Update: Background to the Robert Parker-Pancho Campo-Jay Miller-Kevin Zraly Wine Futures Rioja Scandal 2009

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by Gerry Dawes ©2009

First Published October 19, 2009

On Sept. 4th, 2009:, Decanter published Arrest warrant posted for Spanish Wine Academy director co-authored by investigative reporter, Jim Budd, and Decanter editor, Adam Lechmere. 

And on October 2, Decanter published Pancho Campo resigns to 'focus on clearing name', this time also signed by Adam Lechmere and Jim Budd:

"Pancho Campo MW has stepped down as director of the Wine Future Rioja conference next month and resigned as president of the Spanish Wine Academy.

Kevin Zraly of New York's Windows on the World wine school, and a highly respected wine critic and writer, has taken over as chair of the conference, at which Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson MW, and Decanter's consultant editor Steven Spurrier are due to appear.

Campo's brother-in-law Rony Bacqué will replace him as president of the academy.

The beleagured Campo has been embroiled in a complex battle with authorities in Dubai for the last few weeks, after a Madrid journalist came across a type of arrest warrant or 'location notice' for him on the Interpol website.

The warrant relates to a 2002 complaint brought by former business partner Jackie Wartanian to do with a fee paid to singer Enrique Iglesias. At the time Campo ran a sports and music promotion company in Dubai.

It now appears that in June 2003 in Dubai Campo was found guilty in absentia of breach of trust and given a one-year custodial sentence followed by deportation."

Jim Budd, on his Jim's Loire weblog, has detailed the chronology of the  Campo affair under Pancho Campo, MW: the essence.

Campo was pushed to resign as Director of WineFuture-Rioja 2009 because he is the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant and he said he "wanted to concentrate on clearing my name."  

Campo also resigned, on paper at least, as President of The Wine Academy in early October (See the Time Line on this case by Jim Budd, the Decanter magazine writer who finally broke the story with the help of  several contributors in Spain, in the U.S. and in the Caribbean).  Campo named his brother-in-law, Rony Bacqué, as President of The Wine Academy of Spain and his wife, Melissa, is still one of the directors.

On October 1, Kevin Zraly was named to succeed Pancho Campo, President of The Wine Academy of Spain, as "Technical Director" of WineFuture Rioja 2009 to be held in mid-November in Logroño (La Rioja), Spain.Many, including journalists, winemakers and political figures in La Rioja, believe that Kevin Zraly, who lives two hours northwest of New York City and does not speak Spanish, is un hombre de paja, "a straw man," or figurehead who will allow Pancho Campo to continue to direct the conference behind the scenes.

Campo's The Wine Academy of Spain is still the organizer of the event and still stands to profit from the revenues.  On the Wine Academy website, a statement says that WineFuture-Rioja 2009 is the propiedad (property) of The Wine Academy.  Some reports emanating from La Rioja place The Wine Academy's gross profit on the WineFuture Rioja 2009 conference at 1,000,000 Euros (approximately $1,500,000) and others have placed Robert Parker's fee for appearing at the conference at 100,000 Euros ($150,000).

The WineFuture-Rioja 2009 conference is being underwritten by the government of La Rioja--they are also providing the venue for the conference, Riojaforum, free-of-charge--and by several wineries and other entities, including the very recent addition of the government of Aragón as a sponsor.  The event is also very strongly supported by the Rioja Consejo Regulador (Regulatory Council), with whom Kevin Zraly's wife, Ana Fabiano, signed on earlier this year to promote Rioja wines in the United States.

And, notably, WineFuture-Rioja 2009 is also supported by a number of periodicals, specialized wine publications and websites, all of which to date have been silent (at least to the knowledge of several writers following this story) for almost two months about what has come to be known as "The Pancho Campo affair."

Aragón, the Spanish comunidad (group of provinces) neighboring La Rioja, who signed on as a sponsor after the Pancho Campo Interpol affair broke in Decanter magazine, seemingly stands to gain more than La Rioja from WineFutures-Rioja 2009. Aragón promotes its wine regions and its wines under as the "El Reino de La Garnacha" banner. Aragonés wines from Garnacha, a native Spanish grape, produces big, rich, soft, smooth wines, albeit with alcohol levels that seldom drop below 14.5% (and are often even more potent), wines which are known to be favored by Robert M. Parker, Jr. and Dr. Jay Miller of The Wine Advocate.

The reason that Aragón stands to benefit as much or more than La Rioja, the main underwriting region, is because the "cata magistral," the tasting with the maestro, at WineFuture-Rioja 2009 will be conducted by Robert Parker and was originally planned to include nothing but "Grenache-based" wines (Garnacha is a native Spanish grape and should always be referred to by its Spanish spelling).  Only five Spanish wines are included in this tasting, but three of them come from Aragón and none of them from La Rioja, which is famous for its Tempranillo-based wines.  The rest of the wines announced for the tasting come from France, Australia or California.

After mounting pressure from local press and Rioja politicos, plus complaints from many Rioja wineries, shortly before he "resigned," Pancho Campo came up with the "surprise" addition of two Rioja wines, a 1945 historical wine from Marqués de Riscal, one of the conference sponsors, and, supposedly, a Contador 2007, neither of which contains Garnacha.

The Marqués de Riscal 1945, which contains 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Tempranillo, is one of the greatest wines ever made in all of Europe, but it is now 64 years old and certainly does not speak for the Rioja of today, in fact, many forces in Spain, including most of Madrid's wine press corps, have spent considerable ink trying to paint La Rioja's historical wines as dinosaurs.

