Robert M. Parker, Jr.
Robert M. Parker, Jr.
Robert M. Parker Jr.is a leading U.S. wine critic with an international influence. His wine ratings on a 100-point scale and his newsletter The Wine Advocate, with his particular stylistic preferences and notetaking vocabulary, have become influential in American wine buying and are therefore a major factor in setting the prices for newly released Bordeaux wines. He is widely acknowledged to be the most widely known and influential wine critic in the world today...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth23 July 1947
CountryUnited States of America
It's nearly impossible to believe just how provincial the wine world was in 1978, the year I launched my journal, 'The Wine Advocate.' There were no wines exported from New Zealand and virtually none from Australia (including Penfolds Grange, one of the greatest wines in existence).
In the wine world, crusaders would have wine consumers believe that the only wines of merit are something completely indefinable but which they call 'authentic' or 'natural.'
It may seem hard to believe - unless you sit down and taste them - but some of the world's greatest sweet wines are made in the Rutherglen region of Victoria, Australia.
I believe that the responsibility of the winemaker is to take that fruit and get it into the bottle as the most natural and purest expression of that vineyard, of the grape varietal or blend, and of the vintage.
Tawny ports have already spent 20 or 30 years in wood - it's not likely they're going to improve. On the other hand, they're not going to get any worse.
When I started in 1978, the greatest wine in Spain, Vega Sicilia, wasn't even imported to the United States. The alleged greatest Australian wine, Penfolds Grange, wasn't imported to the United States. There were no by-the-glass programs. Sommeliers were intimidating.
At 66 years of age, I feel about 20.
The wine world is so big. Yes, there are styles of wines I don't like. Orange wine, natural wines and low-alcohol wines. Truth is on my side, and history will prove I am right.
After years of infertility tests, the best decision we ever made was to adopt, and in 1987, we were bestowed a three-month-old baby girl from an island off the south coast of Korea called Cheju Island.
My first trip to Japan, in 1998, began with an enormous crowd of Japanese paparazzi and television crews, all waiting for me to clear customs in Tokyo (a first-time experience for this wine critic). Over the next five days, the attention never waned.
If California ever developed a vineyard rating system, Saxum's James Berry Vineyard would be classified as one of the best.
Trevisan is one of the few Paso Robles producers to recognize the potential of the region's old-vine Zinfandel, which he blends with Syrah and Mourvedre and labels with fanciful names such as Problem Child, the Outsider and Cherry Red.
There is nothing in the world like the extraordinary Shiraz and Grenache wines from South Australia. While the most sought-after are undeniably expensive (they're made in tiny quantities from ancient vines), they are huge, rich and concentrated, and represent some of planet Earth's most compelling wines.
What happens is that the people who are leaders in any field are copied. I mean, there's a reason why every wine newsletter tends to look like mine. They see someone who's been successful, so they sort of copy these same ideas.