(edited to add additional article)
Wow
My first thought is he should’ve stayed…but you never know with non-competes etc. I just don’t know that his name will have enough traction/draw to have a subscriber base. Personally, I didn’t pay much attention to his ratings-I thought they were too high and too compressed.
But I wish him luck in his next chapter.
thanks for posting.
What I think is really interesting is that this is the second heir apparent to jump ship. The implications for the future of the WA are very interesting to consider.
Once I un-subscribed their fate was set.
Jeb as an heir apparent? Really? I don’t think that was ever in the cards. One would have to think Martin is on the short list – or is the short list – if he can stomach working for the new boss. From this quote, I sense that Lisa may have been an issue here
“I have incredible respect for Robert Parker, and it was an honor and privilege to work with him and the reviewing team at the Wine Advocate,” Dunnuck said. “It’s not an easy decision to move on, but I’m eager to shape a publication that reflects my own love of wine and engages me as directly as possible with readers.”
Also, . . . Bordeaux? Really?
Well Martin certainly is the only one on the short list now.
From my rather remote perspective, I don’t see an heir apparent at TWA. The ‘team’ approach would be of much greater appeal to the owners, in that they are not beholden to a lead name. I doubt they see anyone as irreplaceable, though they do have further to go to get people to talk of TWA rather than Robert Parker. Indeed I wonder whether they might at some point do a complete re-brand, possibly when he retires.
This is certainly an interesting development. He obviously did not or could not achieve what he wanted to under the new ownership.
One commonality for all of these changes seems to be the desire to connect more directly with as many consumers as possible.
I do find that he is a thorough reviewer who seems to take more time than others, or at least he did when he had his own publication. I don’t always agree with his reviews, but that’s true with anyone at this point.
I wish him the best of luck in this new endeavor.
It’ll be interesting to see if he will have the clout with local Rhone producers to rustle up the verticals he has been writing, which I’ve found quite interesting. I can understand participating in those if it was WA sponsored, but a single guy with a website seems dodgier.
I’ll say this: he was always the most willing participant in their morgue of a board, and was always the one to answer the criticisms and complaints about abysmal customer service, even though I doubt it was in his portfolio. Lisa, who is the boss of them all, simply had no time or use for dialog with the people who were paying her salary.
I feel for Neal and Monica, and, to a degree, for Bob. Lisa seems to be doing everything she can to run that outfit into the ground, and I have rarely encountered someone who seems less well suited to the role she has cut out for herself. When Parker posted about the horrific customer service, it was really just a shrug of the shoulder. “Not my job any more.” And when you are worse at customer service than Bob Parker, you are setting records indeed.
Here’s the other thing that intrigues me - Jeb’s first reviews are expected in July and they will cover Santa Barbara County . . . My guess is that these were supposed to be part of the WA, no? How might he be able to do this?
Cheers
Good for him. Never should have joined TWA in the first place.
Didn’t this happen with Antonio as well? There was a dispute about whether TWA owned a series of CA reviews he had done
Good question, Neal - but with the ‘new ownership’, things may be different perhaps?
It’ll be interesting to see who covers the areas Jeb has - I’m not a subscriber so I haven’t seen what the Advocate has said about his leaving, but that’ll be interesting indeed . . .
Cheers.
Some good questions have been posed. A couple of thoughts:
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Very front and center that his reviews would be integrated with Cellartracker (I know that was a big gripe for some that WA wouldn’t do that)
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He mentions a database of reviews. Does that mean he’s able to take his reviews with him in some way?
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I wonder what the WA is going to do now about the upcoming WA and Central Coast reviews that Jeb was scheduled to produce. Are they going to make Bob trek back out west like he did with Napa once Galloni left?
Congrats to Jeb!
I am eager to collaborate with him (as I did in the past before he joined the Wine Advocate).
At least in SF Chronicle’s article, he will go out to Central Coast soon as his contract runs out on 6/15:
Dunnuck’s contract with the Wine Advocate runs out on June 15. After that, “it’s gonna be a mad dash to create content” in time for the launch, he says. He plans to “gut (his) own cellar” to write some retrospective reports. On June 18, he begins a trip to Santa Barbara, Paso Robles (San Luis Obispo County), Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Those tasting reports will be online by the end of July.
It might not be so unlikely that they’ll serve him, cause only weeks ago Jeb told us (the subscribers, via the “morgue” of a forum) that these very useful restrospectives were “put on hold” by the administration.
Perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back?
The website itself has nothing about Jeb’s departure. Only mention of it anywhere is in on the Board, and only subscribers have posted…no Jeb, Monica or???
Congrats to Jeb.
I admit to feelings of schadenfreude at the badly listing Wine Advocate. And wonder who will be left to turn off the lights.
My sentiments exactly.