Another Parker Interview

Salut/Hi Bill Loftin,

le/on Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:27:01 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

True.

not exactly impartial.

That's interesting, but I'm not sure how true it is. When did he start? 25 years ago was it? I don't remember ,it was in the interview. But trying to think back, who was around? I have always questioned Decanter's impartiality, but they merely (as far as I could see) puffed the companies that advertised with them. But there's a wide difference between that and saying that individual writers were biased because they were in the biz (presumably as PR consultants to wine firms/domaines. That happens - even today (in Australia too, I believe) - though most writers can't afford to lose their status by taints of bias. I don't think RP was right in saying this.

That's certainly true, and he's exemplary in that respect.

There was an article about 5-10 years ago in the LA Times that developed the theme of Parker the purist vs the traditional writers. This article exposed several West Coast wine writers as accepting freebies, writing for importers etc. I know the Baltimore Sun gave Michael Dresser some guidelines to follow around this time. Having made some presentations to Michael even before the LA Times expose, I know he never accepted freebies. Most of the newspaper wine writers in the US either work for the paper in other capacity or have other jobs not in the business. When Parker came on the scene in the US there was Jerry Mead, the guys doing the Connoisseurs Guide and the San Diego now California Grapevine all independent as far as I know.

The famous writers Peter Sichel, Frank Schoomaker, Terry Robards all had ties in the industry. Leon Adams the great advocate of American wine, made no excuses for accepting gifts, although I doubt if Ch LaTour benefited from giving Leon a couple of bottles. As far as the English writers in 1978 besides the Decanter, Broadbent, Waugh and Hugh Johnson were supreme. All had some ties to the trade.

What differentiated Parker was the 100 point scale and the fact that he had no ties to anyone in the business. While the Grapevine & Conn Guide were also independent they basically confined themselves to the Left Coast. In the beginning Parker got a lot of help from fellow enthusiasts, especially in California and Italy. I know that because I was one. I remember lots of times when I called him after a Left Coast trip to mention some great wine not heard of on the East Coast. Of course I was not the only one. Soon Baltimore & DC merchants began sharing discoveries with Parker often at one of his visits or at Friday night tastings held at his home.

The wine scandals of the 70's kept consumers pockets closed but the baby boomers started to get interested in wine in the early 80's and started riding the California wave. Then came 1982 Bordeaux and Parker took a completely different position on it from the most major writers who were still pushing the weak assed 80's and 81s sitting in their friends shelves and warehouses. These wines from 1982 were very Californian in style as a new generation of winemakers took over from the previous generation. Voila! lawyers. accountants, doctors and dentists started coming out of the woodwork waving Wine Advocates in their hands wanting 1982 futures because their Ralph Nader, Robert Parker Jr., was their kind of guy; down to earth, chatty and blunt.

You all know the rest of the story, Marvin Shankin turned the Wine Spectator into the Advocate on Percodan, adopting the 100 point system and buying frenzies caused by reviews in the WA & WS go on today.........

Another important wine publication many years ago was the Underground Wine Journal. In the early years it was run by a West coast stock broker(John Tilson?) who had a passion for wines and apparently had the means to drink the best. He wrote many of the reviews, especially of the high end wines such as Romanee-Conti, Montrachet, Chateau Latour, and the like. I believe he used a 20 point system. More writers were added as time passed, and the stock broker apparently lost interest in the publication.The publication then went on for a few years and then closed. I think the founder had no holy cows, and he would have even given Romanee-Conti a low score if he thought it was deserved. In hind sight, I find his evaluatons of the top wines when young have proved to be more accurate now that the wines have matured than those of Parker in the early stages of his wine writing. In the early days the publication allowed no wine ads.

Reply to snipped-for-privacy@cwdjr.net .

Did the interview ever hit on the lawsuit that Parker got into with Chapotier on CDP? I thing it was 1991 Bar B Rac?

Did that ever come up?

Most of those guys lived on donated wine and that is why I dropped my subscription to Connoisseurs Guide because they constantly tasted wines that were not sold. I had some association with Les Amis du Vin at one time and many cases of wine arrived each month free.

I think he brought a second revolution to California in 1982 also by high lighting all the highly extracted wines of that vintage.

I have never seen mention of that in any interview with Parker. Nor I have seen him comment on his trouble with Burgundy wine makers in any interview.

I don't know how many readers here saw the US wine-publication scene in depth before Parker's impact. (I gather at least joseph b. rosenberg did, and Cwdjr; Ian Hoare from Britain). I saw it in the US at the time; I subscribed to some of those publications and read others. I also wrote about them at the time here, for anyone who was interested, on the original version of this newsgroup (two name changes ago, and many people ago), starting in 1983 with article . For anyone who is still interested (and did not see it already) the original remains accessible in the Google archive at

I described Finigan's, Underground Wineletter, Olken and Singer ("Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wines," and the respected Vintage magazine (which reported blind taste tests by various contributors and panels, many of whom migrated to the new Wine Spectator after Vintage was unable to thrive with its subscription-only, no-advertising policy -- itself a model of independence at the time). I omitted in 1983 (and have since apologized for that!) John Tilson's Underground Wineletter (one of whose editors reads this newsgroup sometimes).

