better! I admire that. Get a big paycheck and just phone it in? Why, that’s inspiring! You gave the best years of your life to that magazine, and what do you have to show for it? Why, you’re a household name, like washrag, or doormat!

Laube: And I wrote a book! Don’t forget that. I wrote a goddam wine book.

Feiring: Why, yes, yes, you did, Jimmy. (a long pause) When was that?

Laube: I don’t remember. Maybe 1989? But it was a helluva book. It was about Cabernet.

Feiring: It sounds fascinating. Did it have numbers, Jimmy? Say some numbers to me, Jimmy. I love when you say numbers to me in that whiskey-laden voice of yours. It’s sexy. Tell me, Honey, what sort of a number would you give me?

Parker: One for the nearest shrink would be good.

Laube: (looking Feiring over) I’d have to taste you first.

(Feiring slaps him. His moustache flies across the bar. Parker rushes over and grabs Feiring’s wrist, which is poised to strike again. The bartender hands Laube his moustache back, which is now covered in peanut shells. Laube puts it in his glass of wine, wrings it out in the glass, and puts it back on his face. He then sips the wine, and his eyebrows show approval.) 

Parker: Leave him alone, Feiring. What’s he ever done to you? Laube’s like tsunami debris—he was washed up years ago.

Kramer: Look who’s talking about being washed up. The Great Robert Parker! That’s rich! We’re all here in this Godforsaken Lodi Hell because our opinions stopped mattering, because we’re dead to the world. Sure, we used to be somebodies. Our scores could make or break people. Our pronouncements carried weight. But not recently. Not right before we ended up in this Hell Hole. We were reduced to being just more internet wine chatter, the old fucks trying to talk over the party noise. A bunch of weary old men with fading senses trying to pretend the party ain’t going anywhere without us. Well, we didn’t leave the party, but the party sure left us. We’re not respected critics anymore, we’re just a string of numbers with initials after them. Like a goddam electronic wine ticker tape. 94RP, 93WS, 94WE 92CG… It’s pathetic. When we started, Gentlemen, we turned fine wines into a bull market. We taught people to love great wines with our tireless palates, our considered opinions, and our easy-to-use numbers. The wine business owes us! Now, it’s a bull-shit market, and we’re just a bunch of tired wine critics trying to hang on to past glories. We’re wine critics in hell. We’re great men. We even tried to pass the wine reviewing torch to a younger generation, but it was too late, there was no torch. Consumers blew out the damned torch. We had our day. But we stayed at the party way too long.

Suckling: Oh shut up, Kramer. Hell is listening to you pontificate. Do I have to go through eternity listening to you? Making Sense of Whinging? (to bartender) Christ, this crappy Grüner Veltliner isn’t even making me drunk! (the bartender shrugs, Suckling is clearly stating the obvious) Jesus, we have to drink this shit forever and it doesn’t even get us drunk? How come Laube’s drunk?

Laube: (slurring his words) I’m not sunk, Druckling. Uh, druk, Sunkling. I need a nap. (He puts his head down on the bar. Feiring breaks free from Parker and rushes over to see to him, caressing his head as Laube dozes on the bar.)

Feiring: Oh, Jimmy, I’m sorry I struck you. You’re the only kind one. I don’t know what got into me… (turning to the rest) You leave Jimmy alone! Can’t you see he’s miserable? You’re horrible people, all of you. You’re not even sweet enough to be Extra Dry. And you’re certainly not Natural. Why, you’re Bruts! Tasteless, cruel Bruts. You’re Veuve Clicquot! All of You! You're Yellow!

Parker: Oh, Alice, nobody here gives a Grande Dame what you think. Nobody cared when you were alive either. You only spoke for the fringe wine lovers. The ones who don’t enjoy wine, but see wine as some sort of symbol. Sure, lots of people bought my 100 Point wines to feel better about themselves. But is that any different from buying natural wines because they’re more authentic? Yeah, we fuck up the planet, ruin the environment, but we can feel OK about ourselves because we drink wines that are natural! Oh, we’re such thoughtful and engaged people. We don’t drink any of that terrible crap that wasn’t farmed biodynamically! Why, how can I enjoy a wine that wasn’t made properly?! We’ve raped the Earth, but if we’re really nice to this fifteen acres, all will be forgiven. It’s bullshit.

(The Stranger starts to laugh. He’s laughing quietly to himself at first, but then his laughter builds and he seems downright giddy. Everyone stops and stares at him.)

