Robert McDowell Parker Jr. (born July 23, 1947) is a retired American wine critic. His wine ratings on a 100-point scale and his newsletter The Wine Advocate are influential in American wine buying and are therefore a major factor in setting the prices for newly released Bordeaux wines. This made him the most widely known and influential wine critic in the world.Steinberger, Mike, Slate.com (June 17, 2002). The Great and Powerful ShnozBruce-Gardyne, Tom, The Herald (August 9, 2010). The world's leading wine critic
Biography Parker was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a construction equipment salesman. He has 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 School of Law at the urban campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, graduating in 1973 with a Juris Doctor degree. He discovered wine as a student visiting Alsace, where Patricia, now his wife, was studying. For over ten years, he was assistant general counsel for the Farm Credit Banks of Baltimore; he resigned in March 1984 to focus on writing about wine.
In 1975, Parker began writing a wine guidebook. Taking his cue from consumer advocate Ralph Nader, Parker wanted to write about wine without the conflicts of interest that might taint the opinions of other critics who also make a living selling wine. In 1978, he published a direct-mail newsletter called The Baltimore-Washington Wine Advocate, which was later renamed The Wine Advocate. The first issue was sent free to consumers from mailing lists Parker purchased from several major wine retailers. Six hundred charter subscribers paid to receive the second issue published later that year.
Parker received worldwide attention when he called the 1982 vintage in Bordeaux superb, contrary to the opinions of many other critics, such as San Francisco critic Robert Finigan, who felt it was too low-acid and ripe. While there is still debate about the timelessness of the vintage, prices of 1982 Bordeaux remain consistently higher than other vintages.
More than twenty years later, The Wine Advocate has over 50,000 subscribers, primarily in the United States, but with significant readership in over 37 other countries. While other wine publications have more subscribers, The Wine Advocate is still considered to exert a significant influence on wine consumers' buying habits, particularly in America. New York Times wine critic Frank Prial asserted that "Robert M. Parker Jr. is the most influential wine critic in the world."
A lengthy profile of Parker entitled "The Million Dollar Nose" ran in The Atlantic Monthly in December 2000. Among other claims, Parker told the author that he tastes 10,000 wines a year and "remembers every wine he has tasted over the past thirty-two years and, within a few points, every score he has given as well." Yet, in a public blind tasting of fifteen top wines from Bordeaux 2005—which he has called "the greatest vintage of my lifetime"—Parker could not correctly identify any of the wines, confusing left bank wines for right several times. (In general, "left bank" wines are grown in regions west of the Gironde Estuary, and "right bank" in the regions east.)
In addition to writing and tasting for The Wine Advocate, which is published six times a year in Monkton, Maryland, Parker has been a contributing editor for Food and Wine Magazine and BusinessWeek. He has also written periodically for the British 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.About Robert M. Parker Jr.
Among the books and films that have focused on the influence and effects of Parker on the global wine industry are the 2004 book The Accidental Connoisseur, by Lawrence Osborne, the 2004 documentary film Mondovino by Jonathan Nossiter,Asimov, Eric, The New York Times (March 22, 2006). Decanting Robert Parker a 2005 unauthorized biography The Emperor of Wine by Elin McCoy, the 2008 book The Battle for Wine and Love: Or How I Saved the World from Parkerization by Alice Feiring,Asimov, Eric, The New York Times (May 21, 2008). Good Wine Reading With Mellow Aftertaste and the 2010 French language bande dessinée comic book, Robert Parker: Les Sept Pêchés capiteux.
Parker's nose and palate are insured for $1 million.
Parker disclosed at the end of 2012 that he would sell a "substantial interest" in his newsletter and step down as editor in chief. His new partners were a trio of Singapore-based hedge fund investors.Lettie Teague: Wine Advocate Will Stay Put, and in Print The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2012 Parker formally retired from The Wine Advocate at the age of 71 in 2019.Richard Woodward: Robert Parker formally retires from The Wine Advocate Decanter, May 17, 2019
Impact on the world of wine
A new role for the wine critic Until the 1970s, wine criticism was usually complementary to the production or trade of wine. The conflict of interest that might ensue from this close relationship was accepted by consumers, as they consulted wine reviews to gain an introduction to the world of wine, and not necessarily for advice on getting good value for their money. Hence, before Robert Parker, wine critics almost always had some link to the production or trade of wines.
Two wine critics were particularly influential in inspiring and defining Robert Parker: Robert Lawrence Balzer's charisma inspired Parker. Like his contemporaries, Balzer rarely wrote negative statements about wines. He even once published a book under his name that had actually been written by wine grower Paul Masson. Robert Finigan was Parker's forerunner in consumer-oriented wine reviewing. In the monthly Robert Finigan's Private Guide to Wine, launched in 1972, Finigan offered consumer-oriented, independent wine criticism, just as Parker did after him. Finigan helped consumers make decisions by developing standard evaluation criteria; his qualitative comments were straightforward and understandable, and each wine was ranked on a quality scale (exceptional, above average, average, below average).
