To my mind, Parker is the bravest, and the best. He was thrown out of Burgundy after he reported that the 1988 he was barrel tasted was not the same wine shipped to USA. his first addition to staff(pierre rogavonie(?)) was to add burgundy back.

i find him very consistent. He loves these big fruit bombs of CA and OZ. he rates them very consistently. I do also like them, and would rate the wines very nearly the same as he does. he loves rhones, and in particular Chateaunauf. i do not understand. i do not care for them. again, he is very consistent. he really likes Bordeaux. i have lost interest in them. just a style adjustment.

when he did italians, his taste and mine were similar on Tuscany, but he loves the new style barolo and barbaresco. i just do not understand those wines.

but i do not write up wines, i buy and drink most, and do have a small interest in a boutique distributorship. i never let my taste get into the way of a good bottle of wine for someone else.

the other major writer in the trade, robinson, just seems so very cute, and does not do in depth tastings that i can find. she also really schmozzes with the trade. i think this not good.

wine spectator is of course an embarrassment to all except the owner, even though i really agreed with their burgundy taster.(i think none of the burgundy people advertised in his scandal sheet, so the reviews were honest and the taster had a great palate.

jer-- where do you stand on big Malbecs from Argentina....?

^ We could editorialize forever about the Parkerization of wine and the wine industry. There have been books written on the topic. In the end, though, wine is about finding something you enjoy and sharing it with others. If you find a wine writer you like, then stick with that. If it is Parker, that is great. You certainly would be in good company. If not (perhaps you are looking for smaller, less well known producers?), look around for a different reviewer. These days, there are no shortages of wine reviewers. They are all over...from print, to online, to twitter...

That is the point of this thread ^

LOL Cougar Juice, I like it! I'm gonna use that around here.
10 cases in 3 days was the average where I used to work, as soon as the stuff came in, we knew who to call. What I hated about Rombauer was that you had to play games with the distributor. For example, we could get 1 case of Chard for every 2 cases of red, thankfully people seemed to enjoy their Zin as well.

Except I don't believe that it's possible to calibrate your palate to a panel who's membership may change without you knowing it - which is what the Wine Spectator uses. I can and have calibrated my palate with respect to Parker, and also to that of Steve Tanzer and Michael Broadbent. I've never been able to understand the Wine Spectator's tasting scores.

As for Parker - he's got integrity and vast recall and a highly methodical manner of tasting. But he also surely has his biases, and it's good to understand what they are to determine how that relates what he likes and doesn't like to what I like.

Yes... good point, but when I mentioned one publication I meant one critic.... and yes, calibrating your palate to a changing panel is of course a no-go...

Many years ago I was part of a blind tasting of "Parker" wines. My memory is a bit vague on the exact wines, and my notes were lost to a flood, but the tasting was based on an article in which 6 Cabs were rated and described.

We tatsed all six blind, and then attempted to match the wine with the description. Very few of the group could find agreement with his descriptions. Not very scientific, but it was a fun night and the wines were very good.

The fallout over on the Parker boards appears to be ongoing.... some say that traffic on his BBoard has dropped 40%... and that subscriptions to the Wine Advocate are not being renewed. Hard to know for sure if this is true or not... but the questions on the travel practices of some of RP's 'employees' continues....

I'd attribute part to economy and part to integrity.

I have an uneducated palette (I'm 24), and frequently use RP as a means of expanding my knowledge of styles and terroir.

For example, I've been a fan of California Syrahs, so when I wanted to try an Australian and New Zealand Shiraz, I was able to pick a low-to-mid-90's RP scored wine and be relatively confident I was drinking a good example of its breed. I may or may not agree with his review, but I'll at least know that an educated, experienced person has liked that wine and that I didn't choose a poor wine upon which to base my view of Australian Shiraz.

I think you can expand discussions of Robert Parker to include any influential reviewer in a given niche. People accuse wineries of "Parker-izing" their wine; I think that's probably true! Some movies that I didn't care for were obviously "Oscar-ized" to appeal to the Academy voters. However, overall, I'd much rather have someone base their opinion of American cinema upon an Oscar-nominated film than lowest-common-denominator sludge like Transformers or Angels & Demons.

To conclude an already too-long post, I will say that I will take the personal advice of a sommelier over a written RP score any day, since I trust that person to take my tastes into account. At Picasso, the Master Sommelier chose a tiny Spanish wine for my girlfriend based on her tastes and the food she was eating, and she loved it; RP has not rated it and probably hasn't heard of it.

Yes... the subscription drop can be partially blamed on the economy... but not the IBB traffic (since that is free)...

Another plus is that someone you have access to (vs. one of these big-shot critics that you can perhaps only meet at charity dinners) can receive and process your feedback.. this makes the entire experience "interactive", and produces better results in the mid-long run.

Yes. Traffic is down. There are less new post when I logon. A group of posters set up a new website earlier in the year. the traffic on Winebeserkers.com (sp)? IS VERY BUSY. I SEE LOTS OF THE OLD POSTERS THERE, AND THEY'VE SWORN OFF THE PARKER BOARDS. it's pretty amazing when you think about it. it reminds me of the old days here.


Sorry about the CAPS.

i think parker has much more integrity than the overly whored and phony film industry.

i do not know the "Master Sommelier" at Picasso(don't really know what the title is), but i have been to a large number of tastings with people in the wine industry who are very big names, and i am amazed that a very high percentage of them are much more mouth than taste. i do also think that they look to the higher end of the price scale for a suitable match.

"Master Sommelier" seems to be a west coast sort of thing, and i'm and east coast guy.

disclaimer: i do not have an outstanding palate.