The latest rumor about the Contador, a wine given 100 points by Parker's Spanish wine reviewer, Jay Miller, is that there is not enough of the 2007 remaining to serve at the tasting, so it will have to be replaced.  Contador, like two of the wines from Aragón, are wines that  Jorge Ordoñez, Robert Parker's most favored Spanish importer,  brings into the United States. That makes the score in the Parker tasting:  Aragón 3, Jorge Ordoñez  3, La Rioja 2!

According to Campo, he had this "surprise" planned all along although he did not reveal his "little homage to La Rioja" until his ass was already in the big-time vise grip and "the surprise" was too little, too late. Campo, who then went on to describe has gesture as a "little homage" to Rioja benefactors infuriated many Riojanos, including politicians such as Miguel González de Legarra, spokesman for the minority Partido Riojano. González has written several long editorials recently denouncing the whole WineFuture-Rioja 2009 process and focusing in the fact that La Rioja is underwriting the conference, which is basically the Pancho Campo Wine Academy's own profit-generating business venture.

In one editorial, González wrote, (In spite of the Rioja wine powers-that-be contracting someone sought by Interpol to run the conference. . .) "Neverthless, I consider the programming of Wine Future Rioja 2009 the most scandalous, "an event that is paid for by Riojan grape growers and wineries," there has been no inclusion of the wines from the Rioja D.O."

"It was indicated that the main event of the congress is a tasting led by the renowned media guru, Robert Parker, that is dedicated to Garnacha, when Rioja wines are known for the Tempranillo variety, but they are going to taste 18 wines, of which only five are Spanish, all of the them from Cataluña y Aragón."

In the opinion of González, "the situation is a bloody farce," especially when one takes into consideration that "the Rioja Regulatory Council lied when they now say that they had always planned to have two Rioja wines" (both put belatedly into Parker's Garnacha tasting, where they are totally out of place). 

González continued, "The program has been finalized for months and until yesterday no one mentioned two Rioja wines, y besides, Tempranillos, which are not part of the tasting (of Garnachas), and are not comparable to the rest of the wines (in the tasting); they are jumping in and trying to fix what is not fixable, nor justifiable."

The Pancho Campo affair has created an ever widening whirlpool of crosscurrents involving high-powered wine interests in Spain and abroad, a number of well-placed Spanish wine and food figures, importers of Spanish wines to the United States on Robert Parker's most favored list; and politicians, not only in La Rioja, but in Sherry country as well, where Campo was selected to run the "noble" desserts and fortified wine fair, Vinoble, and an uproar  ensued that  brought the woman mayor of Jerez de la Frontera under fire  from opposing politicians and is still ongoing.

Even the King of Spain, Don Juan Carlos I, has been caught up in these swirling waters, since it has been reported that he was influenced by high-placed people known to have had business dealings with Pancho Campo to offer dinner to Robert Parker at his official residence, La Zarzuela Palace, just outside Madrid.  However according to Victor de la Serna, Deputy Director of the newspaper, El Mundo, in a post on the elmundovino.com website's Sobremesa section, Parker is only receiving a "brief audience" on the afternoon of November 10, though there have been many reports of a lunch or a dinner.  On October 7, De la Serna wrote on the Sobremesa board, "Ni hay ni nunca hubo cena de Parker con el Rey. (There is not, nor was there ever a Parker dinner with the King.)"

Some of these same "enchufados," the people wired into the Royal House of Spain, had a powwow  after they heard that Campo had resigned, and told Campo that he would not be permitted to attend the Parker audience (lunch/dinner?) with the King.  Some of the journalists investigating this story have it on good authority that at least one of the Campo cohorts with connections to the King of Spain has known about the Interpol arrest order for several months.

Add to this potent mix, the collusion of Spanish wine journalists* who  have been silent almost to the person, along with the attempted stifling of the independent press,  including reports of intimidation and suppression through veiled threats by Pancho Campo's lawyers and, from some reports,  offers of perks that could be interpreted (and were) by some specific sources as attempts at bribing them into silence.** This worked for awhile until a couple of  journalists in Spain, armed with overwhelming evidence, were finally able to file some stories, after nearly two months of being muzzled. (The journalists' jobs may be at risk in a game where money and the illusion of money overrules principle.)

*The list of 29 media outlets and organizations signed on to WineFuture-Rioja 2009 as "Media Partners" is revealing and explains why so little (almost nothing) has been written in the wine press about the Campo affair.  The list now totals 30 with the addition to The International Federation of Wine Journalists (IFWJ) and Associación Española de Periodistas del Vino (AEPEV), who just signed on (see below).

**On October 13, nearly two weeks after Pancho Campo “resigned” as Director of WineFuture-Rioja 2009, The International Federation of Wine Journalists and its Spanish Chapter, the Associación Española de Periodistas del Vino (Spanish Association of Wine Writers) gave their support and backing to the event, which is still being run by Campo’s Wine Academy. According to María Isabel Mijares, Vice President of IFWJ and President of AEPEV, “All members of this Association can attend this congress, enjoy the conferences and round tables that are offered on the program, as well as cover the event for their respective media outlets, thanks to a collaboration agreement that has been reached.”  Mijares, as an official in both these organizations, has confirmed her personal support and underscored that she will be attending WineFuture-Rioja 2009.

