Today’s musings are about receiving wine samples and how to declare that they are samples. These pictures are of bottles that I put together when I make my wines. Sometimes I out labels on them but often I do not. If I give them to someone, I declare it’s home made. These are my Super-Teaneck bottles.
I don’t get that many samples but I do get some tied to events or wine blogging groups I write with. We usually mention that we receive samples when writing a post. As someone who also represents wineries and wine regions as a brand ambassador and/or as a communications consultant, I tend not to write about wines I work with but I notice this is not common practice. I am beginning to reassess what to do in those cases. The lines between everything seem very blurred these days and everything seems closer to consumers than in the past. Do the same distinctions hold? I am not sure. What do you think?
avvinare.com 
Transparency is important. But more than that, the journalist side of your writing must be honest. It’s easy to be transparent to readers, letting them know that you represent this wine or distributor. It’s tougher to honestly evaluate, publicly, your client. That seems like a bigger issue to me.
It’s a very interesting question, you are right, the lines are blurring.
thanks for your thoughts Robin.