Robert M. Parker, Jr.

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For other persons named Robert Parker, see Robert Parker (disambiguation).

Robert M. Parker, Jr. (born July 23, 1947) is a leading influential wine critic. His 100 point ratings and florid tasting notes define modern American wine criticism, and are a major contributor to the prices for newly-released Bordeaux wine.

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[edit] Biography

Parker was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He is an honors graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, with a major in History, and a minor in Art History. He continued his education at University of Maryland, Baltimore, graduating in 1973 with a Juris Doctor degree. For over ten years he was an attorney for the Farm Credit Banks of Baltimore; he resigned in March 1984 to devote full attention to writing about wine.

By 1975, he began writing a consumer's guide to wine. Parker wanted to be a consumer advocate, unencumbered by the need to sell wine.

In 1978, Parker started a mail newsletter called The Baltimore-Washington Wine Advocate, soon shortened to The Wine Advocate. The first issue was complimentary, sent to those on mailing lists acquired from a few local wine retailers. The magazine had 600 charter subscribers in August 1978.

Parker received worldwide attention when he "called" the 1982 vintage in Bordeaux as superb, contrary to the opinions of many other critics who felt it was too low-acid and ripe. The debate about whether 1982 is a vintage for the ages continues through the early 2000s, but the wine market appears to have spoken, elevating prices for 1982 Bordeaux above other vintages from the period, although price is not always a fair indicator of a wine's quality.

Now, over twenty years later, The Wine Advocate has over 40,000 subscribers, primarily in the United States, but with significant readership in over 37 other countries. Today, many knowledgeable observers agree that The Wine Advocate exerts the most significant influence on wine consumer's buying habits, particularly in America. New York Times wine critic Frank Prial asserts that "Robert M. Parker Jr. is the most influential wine critic in the world."

In addition to doing the writing and tasting for The Wine Advocate, which is published bi-monthly in Parkton, Maryland, Mr. Parker has been a contributing editor for Food and Wine Magazine. He has also written periodically for the English magazine The Field and has been the wine critic for France's L'Express magazine, the first time a non-Frenchman has held this position.

[edit] Impact on the wine industry

The most influential, and controversial, impact of Parker's writing is his 100-point ranking system, which he devised with his friend Victor Morgenroth. The scale, since widely imitated in such other publications as the Wine Spectator, ranks wine on a scale from 50 to 100 points, on color and appearance, aroma and bouquet, flavor and finish, and overall quality level or potential. The scale was developed to counter what Parker believed to be confusing or inflated ratings by other wine writers, many of whom Parker also accused of a conflict of interest, as they often had a financial interest in the wines they rated. Many of his competitors, however (for example Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson) argue that the quality of a wine is too subjective to be assigned a numerical rating with such a high degree of implied precision. While most American reviewers have adopted Parker's ranking system or similar approaches, many British reviewers still refrain from assigning numerical ratings to wines.

Now it is common for retailers in North America to mark wines with Parker's numerical scores on printed cards on the shelves. Many customers rely extensively or even exclusively on Parker's numbers, buying only wines he rates at 90-95 points ("outstanding" in Parker's system) or above. This has had the dual effect of driving the prices for 90+ wines very high, and also making wines rated from 75-79 ("above average") or even 80-89 ("very good") hard to sell, even though some of these may in fact be excellent bargains. Parker himself cautions that they should read the tasting notes to determine the wine is made in a style they will like. As he was quoted in a February 2005 article:

There can never be any substitute for your own palate nor any better education than tasting the wine yourself.... Any scoring system ... ultimately makes the taster more accountable to the reader. I am comfortable with my point system and I recognise its limitations: there is nothing scientific about it, and it should not be interpreted that way.

Parker and others have said that it is the obscurity, corruption, and other problems of the appellation system that made his consumer-oriented approach necessary and inevitable. For example, the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 was based entirely on recent wine prices of that time. However, in the many decades since then, many châteaux have sold much of their vineyards, others have bought additional vineyards far away, the original winemakers are long dead, and many other changes have occurred. Parker says this has created injustice for consumers because the classification causes mediocre wine to be sold for too much, and good wine to be sold for too little for lack of a ranking. He says the 1855 classifications "should be regarded by both the wine connoisseur and the novice as informational items of historical significance only."

Even the "first growths" of Bordeaux are not immune to Parker's scoring. With great reviews for the 2000 vintage, many raised their prices to unheard of levels. When Parker declined to review the 2002 vintage in barrel, they were forced to drop their prices to previous levels. The saying in the wine trade is that if Parker gives a wine a score of below 80 it can't be sold at any price, but if he gives it a score above 90 it becomes too expensive for most customers. He is "a man whose tastes are irrevocably changing the way some French wines are made" [1].

Because of his powerful influence, his experiences have ranged from having two chateau owners offer him the sexual favours of their daughters to receiving death threats. On one occasion the manager of Chateau Cheval Blanc, Jacques Hebrard, was outraged at Parker's evaluation of his 81 vintage barrel samples and asked Parker to retaste. Upon arriving, Parker was attacked by Hebrard's dog as the manager stood idly by and watched. When Parker asked for a bandage to stop the bleeding from his leg, Parker says Hebrard instead gave him a copy of the offending newsletter. Hebrard denies that Parker was bleeding. (McCoy, pages 159-160)

Parker is an avid fan of Bordeaux and some critics observe that his world of wine is largely limited to France. For example, his Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide, with over 1,600 pages, devotes less than a single page (just two paragraphs) to all of South Africa's wines. This may help explain why so many of the honors he has received have come from France.

Another controversy revolves around Parker's impact on the style of fine wines. Parker argues that he scores wines on how much pleasure they give him. His critics such as Golo Weber claim that he likes less-acidic, riper wines with significant amounts of oak, alcohol, and extract. In order to sell their wines for higher prices, some wineries choose to change their vineyard or winery practices to make wines in the style Parker prefers, a process known as 'Parkerization'. Wine critic Prial says "The Bordeaux wine establishment feels threatened by these new-style wines...and is engaged in an increasingly bitter fight against Parker and his influence." This point of view is presented in the 2004 documentary, Mondovino. Indeed, certain low-producing "boutique" wineries, among many others, have received high scores from Parker for wines made in this style.

[edit] Books

Parker has written eleven books on wine that have been best sellers not only in the United States, but also in their translated versions in France, Japan, Germany, Sweden and Russia.

  • 1985 - Bordeaux (revised and expanded, 1991)
  • 1987 - Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide (New editions in 1989, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2002)
  • 1987 - The Wines of the Rhône Valley and Provence
  • 1990 - Burgundy
  • 1997 - The Wines of the Rhone Valley
  • 2005 - The World's Greatest Wine Estates

[edit] Awards and recognition

Robert Parker is one of only a handful of foreigners to have received France's two highest Presidential honors.

[edit] See also

[edit] Sources

  • Echikson, William (2004). Noble Rot. New York: Norton. 
  • McCoy, Elin (2005). The Emperor of Wine: the Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Rein of American Taste. New York: HarperCollins. 
  • Prial, Frank J. Decantations: Reflections on Wine by the New York Times Wine Critic. NY: St. Martin's Grifin, 2001.

[edit] External links

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