So, into this maelstrom steps Kevin Zraly and this is where Gerry Dawes and Gerry Dawes's Spain comes in, since the aforementioned "unnamed American journalist" warned by Pancho Campo's lawyer was me, Gerry Dawes*, writer of this blog; contributor for decades to numerous publications on Spanish wine, food and travel; and recipient of the Premio Nacional de Gastronómía Marqués de Busianos award for writing and lecturing about the quality of Spanish gastronomy over many years.

On August 31, 2009, this writer had an extensive phone call (see below) with Kevin Zraly, during which I forwarded a third-party e-mail (a scanned copy  is available) with information about the Pancho Campo case to Zraly. Two days later, on September 2, as described below, I received a phone call threatening various actions from someone saying he was Alfonso Martínez, Pancho Campo's lawyer. This was followed by an e-mail by Martínez to the same third party e-mail address requesting a meeting with me the following week in New York.  The Decanter article was published on Sept. 4.  So far, I  heard from nothing more from Martínez.

As with America's Watergate, the attempted cover-up may be worse than the crime, in this case the crime for which Pancho Campo is the perpetrator according to Interpol and from news reports in Dubai, Decanter magazine and other periodicals.  By attempting to silence journalists and by having his lawyer "warn" this writer, in particular, Campo's offenses against freedom of speech and the collusion of the Spanish press and of well-known wine and media figures, both Spanish and American, and  have become the real story in this ongoing saga.

But, for the sake of fairness, let me offer these ringing video endorsements--from Jancis Robinson, Robin Kelly O'Conner of Sherry Lehmann and Ana Fabiano, Kevin Zraly's wife and a contracted promoter of Rioja wines, and wine book author John Radford--of Pancho Campo, his Wine Academy and the wines from wineries such as Gonzalez Byass (where Campo signing a barrel is a major video event, putting him in the same league as King Juan Carlos I, Orson Welles and Stephen Spielberg), Freixenet and the regions of Rioja, Rias Baixas, Jerez and Jumilla who support his efforts, plus a really quite glowing article about Kevin Zraly in The New York Times (the banner My Dubai Diary advertisement running next to the article on Zraly has nothing to do with him, but it has really quite a prescient, you-can't make-this-stuff-up irony to it.)

About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

El Silencio de los Corderos, The Silence of the Lambs, Musings by Alberto Gil, A Journalist from La Rioja Who Reported on the 2009 Pancho Campo-Interpol and Robert Parker WineFuture Rioja Controversy

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Veteran Riojan journalists Alberto Gil (l) and Casimiro Somalo (r) of http://larioja.com at a friendly 
gathering of several wine lovers at the popular traditional restaurant, El Lagar, in Logroño, La Rioja. 
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

Some people in Spain suspect that Alberto Gil, a veteran journalist in La Rioja may have been the Deep Throat source of information about Pancho Campo before the highly controversial WineFuture Rioja 2009 event.  The reports from larioja.com and investigations by Alberto Gil led to Jim Budd of Jim's Loire, a British investigative wine journalist to take an interest in the Pancho Campo - Robert M. Parker, Jr. connection.  

Gil's direct involvement in investigating Campo and the Interpol warrant caused Campo to resign under pressure (most agreed in name only)  before the WineFuture Rioja 2009 event and appoint American Kevin Zraly as his successor as Director of the event (Zraly was considered Pancho Campo's "straw man" for the event by many observers.)  Nonetheless, Campo showed up to run the event, speak at the event, sit on panels and participate in formal wine tastings. 

Robert M. Parker, Jr. of The Wine Advocate was paid a purported 100,000 Euros for appearing at WineFuture Rioja.  During the event, at his request a master tasting was planned using Garnacha-based wines, all of which came from outside La Rioja, including several from neighboring Aragón.  This scheduled tasting, as more people became aware of it, caused such a row that even politicians from La Rioja got involved and the tasting was done with the addition of the very rare bodega library wine, Marqués de Riscal 1947, and Contador, a modern Rioja wine with no Garnacha, both of which were belatedly put into the tasting in an attempt to appease increasingly vociferous critics. 

As it turned out, in that WineFuture Rioja 2009 Garnacha tasting with Robert M. Parker, Jr., Parker's friend, Spaniard Jorge Ordoñez*, who imports Spanish wines into the United States under his Jorge Ordoñez - Fine Estates From Spain label, had three wines in the tasting while the Comunidad de La Rioja and the La Rioja D.O., sponsors of the event, had just two.  

The score was like a soccer match: Ordoñez 3, La Rioja 2.  The irony was not lost on journalists like Alberto Gil, who love their wine region and chafed under seeing La Rioja get the short end of the stick in this tasting.

(*For many years Ordoñez has enjoyed an especially close relationship with Parker.  Jay Miller's first trip to Spain as Parker's Spain "expert" taster was with Ordoñez, a trip** that was purportedly quite a bit more lavish than the one Miller took with Ordoñez when Miller was working as a partner in a Baltimore retail.) 

(**From Robert M. Parker Jr.'s Ethical Standards [Copied directly from www.erobertparker.com]
"In order to pursue this independence effectively, it is imperative that I keep a distance from the trade. While this may be misinterpreted as aloofness, such independence guarantees hard hitting, candid, and uninfluenced commentary. . .

. . . The same standards of tasting free of external influence as well as unbiased reviews I have followed for 30+ years are expected from all independent wine critics working on assignments for The Wine Advocate or eRobertParker.com. . .
 
