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Malcolm Gluck is a British author, broadcaster and wine columnist.
Career
Initially an advertising copywriter for
Collett Dickenson Pearce
Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners (CDP) was a British advertising agency which operated from 1960 till 2000. It was founded by John Pearce and Ronnie Dickenson who bought an existing agency owned by John Collett. The agency played a pivotal ro ...
,
Doyle Dane Bernbach
DDB Worldwide Communications Group LLC, known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies. The international advertising networks ...
, a founder employee of
Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and later creative director for
Lintas, Gluck was for sixteen years the wine correspondent of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' with the column "Superplonk". In addition to contributing articles for other publications, including ''
Harpers Magazine'' he was a wine critic of ''
The Oldie
''The Oldie'' is a British monthly magazine written for older people "as a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity", according to its website. The magazine was launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who was its edit ...
'' until 2011, and the author of 36 books about wine. Among his titles are ''Superplonk'', ''Streetplonk'', ''Brave New World'' and ''The Great Wine Swindle''. He also featured in the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
programme ''Gluck, Gluck, Gluck''.
Gluck has been described as a "self-styled champion of the ordinary wine drinker, fighting against the perceived snobbery and stuffiness of the wine world".
In November 2008 a survey by the wine industry consultancy firm
Wine Intelligence
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...
was made public, having polled the views of more than 1,500 regular UK wine drinkers, results show that Gluck was the fifth most recognised wine critic in the UK.
Controversies
Appearing in the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
episode of ''
Dispatches'' titled "What's in your wine?" in 2008, Gluck stated, "Many, many wines are no better than a sort of alcoholic cola. You get
artificial yeasts, enzymes, sugar, extracts, tannins, all sorts of things added", a statement widely received with outrage in the wine industry.
Gluck's other controversial statements include, "''
Terroir
(, ; from ''terre'', "land") is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop's phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop's specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contex ...
'' is rubbish. It is complete utter balderdash from the first syllable of its pretentious and mendacious utterance to its last". In reference to his opposition to
cork stoppers, Gluck has stated, "Sticking a cork made from tree bark in a wine made in 1999 is like producing a modern motor car with a starting handle".
In the book ''The Great Wine Swindle'', Gluck contends that the wine industry is "populated by liars, scroungers and cheats, administered by charlatans and snake-oil salesman and run on a system of misrepresentation and ritualised fraud".<
Gluck has also been involved in a public disagreement with author
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...
over who is the quicker book-signer.
In January 2009, Gluck made a series of contentions on the nature of beer drinkers in the "Word of Mouth" pages of ''The Guardian'', in an article asserting the rising numbers of wine drinkers in Britain, stating that "beer is only drunk by losers and sadsacks, unsexy people who care nothing for their minds or their bodies," and, "are also terrible lovers, awful husbands, and untidy flatmates". The statements drew prompt responses from beer writers
Roger Protz
Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ( ...
and Melissa Cole, with Gluck challenged by Cole to appear at a
beer and food pairing event.
[''The Guardian'': Word of Mouth (6 February 2009)]
Beer-drinking sadsacks strike back
/ref>
Charity work
Gluck hosted deafblind charity Sense's first ever blind wine auction in October 2006, guiding guests through a wide variety of wine as they tasted the drinks in total darkness. The event was held at Dans Le Noir, a London restaurant where customers eat in the dark, which is one of Sense's corporate partners.
See also
*List of wine personalities
Instead of common selection criteria for the entire list, notability of people involved should be checked against the description of each sector.
Sectors are arranged from cultivation through processing, starting from vineyards to consumption ad ...
References
Malcolm Gluck profile
''The Guardian''
;Footnotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gluck, Malcolm
Year of birth missing (living people)
British writers
Living people
Wine critics
The Guardian journalists