In March, Bobby Parker will make his annual trek over to Bordeaux. He is skipping retasting the 2008s, which I find very odd, but, apparently will be tasting 2007s while there, to get out for his April issue of TWA.
I do not have the exact excerpt from his most recent Bordeaux book, but Bobby was fairly explicit with how he reviewed Bordeaux for final review. He says he purchased them off retailer shelves in the United States and then BLIND tastes them. This is to ensure he is reviewing the same wine that his subscribers are buying. This sounds like a great idea, and I am not sure if this is what is actually done, or just another sound byte to look good.
Nevertheless, does anyone believe that is how he is reviewing 2007 Bordeaux for his April issue? BLIND and off US retail shelves?
Also, if anyone has the excerpt from the book, feel free to post it.
and again and again, as I have written in my very first posts to Squirres BB, this must be done in front of any entity who will collect the scores before you may suspect they are “rewritten” in the office, before printing.
BTW : this applies to every journalist in wine, in France, Germany, Spain, USA or UK.
Needless to say that this is the regular procedure at GJE and may explain the “funny” sides of our results.
I am beginning to wonder if some of us think that wine critics must be saints. It seems, however, not to matter much whether one is a saint or a fallen angel for one way or another it seems the critic is open to some fairly random attacks.
As to the “advantages” of sainthood, ponder for a moment on the fate of Saint Sebastian
To taste the new vintage (2009) in barrel, as he does every year.
The chateaux normally would have the prior vintage (2008) available also in the spring. Is he foregoing tasting them or just not bothering to write them up?
Indeed full honesty is to be both hoped for and expected of people in any profession, the critic being perhaps even more deeply bound to such behavior. I wonder though of the requirements we sometimes demand.
Your request for example that one’s scores be given to an independent authority before leaving the tasting room are perfectly reasonable at panel tastings, but in the case of the individual critic does not such a demand automatically indicate that the critic is not trusted? And does that not put a perhaps unreasonable economic burden on the critic? After all, we cannot all have an independent accountant’s firm overseeing our every tasting.
Indeed, I also agree that there are critics who cannot be trusted. The solution to that is quite simple - ignore them. Scorn and sarcasm are tools that reflect perhaps even more on the writer than on the person being scorned. And, I must ask, if so many here scorn Mr Parker and the Squires board, why in the world do they feel the almost driven need to return there, almost as voyeurs, to peek in and the “report back to mommy” on what the neighbors have been doing.
As I have said before, I am neither defending nor castigating any critic in particular. More than that, I agree in full that the critic must be open to criticism.
But then again, my objections may be only my own and may even reflect in some large part my own thoughts on the shortcomings of the liberties offered by the internet.
Not re-tasting the '08’s, a vintage that got a pop in pricing power after many highly scored wines by “Bobby”? I wonder why he’s not re-tasting the '08’s, especially considering how much he liked them?
Ahh, now I understand. By waiting to review the '08’s until Nov. '10, the '08’s scores won’t go up against the '09’s and the Chateaux will have the “in bottle” scores in hand before the dog and pony show (UDG) in Jan '11. Should be a win/win for the Chateaux…
Absolutely; bravo! Before I began tasting with the GJE, I took critics’ word, including Parker’s, at face value. Then I found it odd that the critics’ reviews that were not audited always made “perfect sense”–that is, they lined up so uniformly, with an occasional exception–first growths first, seconds second, etc. etc. etc.
The GJE, which tastes blind with a legal entity to certify the authenticity of the scoring/results, sometimes has surprises–a ringer will show up very high and so forth.
How come this doesn’t usually happen with a professional critic?
No accusations should be assumed or implied; I’m just asking the question.
Also, if there is nothing to hide, how come the professional critic will not taste blind in an open forum and ask that their scores be verified by an independent observer?
Rogov, my curiosity is how he is reviewing the 2007s. Is he reviewing them while in Bordeaux in March, or has he been tasting them stateside over the past few months, leading up to the April issue. Sorry if that offends, but he is the one who announced his policy, not me.
You guys have it all wrong, he did taste 2005s blind recently and remember how he lied and skewed the results, and when he was questioned, he said, “have fun, keep it real, it is only wine.”
From wikipedia, Rogov…apparently, we are not the only one to question the most powerful critic in the wine business… A lengthy profile 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.” [3] 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.[4]
Whatever : we are in a phase where mr Parker will have to assume more and more growing critics. It is a simple fact of life and evolution. I just say, for him as well as for all major critics, it will be wise, one in a while, to follow the procedure I explain above, which will stop immediatly all this current of understatements and questions.
Do not tell me it is not simple to be done. And certainly you agree it will stop immediatly these doubts that every amateur has the right to have. I do not see any reason why I have to accept “blind” the points of view of these gentlemen.
When I discuss with some major owners in Bordeaux, including owners of first growths, they explain to me that, time to time, they organize, between them, some blind tastings with their wines and some others. Is that a surprise if I tell you that many time the results are quite “funny” ?
Mr Parker has $$$$. Suckling too via WS. Others are poor or close to. It is more difficult for them to critizize the châteaux where they are welcome with a red carpet and with readers who feel “safe” in front of their respect of classifications. The best example of this, by far, are the comments by Mr Leve. It is a complicate world. Never forgot Mr Parker is a consumerist advocate and not a teacher about wines. Just read the article of Michel Bettane in an old issue of TWFW about this major difference. Not that one is superior to the other, but simply their objectives are fundamentaly different. Sorry : I do not have the link of this article.
In all seriousness, that’s how many people think. They want to believe the wine experience is so orderly that it SHOULD come out as Firsts first, Seconds second, and so forth.
When it sometimes doesn’t come out that way, seriously, people say “why are you ‘wrong.’” (As if a blind tasting CAN be “wrong.”)
Mercedes Benz had a lot of quality problems over the years but that couldn´t destroy the image of the brand. The problems were not serious enough. Robert Parker had some problems recently but that couldn´t destroy his image. You must do somemthing really strange to destroy your image. It must be something like Tiger Woods did.
If I recall correct Robert Parker himself said in an interview: I have little to gain but a lot to loose. I think this sums it up. And honestly: I can understand him. Why should anyone lower his own success? Who would do something like that?
It is clear to me that Parker is not better or worse as a taster as some people I met when I was guest at some GJE tastings. He was at the right place at the right time when wine became fashionable in the U.S.
Everyone who is interested in drinking fine wine should taste as much wine as possible himself. I guess sooner or later he or she will understand that the difference between a wine with 95 or 99 points doesn´t exist in reality. And that Premiers Grands Crus Bordeaux and Grands Crus Bourgogne are not the best wines of their group per se. In blind tastings almost nameless Crus can be as good or even better. Hard to believe - I know - but true anyway.
Everyone who has ever the chance to taste like the GJE does it will learn a lesson he or she won´t forget.
You are all missing the point. Parker claims to taste these wines blind already.
It is not a question of whether he ought to or not. 30 years ago, he set his policies, and he has defined them, and not changed them. In his last book on Bordeaux, the edition, published jsut a few years ago, Bobby Parker wrote this
“For bottled Bordeaux, I purchase wines at retail. and usually conduct all my tastings under single blind conditions-I do not know the identity of the wine, but since I prefer to taste in peer groups, I always taste wines from the same vintage.”
I have no problem with this policy at all. I think it is great. Is it followed at the Wine Advocate?