Stranger: (gaining his composure) Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just enjoying the show. Wonderful stuff. Why, this couldn’t have worked out any better if I’d planned it. Oh, wait, I did plan it. I have to say, the five of you are so much fun to watch. And we’re just getting started! But, I don’t know, does it seem a little…uncrowded in here?

(The door opens and in walks Antonio Galloni.)

Galloni: (to the bartender) Hey, where’s the men’s room? I need to drain my Tanzer.

Wine Critics in Hell Act 3

Hell appears to be a very sleazy natural wine bar in Lodi occupied by four dead wine critics, a Stranger, a single woman, and the bartender, who does not speak. The dead wine critics seem particularly restless as the scene opens, caged animals pacing about, while the bartender polishes the Riedel stemware, “Riedel—The Official Stemware of Eternal Damnation”®, every other one of which breaks at the stem. Ms. Feiring, the only woman in Hell, which may be the very definition of Hell, is sitting coquettishly at the bar, drinking her bottomless glass of natural wine Rosé. ACT 1 is here, ACT 2 is here.


Feiring: (flirtatiously) Why, I wish you boys would stop pacing like that. A woman gets tired of men who ignore her. (fanning herself with a copy of Le Pan, the only wine magazine in Hell) Why does it have to be so hot in here? (to Parker) It’s hotter than those 100 Point Napa Valley Cabs you love so much, Bobby. May I call you Bobby? I like the name Bobby. I once had a gentleman caller named Bobby. Oh, he was so handsome, and so natural. He had the prettiest skin, all shiny and smooth, like the taint of a newly minted Master Sommelier, before life tears her a new one. We were lovers, Bobby and I. Well, lovers in every way that really matters. Not the dirty way you boys are thinking about—I see how you stare at me. (No one is looking at her.) Does it shock you that I had a true love, a man who wanted me, who wanted to marry me? Bobby appreciated my feminine terroir. He always said a good old fashioned plough was what I needed. Not some cold mechanical thing. He was so romantic, my Bobby. He used to tell me that he had a secret spray, his own “magic tea” he called it, that he wanted to squirt all over me! Isn’t that a lovely thought? A man spraying his magic tea all over you? But only on a Fruit Day. He said it had to be a Fruit Day. He never did squirt his secret spray all over me, though I asked him to over and over and over. Made me wonder what he meant by “Fruit Day.”

Feiring opens her purse and removes a cigarette from her cigarette case. Laube rushes over to light it for her, but he is drunk, and tries to light her cigarette with a tiny statue of Jon Bonné he keeps in his pocket. Lifesize statue. Parker casually walks over, eyeing Feiring skeptically, shoves Laube aside, and lights her cigarette.

Feiring: Why, thank you, Bobby. (Parker grunts.) Is it OK if I smoke? I find smoking so relaxing. It leaves that little taste of death in my mouth, like drinking Vin Jaune from the Jura. Not that you boys know what that tastes like, now do you?

Parker: Smoke away, Alice. We’re all dead here anyway.

Kramer: Speak for yourself. Bobby. I might be dead, but my wine books are immortal.

There is a stunned silence. And then everyone begins to laugh at once. Laube pisses himself again.

Suckling: You know, Kramer, you really are a jackass. Do you really think you’re in this fucking bar because you had talent, because you “made sense” of shit? You’re just one of us, one of the blowhards you’ve always looked down on. You never helped make sense of anything wine to anybody that wanted to love wine. You were in love with the sound of your own voice. Narcissus staring at his reflection in a glass of DRC Montrachet. You never even loved wine, Kramer. You only played at loving wine. Writing about wine for you was like karaoke—you just mimicked being real, and waited for the applause of the idiots who sat there and listened to you. (Suckling mimes a mic drop.)

Feiring: (raising her voice) Boys! Boys! Don’t fight over me, boys. Please, I’m a delicate flower. I have plenty of stamen for all your heat-packing pistils. I am not your precious vitis vinifera, I am a woman, I am not self-pollinating! We have eternity. There’s enough of me for everybody. (Parker breaks wind.)

Parker: (threateningly) Let me tell you something, Alice. You don’t belong here. I don’t know how you got in here, I don’t know who decides these things, but this isn’t the place for you. Not among us. You’re not one of us. We see through you. That sultry thing, it doesn’t work here. (He gets close to her, right in her face.) I know what you want. I know why you’re here. (She glances aside, blows smoke from her cigarette at Laube). Look at me. (She doesn’t.) I said look at me! (Parker grabs her face, turns it to his, and kisses her. It’s a longer kiss than either expect.) How’s that for fucking natural? (Alice spits in his face. He just smiles.)

