Different, but not necessarily better. There wasn’t anything wrong with the classic style Bordeaux that existed for hundreds of years before Parker came along. Opening wines from the '50s and '60s show an ageing style that many of the wines today will likely never show. The techniques in the vineyard may be better, but I’m not sure everyone would agree the winemaking results are better.
That is the thing, John. I am happy to give Parker credit for influencing SOME wineries to clean up their acts, but that has only some unquantifiable incremental impact on the overall quality of a region’s wines. In many cases, cleaner cellars and more modern vineyard and cellar management techniques evolved completely independently of Parker’s influence, either because he was not known, not translated into the language in question, or totally ignored. In some cases, brilliant wines continue to be made in filthy, slimy cellars today. (Chave, are your ears burning?) However, the hard fact that Parker’s fans conveniently overlook is that we are still waiting to see if the Parker era will ever produce wines that are the equals of the greatest that were made before or shortly after Parker tasted his first wine: any number of 1947, 1959 and 1961 Bordeaux, the 1982 Bordeaux vintage to which Parker owes everything, the 1961 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle, Monfortino and Giacosa’s wines from the 1960s and 1970s, DRC and many, many other Burgundy legends. That list dwarfs the list of demonstrably great Parker-era wines, and we should not forget that Parker himself plastered many of the old, great wines with 100s long before he became profligate with 100s for the wines created in his own image. Perhaps the promise is there, but we bought most Parker-era wines on the come because he and other wine reviewers told us to…
Parker was a godsend with the 1982 Bordeaux assessment for sure but Jeez he’s not responsible for the wine. As you age you lose taste buds, medications can interfere with the palate, and having gout certainly is no help. I’m “old” I can say this!
Knees too right? He talked about how happy he was with that. And hip? And doesn’t he have gout? And he was pretty heavy way before the back surgery. He used to call it the hazard of the job, but that was a glib dismissal. He really over indulged for many years.
I don’t wish him any ill, but there are consequences if you go out to rich dinners and then after all that pick up a few Philly cheesesteaks for the ride home.
But to be fair, Dr. Big Jay requests that he not be tarred with the Philly steak brush. He is on record as saying that not only did he not eat them, he does not like them, either. For me, that admission, rather than his much-discussed Quilceda Creek and Spanish scores, are the ultimate condemnation of his palate. These were, as I recall, Pat’s King of Steaks steaks, and while the folks in Philly may tell you that there are better steaks to be had, I will tell you from extensive personal experience (for which I am willing to die young (well, YOUNGER, having turned 64 yesterday), without regret) that there cannot be MUCH better than Pat’s. I cannot even get my head around the notion that Jay could break Flannery 45-day aged prime rib caps with Parker so often and not appreciate the classic simplicity of a Pat’s steak, wit’ or not.
I have nothing against gluttony, by the way. It makes infinitely more sense to me as a lifestyle choice than, say, veganism. (Who would want to live a long life on THAT diet? 
) However, it is a lifestyle best adopted after one hangs up one’s cleats. It has proven a disaster for a guy like Parker whose livelihood has always depended upon travel, his nose and his palate, with the latter two being in good working order, as well as a clear, open mind. All of that is now lost, so the cleats have hung themselves up…
Happy belated birthday, Bill!
Grazie infinite, as the natives say here, Henry. No big hedonistic happy happy, here, though. Smoked ham steaks schlepped back from the ongoing argi-expo in Paris, the handiwork of the Barbier family, artisanal smokers of pork products hailing from Pont-de-Roide in Franche-Comte’, from whom we have bought mass quantities for several years running. (salaisons-barbier.fr, since you are within striking distance, but the website shows only a fraction of Mssr. Barbier’s delights!) Served them with Nonna Smith apples (well, actually, they are called “Granny” or sometimes “Granny Smith” in Italy) sauteed in demi-sel butter form Brittany, cinnamon, nutmeg and a large pinch of sugar. No wine with that meal! Not Ken V.'s leftover pot roast with pasta, but I had no complaints!
Really? Is his life a disaster? That is a strong word.
Everything you have ever written about Parker makes it seem as if you have just chugged a gallon of vinegar while you were typing. Why?
Can’t we just let the man hobble into the sunset with hopefully, all parties, happy about that?
While I’m not as old as old man Bill, I have been drinking Bordeaux long enough to suggest that both propositions here are true. IMHO, Parker did play a role in improving the quality of Bordeaux, from his tirades on winemaking practices from the 1970s and into the 1980s, to his crusade regarding temperature-controlled delivery and focus on quality distributors. But then he went too far, and his sychophants, hangers-on, followers, lemmings, Rolland for example, carried the ball to another level. I have completely stopped buying St. Ems since the 2005 vintage, and am getting rid of most of them. The extreme ripeness, over-extraction, high alcohol and massive use of new oak, is revolting. My selections of left bank wines have become far more discerning, focusing on traditional producers.
Bill, my son is thinking about FSU. The shame . . . . ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Alfie, he may be thinking about it. You may also find some of your old Playboys stashed under his bed, which likely indicates that he is also thinking about the opposite sex. That does not mean, however, that he will actually ATTEND FSU. Do not panic until you find his acceptance letter under his bed with your dog-eared Playboys…
What!!! He didn’t give it to Squires!!!