The next year, 1984, the landmark UC-Sotheby book appeared, a principal US wine reference book and about the largest one to that date (ISBN 0520050851 and printed in such numbers that it has flooded the used market since). Chapter X.6 reviews established US wine newsletters ("a phenomenon of the

1970s") regardless of their emphasis in US vs. European wines: Finigan, Connoisseurs', Underground Wineletter, and California Grapevine (Vintage ceased publication in 1983). Parker does not appear. Parker emerged "beyond the Beltway" [Baltimore-Washington region] into general US wine-enthusiast attention, joining those others, with his early recommendations of the 1982 Bordeaux (after the UC / Sotheby book).

"Bill Loftin" in news:V8FVd.53502$uc.7674@trnddc03...

I don't know the context of the statement. Certainly from the US that was not the picture in consumer publications, as I outlined above (and did in

1983) as did the UC-Sotheby book. You would also see Decanter, the books by the British authors, and in-depth articles by US wine writers -- Anthony Dias Blue, Gerald Asher, Anthony Spinazzola, and so on -- in general food publications. But specifically, there was a lively field of established independent US newsletters. I still have them, and refer occasionally to tasting notes as well as historical material published in some of them. Certainly not all, or even much, of their writing is easily dismissed as tainted in some commercial way (a point that may be unrelated to the interview article). It's remarkable how little searching attention is given today to the context into which Parker emerged, whatever his own strengths and weaknesses. Most of the journalism today is done by people with no experience of the events, guided by partisans. (Parker himself, for example, as a source on the nature of his predecessors, is valuable, but it does have something in common with interviewing, say, Microsoft about the early alternatives in operating systems, or G. W. Bush about his political rivals.)

Again I haven't seen the story. But for any of you unacquainted with the following, an odd dichotomy attends the _implications_ of merchant experience. British and some traditional US writers have emphasized objective tasting skills. The (British) Masters of Wine program, since the

1950s, uses rigorous blind tests to measure if would-be experts "know" the wines and scents and tastes they claim to. (This program used to get more press in US wine publications.) Historically, wine merchants had the best success at passing such exams. (Among US as well as British applicants.) Wine writers reportedly have not done nearly as well. This situation used to be interpreted as evidence for strong tasting skills among merchants (who then became wine writers in some famous cases). Lately, some US wine writers seem to favor attacking the motivations of merchants, rather than trying to compete on objective tasting skills.

I believe that many people would agree, and also that it's an admirable goal. One that was hardly new with Parker, and it would be helpful to have other sources than Parker or his fans about the point.

By the way, when Parker surfaced nationally and was first discussed here on the wine newsgroup, there was a lot of thoughtful exchange on his strengths and weaknesses. That was in 1985-87, and the subject seemed pretty well understood. (Unfortunately, such discussion was lost on new arrivals, some of them having just breathlessly discovered Parker and eager to tell about it. Moreover, it is less well archived publicly now than it was at the time.) It was in the middle 1980s also that newsgroups became widely publicly accessible in the US, by the way, though not everyone cared. But

20 years ago, wine enthusiasts I saw who latched onto Parker always claimed some distance -- "I don't just follow his numbers of course, he himself discourages it." 10 years ago, the numbers were showing up forthrightly in conversation by some wine enthusiasts, sounding new and strange to others. Today, people actively advocate the merits to the consumer of buying by numbers. (Though the stuff about P. as a defender of the consumer against tainted writers and merchants is a relatively recent addition, or anyway it was not an angle I saw being played up 20, or even 10, years ago.)

-- Max

Corrections:

I wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

Nicholas Ponomareff's _California Gapevine._

I didn't see this interview, but in the past Parker has mentioned this issue specifically in the context of Bordeaux. He felt many of the Bordeaux writers of the times (70s & early 80s) derived more of their income from auction houses and large wine merchants than from writing. One particular sore point was the tendency of some writers to merely reinforce the hierarchy-a reluctance to call a first-growth out when it was underperforming.

A few random thoughts re conflicts of interest: I personally feel that many merchants can be great sources of info, but one would be foolish to forget their business is to sell wine.

There is one prominent writer (whose work I usually enjoy) where I have seen more than one report about the case of Chateau X being put in his trunk as he is tasting. If true, does that mean he's corrupt? No, but one wonders if he can totally separate this "generosity" from what he's tasting.

One should never forget- whether reading a wine magazine, a newspaper, a newsgroup posting, or an advertising flyer- the old adage to "consider the source." We all have our biases, prejudices, and agenda (conscious or unconscious). This includes Parker- but I do give him credit for trying to reduce conflicts of interest.

Doing interviews and never have mention of his legal issues tell me that his interview was more like an infomercial.

To me, an interviewer would at least try to cover the tough questions of "Tell us about your big mistakes"... "What ever happened in Rhone with Chapotier"

A few open ended tough questions....

I do think he is better than most. But with all that power comes ego.