Suckling: Our dolly spits like a llama.

Stranger: (speaking quietly but firmly) I brought her here.

Parker: Then get her out! Can’t you see, Stranger? She’s here to unravel us, one at a time.

Stranger: (sarcastically) Yes, Bobby. This is Hell. Were you expecting a medal? Guess what? Hell is your Lifetime Achievement Award.

Feiring: I believe I’m getting the vapors. My, all of this anger, all of this testosterone. (She turns to Laube.) Jimmy, will you help me? Bobby is being a brute. And so hedonistic! I feel so violated. You’re the real gentleman here, Jimmy. I know that. Come over here and take my hand. Take me for a walk outside. I love the smell of sulfur on a warm night, it reminds me of my favorite wines.

Laube stands up slowly, clearly still inebriated, gently brushes his hair with his hands, runs a finger over his moustache, and reaches for Feiring’s extended hand. Parker looks disgusted. Suckling is smirking. Kramer is pouting from lack of attention.

Stranger: Oh, you can’t go outside, Alice, not with Jimmy, and not with anyone else. Not until you’ve finished what I’ve brought you here to do, and maybe not even then. Like it or not, Alice, you’ve been locked in a room with these…men…for all of your professional life. That’s what Hell is about, Love. Discovering that who you hated in life were those who were the ones who were the most like you. You’ll see, all of you will see, as you unravel them, as you diminish and ruin them, it is your self you have damned to Hell.

Kramer: Can we talk about me now?

Wine Critics in Hell Act 2

Act One is here

The same Natural Wine bar in Hell. Four dead wine critics sit glumly sipping Cornelissen rosé. Their glasses, though they drink them continually, never empty. Hell is bottomless natural wine rosé. Behind the bar, the bartender, who has nothing to say to these idiots, stands and observes. He represents the readers of wine publications. Even with the evidence to the contrary right in front of him, he believes these critics to be worth listening to. A stranger is also in the bar. Not a dead wine critic, but clearly dead, he seems disoriented, confused about how he has landed in this horrible place. With a shitty wine by-the-glass list. It’s like landing in a Marriott, except the customers here know they’re dead.


Laube’s head is on the bar. Suckling is searching the place for a mirror, and trying to see his reflection in everything. Kramer is pontificating to the Stranger, who is clenching his fists and seems on the verge of violence. Parker is putting Laube’s finger into a glass of warm water.

Parker: Oh, this will be great! Laube’s pants will be like a great vineyard—all about the soil.

Suckling: Does my hair look alright to you guys? Where’s the fucking mirror in this dump?

Parker: Should I grab your balls and tell you to, “Coif?”

Kramer: (lecturing to the Stranger) I think you’ll really enjoy my newest book, Stranger. It’s called “Making Sense of Death.” I think it’s my finest work, and, as you know, I’m universally regarded as the greatest dead wine writer…

Suckling: Yup. Give the public what they want.

Kramer: (ignoring Suckling, which is nothing new to Suckling) I think you’ll be surprised at the section that explodes the biggest myths around death. For example, that a 96 point death is better than a 92 point death. That’s what most people think, right, Stranger? Well, it turns out death is utterly pointless. Harvey Steiman gives Gluttony a 97, it doesn’t matter. Choose the death that you like! I did!

Parker: Gluttony is clearly 100 points. Hey, look, Laube pissed his pants!

Suckling: Come on, Kramer. You didn’t choose your death. None of us did. We all died of neglect. Consumers just stopped giving a shit about us. Fucking Millennials. Put us all in this room and damned us to eternal irrelevance. After all we did for them.

Laube: (waking up in a puddle of his own making, he stands and the front of his pants are wet) Shit! Bob, what the fuck?

A woman enters on a cheap bike. She looks lost. She stares at the wet spot on Laube’s pants, which continues to grow. The dead wine critics look at her, then at each other, and they begin to laugh. Only the Stranger and the bartender are silent. It’s the laughter of the damned.

Woman: What are you assholes doing here? Fuck. And me without a cowhorn into which I could shove this roomful of shit.