Parker is a consumer advocate who admires Ralph Nader and has been critical of most wine critics, who traditionally have been part of the wine industry and have had vested interests.
According to Mike Steinberger, Parker has inadvertently made becoming a wine critic in the future almost impossible, since— in part because of the success of his scoring system—it is now prohibitively expensive to taste the very wines one should criticize. If it behooves a critic to understand, say, Château Lafite 1982, 2000, 2003, and 2005 before assessing the latest vintage: the critic must drink wine worth tens of thousands of dollars before beginning the review.
100-point rating system One of the most influential and controversial features of Parker's wine criticism is his 100-point rating system, which he popularized in conjunction with his friend Victor Morgenroth. Parker designed the system to counter what he believed to be confusing or inflated ratings by other wine writers—many of whom he accused of a conflict of interest, as they often had a financial interest in the wines they rated. The scale, now widely imitated in other publications (such as Wine Spectator), ranks wine on a scale from 50 to 100 points based upon the wine's color and appearance, aroma and bouquet, flavor and finish, and overall quality level or potential. Therefore, 51 rather than 100 different ratings are possible. Although some critics, such as Jancis Robinson, argue that numerical rating systems are questionable—given the subjectivity of wine tasting and the variance in scores that a wine's age and the circumstances of tasting can cause—similar 100-point scoring systems are widely used by American reviewers. Many British reviewers, such as Jancis Robinson and Clive Coates, still prefer a 20-point system.
Retailers in North America often mark wines with Parker's point scores, using printed cards attached to the shelves. Parker cautions buyers that they should read the tasting notes to determine whether or not the wine is made in a style they will like; he states on his website:
Parker argues that he scores wines on how much pleasure they give him. He, and others, have said that it is the obscurity, corruption, and other problems of the appellation system that made his consumer-oriented approach necessary. For example, the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 was based entirely upon the château's reputation and trading price in 1855. However, since then many châteaux have sold much of their vineyards; others have bought additional vineyards far away. The original winemakers are long dead. Parker says that this state of affairs was responsible for creating an injustice for consumers, causing mediocre wine to be sold at too high a price, and good wine to be sold at too low a price. He says of the 1855 classifications, "At most, these classifications should be regarded by both the wine connoisseur and novice as informational items of historical significance only."
Parker has admitted that emotions do matter, contrary to the seeming objectivity of the 100-point scale: "I really think probably the only difference between a 96-, 97-, 98-, 99-, and 100-point wine is really the emotion of the moment."
Parker is considered an unusually fast taster, and during an initial assessment he may keep a wine in his mouth for only four or five seconds before determining whether it is potentially a wine of 80 points or above. Mediocre wines will then be dismissed while those with potential are tasted twice or three times in succession before the final score is determined.
Impact on the supply: the "Parkerization" of wine Parker's impact on the style of fine wines has generated controversy. Parker is critical of "those who make 'industrial wines with little flavor and no authenticity and he believes that there are still undiscovered regions and wines that can successfully challenge the wine establishment. Critics such as Golo Weber claim that Parker likes riper, less acidic wines with significant amounts of oak, alcohol, and extract. This supposed "Parker taste" may be less the result of Parker's own preferences than of a trend initiated by Émile Peynaud, the French oenologist and father of the so-called "international wines". In the 1970s, winemakers avoided the late harvests, when the grapes were mature, in order to avoid the risks of end-of-season rains. Peynaud proposed that winemakers should wait to harvest until the grape was fully mature, or even over-mature. He also insisted on control of malolactic fermentation through the use of stainless steel vessels.
The domination of the oenological press by Parker's ideas has led to changes in viticulture and winemaking practices, such as reducing yield by green harvesting, harvesting grapes as late as possible for maximum ripeness, not filtering the wine, and using new techniques—such as microoxygenation—to soften tannins. These widespread changes in technique have been called "Parkerization", also sometimes known as "The International Style", and have led to fear of a homogenization of wine styles around the world as Parker's "tastes are irrevocably changing the way some French wines are made", according to the BBC's Caroline Wyatt. Indeed, certain low-producing "boutique" wineries, among others, have received high scores from Parker for wines made in this style. Parker disputes the notion of growing homogeneity and argues for the opposite: "When I started tasting wines, in the 1970s, we were on a slippery slope. There was a standardization of wines, where you couldn't tell a Chianti from a cabernet. That's pretty much stopped now."