. . . All writers hired as independent contractors must certify that they maintain rigid standards of independence and integrity, writing about what is in the bottle, free of external pressure. . .
 
. . . I have kept the wine trade at arm’s length over the last three plus decades, and I realize that as rigorously high as my own particular standards are, it is neither possible nor realistic to expect such standards with the independent wine critics who work for me. . .) 

The following is Alberto Gil's latest take on the situation in an article posted on larioja.com.  

(I have tweaked the Google translation.  I apologize in advance for any quirks.)

El silencio de los corderos
(The Silence of the Lambs***)

by Alberto Gil, larioja.com

14 December 2011

(***The title refers the nearly universal silence of the Spanish press that during the 2009 Pancho Campo-Interpol-WineFuture Rioja controversy, during which it was claimed that many journalists were threatened with legal action, a claim now confirmed by some who are now speaking out and writing about the current so-called Murcia-Jumilla gate controversy.)

"I remember two issues in my professional career in which journalistic passion carried me to extremes. One of them is known, (it was) a false accusation filed in court for alleged assault on the mother of the clan by the family of a former woman vice president of the government of La Rioja, Arancha Vallejo, because of (my) reporting on the illegal uprooting of a vineyard. (GD: Albert Gil was proved innocent of what was a trumped up charge against a journalist for reporting on illegal activities.)

The other was the case with Pancho Campo, who landed in Logroño with WineFuture Rioja 2009, with full institutional support and (with support) from major wineries that had been placed on the organizing committee.  Pancho Campo enticed to some of the top wine experts on earth to Logroño, for an event that initially was supposed to take place in Jerez, but changed course at the last minute because of money considerations.  Among them was Robert Parker (The Wine Advocate), who had never before shown interest in wines of this country.

Campo had been convicted in absentia (he “cut out” before trial) and was sentenced to a year in prison in UAE (The United Arab Emirates) in 2003 for allegedly swindling a million dollars (reportedly €650,000) from his ex-partner as a music concert promoter and was being sought by Interpol.  When we asked for explanations about this fact, months before WineFuture Rioja, Campo endlessly lied to the organization, but WineFuture Rioja went on anyway and eventually resulted in the embarrassing awarding of the the (Spanish) Medal of Merit to Robert Parker.

Pancho, whose company had been previously convicted for non-payment for a 'festival' in Barcelona, always maintained in Rioja that his problem with Interpol was the result of an alleged plot against him that had been concocted through the extraordinary influence and money of his former partner in Dubai, Jackie Wartanian.  During several months (of investigating) I never met anyone able to confirm this far-fetched story. The journalist Jim Budd, in Decanter, published on September 4, 2009 the arrest warrant from Interpol against Campo, after which not one national or regional publication paid attention to this news.

After the explosion in Decanter, the pressure on Pancho Campo--police sources confirmed to me personally that Campo, despite what he had claimed, had been rescued from extradition to United Arab Emirates by an agreement with the Spanish Council of Ministers in 2008 and was fully aware of the facts of the (real) charges against him--was too much and he was forced to resign from the Wine Future (as Director of the event).

Just days before the (WineFuture Rioja) event, after a private dinner, which I attended, he was asked to resign after failing to prove, as he had assured the Rioja officials who had made him their spokesman he could, that he had never been arrested, or detained, in Spain because of  the international United Arab Emirates arrest warrant.  And he also claimed that he never knew anything about the case (in Dubai) until just a few months before, when the reality is that he had fled the United Arab Emirates in 2003 to to avoid prosecution. Namely, the whole string of lies-- which also included the use of veiled threats of the best and most prestigious law firms--with which (Campo) sustained his claim of an alleged plot (in Dubai) collapsed.

Pancho, at least then, could count on powerful "godfather-like"figures such as the President of the Spanish Academy of Gastronomy, Rafael Anson, among others, and the complicit attitude of the Spanish and international wine press, which, even though now the fire had been fueled, turned a deaf ear on WineFuture Rioja.

Now, Jim Budd (Jim’s Loire), as he did in September of 2009, has returned to uncover another scandal. Campo, through his The Wine Academy company, has been charging thousands of dollars to bring Robert Parker’s (now former) critic for Spanish wines, Jay Miller, to give lectures at different Spanish denominations of origin events, a business that is difficult to explain about a person who assesses and rates Spanish wines for the most influential publication of the wine world, precisely, one that preaches independence (free of outside influences).

The Wine Advocate has fired Jay Miller (GD note: the official line is that he “retired,” something they are now saying has been in the works since January.)  Now, the British wine writer Neal Martin has replaced Miller as the Wine Advocate’s Spanish wine taster.  Martin, until now responsible for South Africa, New Zealand and Sauternes, who in 2006 certainly said that he was neither interested or did he know anything about Spanish wines.

As a good friend told me during Wine Future Rioja 2009, "the flexibility of a reed supports a gale better than the rigidity of an oak tree, and, if you want to see this liar fall, you had better learn to be a little more flexible*."  (*GD note: The friend advised Alberto Gil to let up on his journalistic crusade because Gil was almost fired from his job.  He suggested that Gil should not matyr himself, predicting that Campo would eventually self-destruct.)

(PDTA: With many greetings to the disbelieving journalists and bloggers, like myself, Jim Budd, Gerry Dawes, Harold (Heckle) and Manuel Camblor, who saw Pancho Campo walk with head held high during Wine Future Rioja 2009, with the approval of the entire wine sector, the politicians and the Spanish press.")