Stranger: The question, Ms. Feiring, isn’t what these assholes are doing here. They belong here. They’ve been drinking their way here for forty years. The question is, how did you end up in this particular room with these particular pricks? You’d think that the woman who saved the world from Parkerization would end up in a better place. You’d think that a woman who expended all her energy trying to show consumers that she was the one who held the secrets to great wine, that she was the one to whom they should listen, that only she was incorruptible and sincere in her love for wine, you’d think she was nothing like these four old, dead, impotent wine critics. But you’re not different, are you, Alice? You’re just as vain, and just as incontinent. You…

Parker: (loudly interrupts) Hey, Stranger! Lay off her.

Everyone falls silent after Parker’s outburst. Laube tucks a napkin into his pants and spreads it to cover the wet spot. Suckling shuffles around the bar appearing to be lost in thought, though thought is as foreign to him as humility. Kramer is sullen because no one is listening to him, though he has the same point to make he made but a few minutes ago. The bartender sets a glass of rosé on the bar loudly and stares at Alice Feiring, welcoming her to Hell. Feiring seems bewildered.

Feiring: (quietly) Thank you, Bob. Gentlemen, I’m a little confused. Just a minute or two ago I was riding my bike through the hills of Provence. Oh, it was a beautiful day. I felt like a young woman again, vibrant and sensual. I could smell the French countryside, and it was like the aroma of a biodynamic wine. You know, Bob, like inhaling the armpit of a French hooker with one leg named Eileen.

Suckling: What do you call her other leg?

Laube: The grip.

Parker: Shut up. Let the lady talk.

Kramer: I’d like to say something…

ALL: Shut up, Kramer!

Feiring: (sipping from her wine glass) Hey, this is good. (She strolls seductively over to where Parker is leaning against the bar. She stands very close to him.) Why are we here, Bob? I mean, we’re all famous wine critics, right? I get that. Well, except that Stranger. Who is he? I don’t like him. But why are we here? I have a lot of things to do. I don’t have time to sit around and drink with a bunch of old, dead, white guys. Like I ran for Congress. I have to save wine from you, Bob. (She leans in as if to kiss him.) I hate you.

Stranger: (angrily) Hate him, Alice? You are him. You’re all him. Every goddam one of you is him. You wasted your lives and your meager talents emulating him, or deriding him, or stealing from him. Laube, his fawning panty boy, pretending his opinions were different, but longing to worship at Bob’s feet. Suckling, the self-parody, the mockery of a critic, like imitation crab—looks like the real thing, but leaves a shitty taste in your mouth. And Kramer, the faux intellectual, the flipside of the hedonist, the “thinking man’s” Parker, the one who knows how to speechify but never feel, the one who puts the acid in flaccid. And you, Alice.

Feiring: What about me, Stranger? What about me?

Stranger: The Doña Quixote, the nut in shining armour, tilting at windbags. You might be the worst of them. These guys are buffoons, exaggerated parodies of wine power, the Walking Dead of the wine world, misogynists, the NFL owners of wine. And you? You pretended you were trying to slay these monsters when all you were really doing was finding a way to stand on their shoulders. Bob’s shoulders.

Feiring: Oh, they’re big strong shoulders, Stranger.

Laube: Fuck me. I think she’s in love.

Wine Critics in Hell

The scene takes place in Hell, which appears to be a Natural Wine bar somewhere in Lodi. The bartender, who never speaks, sports a Master Sommelier pin the size, and value, of a sewer cover on his lapel. There are several dead wine critics sitting at the bar.

Kramer: Is it me? Or is…

Parker: (Interrupting) It’s always you, Kramer. It was you when we were alive, and now it’s you when we’re dead. I thought Hell was going to be spending eternity with the buttboys on the eBob chat room, but this is worse. Just for once, Kramer, can we not talk about the importance of your wine legacy? Hey, somebody wake up Laube.

Laube: (raises his head from where it was resting on the bar) I’m awake. Oh, crap, I wet myself again. (Sniffing his wine glass) Oh, no, I didn’t. Sorry, it’s not me, it’s this fucking Pét Nat. Why do they all smell like Shanken’s office?

Kramer: (muttering) For once it’s not you.

Laube: Hey, fuck you, Kramer, I never liked you. You and your high and mighty wine wisdom. You know what we used to call your column around the office? “Excre-Matt.” “Yeah,” we used to say, “here he comes. By the looks of that pinched face, he’s almost ready to give us another big pile of excreMatt.”

Parker: Oh, will you two knock it off. Can we try to be a little bit civil today? Rumor has it that we have a new arrival coming today. I wonder who it is. I hope it’s a woman for a change.

Suckling: You say that every time, Parker. It’s never a woman. Give it up! I wish it were a woman, too, but it won’t be.

