Time the Emperor bought a new suit?

Robert Parker is crying ‘poor me’ again. While clearly he feels entitled to do this, the unquestioning and sycophantic story entitled ‘Decanting Robert Parker’ by Eric Asimov recently published in the New York Times about the world’s most influential wine critic certainly contained a lesser degree of journalistic analysis and balance than I believe its readers deserved.

Not for a moment would I deny Robert Parker the right to say whatever he wants, but the article in question contained so many factual errors and left so many questions entirely unanswered that some form of response is required, even if simply to put forward the case of those whom Parker has taken another shot at.

Astonishingly, Parker said that he views the recent ‘war of words’ between himself and a number of elite British wine writers ‘almost as class conflict’. On her website, Jancis Robinson points out the absurdity of this claim, by posting a copy of her letters to the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, in which she says ‘while the idea that British wine writers unanimously and systematically criticize the leading American wine critic is an excellent story, it is unfortunately not true.’ She adds: ‘I try to be scrupulous in avoiding personal criticism as I know that a wine tasting is a subjective business and b Robert Parker does a fine job. Just as I try to do.’

Robinson correctly points out that while Parker has made a huge thing out of the fact that they chose to print entirely opposite views of the 2003 vintage of Chateau Pavie, her opinion was out in the marketplace first, and it certainly was not she who made the issue a personal one. Frankly, Robinson just wants the whole thing to go away, and I can’t blame her. It was not of her doing. It was Parker who chose to question Robinson’s professionalism, not vice-versa.

In Asimov’s article or perhaps more correctly, press release, Parker says that because he is a leader in his field that ‘every wine newsletter tends to look like mine’. One of America’s leading wine critics is Dan Berger http://www.vintageexperiences.com, who, like several others he lists in his latest newsletter which incidentally bears no resemblance at all to Parker’s has written about wine for ‘a lot longer’ than Parker. ‘To assert that we copied from him is absurd’, Berger declares. Parker’s assertion, he writes, ‘smacks not only of arrogance, but of astounding ignorance of the field of wine writing’.

The suggestion has recently been made to me that perhaps it is Parker’s newsletter that might even be derivative of two Californian wine newsletters that commenced well before his. One is the ‘Connoisseurs Guide to California Wine’, the other is ‘California Grapevine’. Both are alive and well today.

In the article, Parker denies that winemakers actually customise their wines to suit his palate. While it’s hardly Parker’s fault if they do, I have met dozens who deliberately and unashamedly do this.

Parker also denies that his increasingly monochromatic but indeed remarkably consistent preferences towards over-ripe reds which are often also characterised by alarmingly low levels of acidity and excessive levels of oak amongst other characteristics are actively stifling diversity. He does this by saying that the diversity witnessed in world wine today is greater than it has ever been before. ‘We’re seeing hundreds if not thousands of small growers who are estate-bottling wines who weren’t doing it a mere 10 years ago, and this does not fit into their his critics’ argument’, Parker claims.

Parker is powerful indeed, but he’s not the only evolutionary force that exerts itself upon modern wine. I am of the view that the diversity of wine evident around the globe today, especially that which has emerged over the last decade, has actually arisen despite his opinions and their extraordinary influence.

As I’ve suggested, the pressure on growers and makers to conform to Parker’s expectations are often overwhelming. Their resultant wines might be impressively concentrated in their youth, or ‘full throttle’ as Parker often describes, but experience shows time and again that they are generally incapable of ageing and because of that, they are virtually incapable of reflecting their typicit Please login to post comment