On Betrayal of Confidence and Threats to Journalists: An Open Letter to Kevin Zraly, Technical Director of the Recently Concluded WineFuture-Rioja 2009

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Kevin Zraly, Technical Director
WineFuture-Rioja 2009

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Background to my open letter to Kevin Zraly:

The following are my notes on the telephone conversation on August 31, 2009 with Kevin Zraly about what has become known as Campogate, the Pancho Campo WineFuture-Rioja 2009 Affair:
  

(I assumed that the telephone conversation I had with Zraly was in strictest confidence, but apparently it was not, and I gave him ample opportunities via e-mail and telephone messages (see below) to convince me that I am mistaken, so I no longer feel bound by such confidence, therefore I am reproducing the gist of our telephone conversation from some very careful notes that I took.)

After telling Kevin Zraly that I was calling because a distinguished mutual writer friend had told me that the information (See Expanded Background to the Pancho Campo-Kevin Zraly-Robert Parker Wine Futures Rioja Affair 2009)  that had come to me about the Pancho Campo affair was something that he should know, I said:

“I was sitting here thinking  'I know Kevin and I think he would be interested in knowing this stuff."  

(I was hoping that I might get some more information about the Campo affair, which I was investigating as a journalist, but Zraly said he knew nothing about it, so I forwarded a third-party e-mail to him with information about the Interpol warrant seeking Campo's arrest while we were having the phone conversation.)

Kevin Zraly (after reading the e-mail while we were still on the phone): “Absolutely, this is big shit, you know. I don’t hang around with the criminal type.”

Kevin Zraly: “For me, I can take it (WineFuture Rioja 2009) or leave it. I can just go with the flow, but it is important that you sent this (info about the Campo affair). I appreciate it.”

Kevin Zraly (later in the conversation):  "Again, I do appreciate it (your letting me know the information about Pancho Campo)."

(After talking about going around the world with Robin Kelley O’Conner [another speaker at WineFutures-Rioja 2009] to wine regions in "25 countries" [other reports say 15] to update the 25th Anniversary version of his Windows on the World Complete Wine Course book [a book for which I received acknowledgement for my help in updating the Spanish chapter in an earlier edition], Zraly complained about the alcohol and overwrought style of the wines in Chile, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa. [Dare I say "Parkerista" style?-GD]) 

Then Zraly said, “It is not just Spain, not just California.”

(Note:  These statements seem to be in direct contrast with the interview with Zraly published on The Wine Academy's WineFuture-Rioja 2009 pages; see question #11. )

Kevin Zraly: “To be honest with you, Gerry, I am disillusioned with the whole (wine) thing. I am disillusioned with everything, everything. I'm glad I did everything (in wine) when I did, but moving on, I am not inspired.”

(There was more conversation about wine, but most of it does not really relate to the point.  However,  during the conversation, he told me that his wife, Ana Fabiano, had signed a contract with the Consejo Regulador of La Rioja to promote Rioja wines in the United States.  I subsequently found out only recently that Ana Fabiano appears on a Pancho Campo Wine Academy videotape endorsing his wine courses in the United States.)

Kevin Zraly: “If you hear of anything else that is going down, please, please, please let me know. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your thinking about me.”

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On October 1, after the information about an Interpol warrant for the arrest of Pancho Campo had come to light in the Jim Budd/Adam Lechmere Decanter.com article and had caused a brouhaha for the month of September in Spain, Pancho Campo, under heavy pressure from within La Rioja, resigned as "Director" of WineFuture Rioja 2009. 

Campo also issued a statement saying he had "resigned" as President of The Wine Academy of Spain, a private company founded by him and members of his family. Campo named his brother-in-law, Rony Bacqué, as President of The Wine Academy of Spain. Campo's wife, Melissa, an American, is also active in the Wine Academy.

In early October, Kevin Zraly was named "Technical Director" of WineFuture Rioja 2009 to succeed Pancho Campo in running that event, even though Campo's Wine Academy of Spain was still in charge of the event and still stood to profit from it.  It is clearly stated on The Wine Academy website that the WineFuture Rioja 2009 is the propiedad (property) of The Wine Academy and the event is thus a private enterprise, from which the Wine Academy stood to gain a substantial amount of money. The event was supported in part by private sponsors, but with a substantial commitment of public funds and facilities from the government of La Rioja and full support and some funding from the Consejo Regulador (Regulatory Council) of La Rioja.

Many, including journalists, winemakers and political figures in La Rioja, believe that Kevin Zraly, who lives two hours northwest of New York City and does not speak Spanish, was a "straw man," a figurehead who allowed Pancho Campo and his Wine Academy to continue to direct the conference behind the scenes.

As noted earlier, Kevin Zraly's wife, Ana Fabiano, early in 2009 signed a contract with the Rioja Regulatory Council--composed of a coalition of grape growers and wineries--to promote the wines of La Rioja in the United States.

The interview excerpt below was posted on the Wine Academy of Spain's website, on October 14, 2009, after Zraly's being named to direct WineFuture-Rioja 2009 and after additional information on the Campo case had been published did nothing to dissuade the Zraly as "straw man" belief among skeptics.

From The Wine Academy of Spain Interview with Kevin Zraly, 

Technical Director of WineFuture-Rioja 2009*

(*Interview dated Oct. 14, 2009.) 

Wine Academy Question 14. Which [sic] is the outcome you expect from Winefuture-Rioja?