Kramer: (muttering) Yeah, you wish it were a woman. You’d be 69 on that.

Suckling: I wonder if the women wine critics have their own Hell. Maybe just being a woman wine critic when you were alive is Hell enough. And where are all the foreigners?        

Parker: I think this Hell is just for those who write in English.

Suckling: Oh, no wonder Schildknecht isn’t here.

A stranger enters. He slowly glances around at everyone in the wine bar, and finally takes a seat at the end of the bar, where the bartender has already placed a glass of red wine for him. There is a long, uncomfortable silence. The dead wine critics just stare at their wine glasses. 

Parker: You guys smell sulfur?

Kramer: Oh, it takes being dead for you to finally smell sulfur? What next? Brett? It’s probably that shitty house wine they serve us here. What is that?

Laube: I think it’s Meomi Pinot Noir. It’s wine by-the-glass in Hell. Constellation has the exclusive for Hell. On every five cases they buy, Constellation throws in another soul.

Parker: Didn’t you give this garbage 92 points, Laube?

Laube: Yeah. (He smiles) I always did like to fuck with consumers.

Suckling: You? Hell, I used to hand out 99 points like they were ten cent cigars and my wife had just had another little Suckling. You know why? People love wines that score 99 points. You give a wine a hundred points, nobody believes it. They think you’re losing your palate. You give it 99 points, they think you can tell the difference, that you’re “discerning.” Idiots. You guys know. What’s the difference between a 99 point wine and a 100 point wine? The swag. (Everyone laughs.)

Parker: (angrily) It was I who came up with the 100 point scale, and you clowns who bastardized it! You made my scale a laughing stock. When I started out, if I gave a wine a perfect score, I made that winery. That wine sold out faster than a Republican to the NRA. None of you had that power. Nobody talked about Laube points, or Suckling points, or Kramer points. Kramer didn’t make a single point in ten years of writing a column. But you sure as hell used my points. You abused my points. When I started, people were happy to get 91 points. They thought 91 points was a damned great score. 89 was the most feared score. I knew what an 89 point wine smelled like. So did everyone else. It smelled like failure—like Le Pan magazine, like Wine Blog Awards, like Dr. Conti’s fake life. And then you guys came along and started giving higher and higher numbers to lesser and lesser wines. Just to get your miserable names on more shelf talkers. Suddenly 91 is a lousy score. Then 93 ain’t so good. 94 was starting to seem worthless. 94! A winemaker would say his wine got 94 and he was ashamed. There was a time a winemaker would thank me for 94 points. At the end, no one even glanced at a 94 point wine. It had to be 96 or above. I gave my life for that scale. I gave the wine business that scale. It was brilliant!  I created it, and all of you, all of the wine critics after me, made a mockery of it.

Suckling: (after a lengthy silence) Weren’t you the guy who gave nineteen 100 point scores to 2009 Bordeaux?

Parker: Suck you, Fuckling.

The stranger suddenly stands up and walks center stage, and the dead wine critics fall silent. He is gazing out at the distance, hardly moving. The dead wine critics watch him apprehensively while the bartender seems completely oblivious. 

Stranger: (softly) There was a time when I believed in wine critics. I read every reputable wine publication religiously. “Wine Advocate,” “Wine Spectator,” “Wine Enthusiast,” “Connoisseurs’ Guide,” “Decanter.” Heck, when I needed a laugh, I read “The SOMM Journal,” or its sister publication, “The Ladies’ SOMM Journal.” I loved wine. I wanted to understand wine. Don’t ask me why. I guess I always felt like wine had something to say to me, something important, something about being human, something about the beauty of being alive.

The stranger turns slowly to face the dead wine critics. 

Stranger: I looked to wine critics, I looked to all of you, to teach me about wine. I was sure that if I understood wine, I would somehow understand what it was like to be alive, what it must be like to be human. I wanted wine to make me human. I wanted you to make me human. I was a fool.

The dead wine critics begin to object. The stranger erupts.

Stranger: (loudly, his voice reverberating, only the bartender doesn’t look up) We had a deal, Gentlemen! I gave you power, a voice, a 100 Point Scale. I had hoped you would use it wisely. I had hoped you would teach me what it’s like to be glad to be alive. Instead, what do I have? A bar full of egotistical accountants. Number crunchers. Point shavers. Braggarts and the Self-Important. Well, Gentlemen, your deal has come due. I own you. I own your souls.

Laube: Fuck, I knew it. It’s Shanken.

END OF ACT I