From the Tuesday Wall Street Journal.

By DAVID KESMODEL

For decades, wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. has championed a rigid system of ethics, paying for all of his travels to wineries and shunning gifts from the trade. "It is imperative for a wine critic to pay his own way," Mr. Parker wrote in his latest book, published last fall.

But Mr. Parker, it recently has been discovered, hasn't held some fellow writers at his influential newsletter, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, to the same standard.

Last September, when critic Jay Miller visited Australia to review various makers' wines, an industry group, Wine Australia, paid about $25,000 for his air travel, hotel accommodations and meals, says James Gosper, the group's director for North America.

The trip was one of more than a half-dozen instances of such paid-for travel by writers for the newsletter in recent years. The trips haven't been disclosed in the newsletter. Mr. Miller also has vacationed and enjoyed lavish social dinners in the company of wine importers whose wines he reviews, according to his own writings and interviews with industry executives. More here...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124330183074253149.html

You should have seen/read the thread over on the Parker bulletin board. http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/...d.php?t=202905

dh