Kevin Zraly:  "That there will be more WineFutures! Pancho Campo has done a tremendous job in bringing all segments of the market together to discuss how we can all move forward in the distribution of wines throughout the world. The logistics of putting a first time event like this together were enormous and I congratulate Pancho and his team for having the foresight and energy to organize this event."

* * * * *Open Letter to Kevin Zraly From Gerry Dawes  

Preface to the letter:

Kevin Zraly, you are a man I have known for more than thirty years and have had a cordial relationship with over that period.  You are the man for whom I quit my first job in the wine business because my company refused to keep my word of honor to you when you were Wine Director and Sommelier at Windows on the World. 

At your request several years ago I also revised pro bono the chapter on Spanish wines for your book, The Windows on the World Wine Course Book--see the frontespiece for my signature, the "payment" you give as acknowledgment for each expert's contributions to the book.

On October 9, 2009, I sent a version of the following letter to your e-mail address and received no answer, so I re-sent it on October 12, Columbus Day. You had a Windows On The World Wine School class scheduled for the evening of October 12, so I waited another day, hoping that you would have a chance to respond to my queries.

On October 14, I made two phone calls, one to your cell phone, where I left a message, another to your office, where I left another message with Michelle, the woman who answered the phone. 

To date, I have received no answer to any of these attempts to reach you for comment.  Therefore, I decided, as a last resort to write on open letter to you in hopes of getting some answers to questions that have been on my mind for more than two months. 

What follows is a letter that includes my account of what transpired between you and me in relation to the Pancho Campo - WineFuture-Rioja 2009 affair, including the notes of my August 31, 2009 telephone conversation with you (see above).

Dear Kevin,

First off, no one doubts your credentials, nor do I.  You are a giant in the wine industry and in the wine education field. You have helped organize some of the top wine events in the United States, including The Wine Spectator's Wine Experience and you have partnered with Robert M. Parker, Jr. to found a wine education program.

But, I have some serious questions--as a journalist, and personally because recent events that relate directly to me--about your actions in light of the information that has come out over the past two months  or so about what is being called "CampoGate" or the "Pancho Campo Affair" surrounding the WineFutures-Rioja 2009 Affair held on November 12 & 13 in la Rioja.

The following was published on Decanter magazine writer Jim Budd's blog.  It is part of a time line on the Pancho Campo case."Following publication (of the first Decanter article on Sept. 4 about the Pancho Campo affair), PC [Pancho Campo] phones me and tells me that his lawyers have warned an unnamed American journalist who has been investigating this story."
 
After my more than 30 minute phone conversation with you on August 31, two days later (on Sept. 2), before the publication of the Decanter article on Sept. 4, I was threatened with various actions from someone claiming to be Pancho Campo's lawyer in a phone call from Spain, plus he said he was coming to New York the following week and wanted to meet with me to arrive at "an amicable compromise." He also sent an e-mail to the third party address from whence came the e-mail that I forwarded to you from that same e-mail address during the course of our telephone conversation.
 
The e-mail I sent to you contained a translation of the information about Pancho Campo and the Interpol arrest warrant internet link that I had received from several reliable sources, including journalists, in Europe.

I forwarded only four similar e-mails about the Campo affair from that e-mail address, three to trusted people who were either investigating the affair as journalists or who had contributed information, the fourth to you.

As you may know by now and can certainly check on Jim Budd's site (see above), almost every detail in the e-mail you received, except a couple of more precise dates since confirmed, have proved to be correct and have proved to not be "falsedades" as claimed by Alfonso Martínez, Campo's lawyer, when he called to threaten me on September 2, 2009 at 6:35 p.m. (00:35 Spanish time, a strange hour for a lawyer to be working). 

During that phone call, Martínez told me in Spanish that Pancho Campo was "muy, muy, muy enfadado con usted, "very, very, very angry with you."  He also said, "We have e-mails with your name on them (he probably did not) that contain many "falsedades" (as I said, most of those claimed to be "false" have been proved true)."

Martínez also warned me, "We don't want to have to go the American Embassy or to the Spanish Embassy with this, nor do we want to get into litigation, but we want you to stop sending those e-mails.  I will be in New York next week and I would like to sit down with you and see if we can come to an acuerdo amistoso, (an amicable compromise)."
 
Indeed, I have it from good sources that Campo, Martínez and others had  done something similar to  journalists in Spain during the period the Interpol information was emerging.  According to these well-regarded sources, threats, veiled attempts at "enducements" and other methods such as pressure from highly placed people were used to try to suppress this story before several publications and blogs published it.

In addition to the "warning" issued to me by Pancho Campo's lawyer, Campo also offered a speaking engagement at another event to an English journalist (Jim Budd) who has reported on the case and he also put out a veiled suggestion of a payment of a preposterous amount to a Spanish journalist.

Now many of the facts are out about the Campo case and most of them are not really disputable. In fact, Campo himself has confirmed to various sources events and dates that have validated most of the material  that I had prior to August 31 and those have even been published in multiple publications and on websites throughout the world, although Campo himself has given conflicting information about the dates on which a couple of events occurred and the circumstances, they have not been denied.

I think you can see how the journalists involved in these threats and coercion attempts found them particularly reprehensible. It reminded me of Watergate, where the crimes were less serious than the attempted cover-up by the Nixon White House.
 