To be clear, Parker’s LATER life, Eric, which I thought was obvious to all but the most literal-minded among us in context. And in a word, no, there is absolutely no reason to let Parker hobble into the sunset without the people who made him and funded him for 30 years having their says, positive, negative and indifferent.
Have you ever noticed that my response to opinions like Kris’s is not to tell Kris to shut up or otherwise try to silence him, nor to question why he harbors such a positive opinion about Parker (“seems like he just chugged a magnum of a Sparky Marquis Shiraz while he was typing”, in LeVine parlance), but rather, simply to respond to what he has posted, in this case agreeing in part and dissenting in part. And no vinegar, Eric, just reality and an interest in discussing it, unfettered by the suffocating constraints of political correctness and Kumbaya-humming. Parker did some good with a handful of positive notions and one hell of a lot of damage by expressing a lot of ignorant, insupportable personal opinions and biases as fact. But even then, people are free to believe his opinions and biases, and many continue to do so in the face of compelling contrary opinions, so where is the problem?
The better question is why you feel compelled to try to stifle discussions of sometimes edgy wine-world realities at every turn, in a forum designed expressly for that purpose. Maybe your time would be better spent on the soft, perennially green banks of Mark Squires’s Lake Wobegon, where all the lips pressed against Parker’s derriere are strong, all the reviewers are homely (well, except maybe for that cute kid Jeb Dunnuck and the new German guy), and all the scores are above average…
You joke, Paul, but he could have done worse than give it to Squires. As dreadful as he was (and is, I suspect) as a wine board host and moderator, he is remarkably diligent and insightful as a reviewer, even though Parker consistently treated him like janitorial staff and gave him only the obscure corners of the wine world to cover. Squires is surely more knowledgable, articulate and consistent in his coverage of his regions than Martin is in, say, Burgundy. Squires is not given to the thesaurus-toting, “smelling like nothing so much as a wreath of linden flowers hanging about the gently perspiring neck of a zebra-striped unicorn in a slow trot” school of tasting-note writing, from which Martin appears to have been both valedictorian AND salutatorian…
As a young(ish) drinker, I am in a position to rarely, if ever, taste wines untouched by Parker. Most of the older wines bequeathed to me are California cabs from the mid-90’s and a few Shiraz from the same era, many of which I find undrinkable hot messes or cloyingly syrupy.
What is wine life going to be for me? I will never be able to buy a first growth if I want to send my daughter to college, despite the fact that they are produced in mass quantities. I am skeptical of ratings but long for useful opinions. Reviewers are often shills and untrustworthy and I fear that winemaking styles have changed so much that the type of elegant and long-aging wine Bill talks about is a rarity. And there is the equally messy counterrevolution of hip natural wines, Petri dish wines and young growers trying everything they can to erase the Stench of Parker.
Not to get too much into dialectics, but we have our thesis, our antithesis but I don’t know that we have a synthesis yet that’s palatable. (And you are all forbidden from saying “Burgundy” as if it’s the answer)
Outstanding post and perhaps the most important question of all, Noah. We do not know the answer yet. The good news is that not all wines have the “stench of Parker”, although many, probably most of the Napa and Sonoma wines from, say, 1990 until recently do, as do most of the most popular Aussie wines. Bordeaux is a mixed bag, Burgundy less so given his lack of influence there, and there are many legendary traditionally made Nebbiolo-based wines that are 100% stench-free, so all is not lost. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people chasing older stench-free wines these days…
Awesome post!
This seems fair to me. What people tend to forget (because who brings a terrible wine from a dire vintage to a wine dinner?) is how many truly bad wines there were, and how common it was to have entire vintages that were virtually undrinkable, passed off as “classic” “restaurant wines.” 2013 appears to be a decidedly “meh” year, but it seems a good bet that it will suck less than sacred tradition would have had it in 68-69 or 72-73 (maybe even 91).
The ginormous style tends not to be what I want from Bordeaux, and I don’t own much from the Right Bank. I don’t disagree that pandering to Parker’s perceived preferences went too far. I also thought that Parker’s reviews - which I used to find useful, even though I don’t share his tastes, because he was fairly consistent and I could usually tell wines he liked from wines I might like from his descriptions - became much less consistent and useful in recent years. Both seem like perfectly legitimate points to me. It’s the whole Parker as Antichrist, personal hatred, hope he fails and serves him right for having health problems undertone that, at least in my view, isn’t a good look.
Where did I say Rolland is King, Bill? All I said was as a whole the region has better winemaking and viticulture. You can love or hate certain wines, there are plenty that went too big, too ripe, too hot for my tastes, but plenty that also make damn good wines even in bad vintages from Pauillac, Graves, Fronsac, Entre Deux Mers, and some satellites that never made wines worth a shit in the 60s, 70s, or 80s. The flip side is all the wines that speak of winemaker and cooperage, not vineyard and region.
Nicely put, Paul.
The voice of reason.
Which never works out well in Parker threads on WB.
For at least the last decade, Parker has been useful to me only for triangulation purposes. Where he loved a wine that was also loved by others with less of a sweet tooth, I found that encouraging. If he was the outlier, I found his opinions less useful.
I wish him nothing but the best. I hope his health improves and that he and his family enjoy his retirement.