Conflicts of interest
A lot has been said in recent months about the complex issue of conflicts of interest in wine writing, and I don't really want to add more to this already cluttered debate. Suffice to say, my policy is that I will declare any potential conflicting interests and allow the reader to decide whether or not they think these will result in flawed judgment on my part. So if I have received free samples, free tickets to a consumer event, had my travel paid for, or been handed fat brown envelopes stuffed full of used banknotes by wine importers (surprisingly, this hasn't happened yet), I will state this at the bottom of the relevant article. I'm sure the same will apply for the other contributors here. This sort of policy is simply good journalistic practice. It is now the norm in medical and scientific journal publishing (another area of publishing I am familiar with), but is still extremely rare in wine writing. It shouldn't be. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of any wine magazine or website that has adopted this policy. You can be assured that wineanorak is an independent publication, written by people with a passion for wine, with the consumer in mind. End of sermon...

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