The reason I am writing to you is to inform you that, using input from my own investigations and those of the four other journalists, two Spanish and two English, working on this story, along with blogger Manuel Camblor of laotrabotella.com, I am have been writing some reports of my own,  including this report/open letter about the Campo affair, my dealings with you on the phone, the third party e-mail and the subsequent warnings to "an unnamed American journalist who has been investigating the story."

My questions to you are:

1) Did you or your wife, Ana Fabiano, who is doing promotions for Rioja wines in the U.S., provide the third party e-mail I sent you directly to Pancho Campo and, if not, did either of you provide that e-mail to anyone in the CRDO Rioja? 
 

Or did either of you, provide the e-mail, again almost all of whose information has been proved correct--to anyone else who caused the e-mail to reach Pancho Campo and his lawyer, thus causing me, "an American journalist," to be "warned," which I see as being threatened and an attempted intimidation to supress a valid ongoing investigation?


2) Were you, as the Technical Director of WineFutures Rioja 2009, a (former?) partner of Robert Parker in a wine education program, husband of the person recently signed on to promote Rioja wines by the CRDO Rioja, a "straw man," a figurehead standing in for Pancho Campo, as some in La Rioja and elsewhere are strongly suggesting?  Was Pancho Campo still pulling the strings for the event behind the scenes? (Since he actually was allowed to appear at WineFuture-Rioja 2009 after being forced to resign as director of the event, it certainly appears that he was still heavily involved in the event despite his "resignations.")


3) And lastly, as an author and sometime wine writer yourself, how do you feel about journalists being threatened by lawyers for passing private e-mails  (in strictest confidence) and the reports of journalists being offered "enducements," however veiled, by Pancho Campo and/or members of his retinue? 


Given the circumstances surrounding the Pancho Campo story and the political elements and intrigues going on in Spain, I feel that I must ask as a journalist and I think it is only fair that you be given a chance to respond. Your responses will be fairly incorporated into any of my future reports on this situation.

If I may paraphrase my very precise notes on your comments during our telephone conversation (below), Kevin, this whole episode has also made me “pretty disillusioned with the whole (wine) thing,” however, I am “inspired,” because at least a few journalists and quite a few bloggers have chosen to step forward to write about this incredible saga and have refused to be denied our freedom of speech, nor our ability to function as journalists.

Now, after sitting on this information concerning our telephone conversation for more than more than two months, it is my turn to write about it.

Regards, Gerry Dawes

About Gerry Dawes Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table.  Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
  

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): mailto:gerrydawes@gmail.com

Dubai: Third-World Justice or The New York of the Middle East? And What Does Dubai Have to Do with WineFuture-Rioja 2009?

* * * * * 

What does Dubai have to do with Spain and especially Spanish wine or food, including the upcoming WineFuture-Rioja 2009 conference whose (recently "resigned") Director  is Pancho Campo, President (also recently "resigned') of the Wine Academy,  the official organizer of the event?

And what does all this have to do with Pancho Campo, Robert M. Parker, Jr., Jancis Robinson, Kevin Zraly, Steven Spurrier, Gary Vaynerchuk and Jorge Ordoñez, all of whose pictures adorn this poster announcement for WineFuture-Rioja 2009?

Well, a lot lately.  Read on.

Spanish promoter’s arrest sought 

by Charlie Hamilton, The National (newspaper), Dubai

"A warrant has been posted on the Interpol website for the arrest of a Spanish concert promoter who was convicted in Dubai in 2003 of breach of trust after a falling-out with his business partner.

Francisco Campo, 48, was convicted in his absence following a wrangle with the former partner, Jackie Wartanian.

According to court documents, Campo was charged with breach of trust on June 5, 2002, found guilty on June 1, 2003, and sentenced to one year in jail followed by deportation. The case revolved around a €600,000 (Dh3.2m) claim that Ms Wartanian had brought against Campo over fraudulent business dealings. Ms Wartanian’s lawyer, Amna Jallaf, said a civil case had also been filed against Campo."

* * * * * 

According to Campo and his lawyers, the charges--including his being convicted and sentenced to a year in jail and deportation--are false and Dubai is a place where third-world Arab justice is meted out to unsuspecting Westerners:
 
From an article on Decanter.com: "Alfonso Martinez, Campo's lawyer, cast doubt on the veracity of the arrest warrant. 'This can be done by petitioning a judge in Dubai using a lawyer."

And Campo, who was recently named a Master of Wine, wrote this in a letter to his fellow MWs: 

"I was not aware also that there are hundreds of cases such as this in Dubai that are constantly being exposed by British and American media about people who carried out business in this part of the world and have been issued Interpol notices."

* * * * *

GD: I am very confused by all this and I don't know whom to believe, especially when I read reports such as these:

Vicente Cacho, the Spanish Consul in the United Arab Emirates, says that ‘Pancho Campo left his Chilean passport at a Dubai court as proof he wasn't going to flee the country and then did so with a Spanish passport’.  -- Jim Budd, Jim's Loire.

From: Jackie Wartanian

Date: September 9, 2009 1:47:49 AM GMT+04:00
To: xxxxxxxx
Cc: xxxxxx
Subject: RE: The National

Yes I am out of town and just saw your email. The statement you are saying is wrong. It is not alleged, it is all facts, but you are welcome to contact my lawyer who is cc’d in this email. I am not the only one who has gone to court with him. If you want the true facts please contact (my lawyer [whose name and phone number followed]).

Kind regards,  Jackie Wartanian

* * * * *

And this, again from Jim Budd, who originally broke the story on Decanter.com, on his Jim's Loire website, which has extensive information on the Pancho Campo case:  

"Certainly he (Pancho Campo) has continued to have support from people like Jancis Robinson MW, Steven Spurrier and Robert Joseph, as well as Siobhan Turner, executive director of the Institute of Masters of Wine."

Two weeks after Campo was forced to resign (on October 1) as Director of WineFutures-Rioja 2009, Kevin Zraly of the Windows on the World Wine Course school was named to succeed Campo.  

After all this evidence had come out, six weeks later, new "Technical Director" Kevin Zraly had this to say in an  interview published on the Wine Academy website that many suspect was done by Campo himself:

"That there will be more WineFutures! Pancho Campo has done a tremendous job in bringing all segments of the market together to discuss how we can all move forward in the distribution of wines throughout the world. The logistics of putting a first time event like this together were enormous and I congratulate Pancho and his team for having the foresight and energy to organize this event."

 * * * * *  

Then there are those who see Dubai in a different light:

"I have to admit that I viewed my first trip to Dubai with some reservations but now feel that I have actually been professionally negligent in taking so long to visit this rapidly developing Emirate.

As someone who tries to keep his finger on the pulse of the world of restaurants I had made a mental note each time I read that one five-star Dubai hotel had poached a top European chef to be their executive chef or another had lured chefs from further afield to open outposts in a similar manner to that practised by Las Vegas hotels. But I had so far failed to appreciate just what a brave new world Dubai has become." - - From an  article by Nick Lander, Jancis Robinson's husband on Jancis Robinson.com

Report in Departures Magazine on Dubai in 2006 (Departures is the American Express magazine for Platinum card [and higher] holders):

Dubai's Big Boom
 
Built on sand, oil, and gold-plated everything, a new Xanadu is rising in the Middle East. SOPHY ROBERTS reports from the land of caviar facials and indoor ski slopes.
I am standing on the "H" of the helipad at the top of the Burj al Arab, the Dubai hotel that billows like a sail plump with wind on a manmade island in the Persian Gulf. For many observers of this desert boomtown—and it does seem as if all eyes are on Dubai—the Burj is the emblem of the city's freewheeling spirit, a kind of go-go giddiness that is not altogether shared by the United Arab Emirates' less liberal states. Dubai, unlike Abu Dhabi and the five other emirates, "has always been a wide-open place, ever since it was a smuggling center for gold," says Christopher Dickey, a Newsweek correspondent who lived here in 1987 and returns frequently.

In the November-December 2009 issue of Departures Culture Watch Section, there is a multi-page article on the United Arab Emirates featuring Dubai:  A Connoisseur's Guide to the New Middle East. 
 

Of coincidental interest concerning Kevin Zraly and Dubai is this really quite glowing article about  Zraly in The New York Times. The banner My Dubai Diary advertisement running next to the article on Zraly has nothing to do with him, but it has really quite a prescient, you-can't make-this-stuff-up, irony to it.

 * * * * *

Personally, I don't know what the real story is about Dubai justice, nor do I know for sure that Pancho Campo is guilty of defrauding Jackie Wartanian of nearly $1,000,000, but what I do know is--guilty or not of what he has been accused of and sentenced to a year in jail for--Pancho Campo through his lawyer, Alfonso Martínez, threatened me, a journalist who has been writing in glowing terms about Spain and its food and wines, as well as La Rioja, for more than 30 years and was awarded Spain's Premio Nacional de Gastronómia in 2003.

I was told that "we don't want to have to go to the American Embassy nor the Spanish Embassy*, nor get into litigation with you . . ." and was told by Martínez, "I am coming to New York next week and I want to sit down with you and see if we can come to an 'amicable compromise.'  (All of this came in a phone call on September 2, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. (New York time), 00:30 (after midnight Spanish time).  (*What the Hell were they going to do by going to the "embassies," tell them that I had passed information that Campo was being sought by Interpol for fraud involved nearly $1,000,000!!?)

The phone call was followed by an e-mail to a third-party address, the same e-mail addresss to which I had sent to Kevin Zraly the information I had received from Spain about Pancho Campo's troubles in Dubai, his subsequent detention in Paris and at the Hotel Miguel Angel in Madrid (where, at both the latter places, he was detained and questioned about the Dubai affair-Interpol notice).

In addition to threatening me, there is evidence (yes, we have it!) on attempts to coerce, threaten or make offers that could be construed as attempted inducements to other journalists, including Decanter's Jim Budd, after he had written the first article on Campo's arrest warrant in Decanter on September 4 and before a second article on the affair was published.  

Budd was offered a speaking engagement at Vinoble 2010, which, in theory, will also be run by Campo and his Wine Academy--a speaking engagement for Budd would entail at the very least a flight from London, accommodations in a top hotel in Jerez and, it goes without saying, a nice honorarium.  

Jim Budd declined.  In fact, Budd says that he refuses to have anything to do with Vinoble 2010 (he is an expert on Loire Valley sweet wines, among others) until he gets some answers to some pointed questions to Campo, which he has posted as The questions Pancho Campo MW won’t answer on his Jim's Loire website. 

In his post, "Pancho, You can run but you can't hide," Jim Budd wrote, "I'm sure that the presentation and tasting would have been worthwhile and interesting but I, for one, am going to have nothing to do with Vinoble until Pancho provides detailed answers to the questions I have been asking."

Related link: Background to the Pancho Campo-Kevin Zraly-Robert Parker Wine Futures Rioja Affair 2009

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television
series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com