Nah, he did pretend to be a wine geek for quite a while, and created a community of thousands who believed he was in for the long haul, only to leave them high-and-dry. To his credit he did not shy away from slamming wines that he sold in his shop. I think he even convinced himself for a while that he cared. But in the end, it didn’t appear to be about the wine at all.
+3
Parker walks back the story in the WSJ, restoring life to the print edition and reasserting that “headquarters” will remain in Monkton.
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Wine Advocate Will Stay Put, and in Print
By LETTIE TEAGUE
Robert M. Parker Jr., the influential editor of the Wine Advocate, now says the headquarters of the 34-year-old newsletter will remain in Maryland and that it will continue to publish a print edition.
In a weekend interview with The Wall Street Journal that was published in Monday’s editions, Mr. Parker had said he intended to phase out the print version of the newsletter, moving to an online-only format, possibly before the end of 2013, and that the Wine Advocate’s headquarters would be moving to Singapore.
He also had disclosed plans to step down as editor in chief and sell a “substantial interest” in the newsletter to a trio of Singapore-based investors. Those plans appear to be continuing unchanged.
Mr. Parker and the Wine Advocate have a loyal following, with about 50,000 subscribers paying $75 for six issues a year.
Some subscribers raised an outcry on the newsletter’s online bulletin board after the Journal published its article on the interview Monday, and Mr. Parker said the Wine Advocate would continue to appear in print. On Monday morning he tweeted that he had “no plans to eliminate the print edition.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Parker said in an email Wednesday that “while things could always change down the road,” the print edition will stay in place.
The spokeswoman also said the newsletter’s Singapore office will be “a second office,” from which its investors and Singapore-based correspondent Lisa Perrotti-Brown, the new editor in chief, “will be handling various business and editorial operations.”
The spokeswoman also said in Wednesday’s email that the Wine Advocate’s headquarters will remain in Monkton, Md.
The spokeswoman added that the owners “will never run ads in hard copy or the PDF editions of the Wine Advocate, but are looking into the idea of nonwine-related advertisement on the bulletin board and portions of eRobertParker.com,” Mr. Parker’s website.
Ms. Perrotti-Brown had said in an email to the Journal over the weekend that the owners would “eventually allow advertising” in the Wine Advocate from upscale sponsors such as credit cards or watch companies.
Totally irrelevant, and obviously done at Parker’s behest. Is it too much to ask for the WSJ to put a real, live JOURNALIST on this, one that might offer something RELEVANT (the HQ location and the future of the print edition, which should have died a decade ago, being per se irrelevant), like, say, “When asked if he had sold a controlling interest in the WA and if indeed Ms. Perrotti-Brown had been chosen by the new owners to run the business, Mr. Parker replied…”
This whole thing, from Parker’s apparent contradictory statements to Lisa Perotti-Brown’s condescending remarks about the contributing writers to the shadowy “young visionaries” to Lettie Teague’s shoddy “journalism” reeks of the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. What a farce. They should all be embarrassed.
Mike Steinberger takes a better stab at this than any of his predecessors:
Also, after several days of no post on this event on the Tanzer board, Steve himself elected to post the news, along with links to the Salmon piece, one other website and the inimitable (praise the Lord!) Steve Heimoff, or STEVE! to all of you HoseMaster of Wine fans…
I love this line from Steinberger: “Parker disputing key elements of an article that he essentially dictated reminds me of the time Charles Barkley claimed to have been misquoted in his own autobiography.”
Kudos to RMP for the sale. If the rumored figures and details are even half true, hundreds (if not thousands) of aging independent small business owners would be envious as hell. His challenge, as always, will be to keep his feet out of his mouth and not F-up the deal for himself and his partners. If he’s smart (and the odds favor that), he’ll throttle back, flip on the cruise control and enjoy the ride in to the sunset. All the buzzing gnats are just so much noise unless you flail at them… not to say the buzz isn’t entertaining.
RT
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Mike’s article was a very good summary and commentary regarding events to date.
I’m sure the WSJ didn’t assign this to another reporter because they were unaware and unconcerned with the deal. If they didn’t have a wine writer I’m sure this would not have made a blip on their radar.
I dunno, it made a big article in the business section of The Times.
(I mean the real one, in the UK).
Richard, you had me with you until “If he’s smart (and the odds favor that)”. Lucky, yes. Smart, no. You must not follow Parker at all. The odds are prohibitive against Parker being smart, as evidenced by the dog’s breakfast that is his handling (or lack thereof) of this matter…
Parker’s latest take on his own board is damning. Wish that I could publish it here. In essence, it says that he gave the story to his good friend Lettie, and he told her what he wanted said, but Lettie’s damn editor kept asking hard questions and trying to put words in his mouth. (Not his exact words, but a fair interpretation of the gist.) Imagine somebody trying to put anything in Parker’s mouth that did not come from Flannery’s, Russ and Daughters or Joselito! He was asked, by the way, by the WSJ editor (or Teague, at the editor’s behest), if he had sold a controlling interest. He described the interaction in a way that one might interpret as “no”, but just as easily as, “no, write a SUBSTANTIAL interest in your piece, that’s all that I am saying”. Relative to the employment contracts vs. the “independent contractor” situation, he also makes reference to the investors “wanting control over all of us [the staff writers including Parker]”. In other words, no news!
Bill, there’s no question about the foot-in-mouth issues, definitely not his strong suit. Nevertheless, I can’t imagine that he’s not bright enough to recognize the beauty of the deal. I’m betting he dials it down enough to see it through. I’ve never met RMP but have followed a number of the sagas. He’s loyal, consistent, snarls when attacked and has a knee-jerk reaction problem. He also created, organized and ran the world’s most influential wine publication (for decades). It arguably still is. Some brains required.
RT
It seems that the HoseMaster of Wine also has some random thoughts on the issue at hand:
Off-topic, but why have we never had an offline in Monkton?
Umm, all due respect to Monkton, but there are likely better places to visit in general. Besides, why stalk Parker when we can stalk you instead?
I’m not saying we have it in his house (as he hasn’t invited us) - it’s just very ‘Berserker’ to have an event in the hometown of the actual birthplace of Wine Berserkers, no?
Actually, that would be Philly, where Squirrel Nutz resides.
I’m about 20 minutes away from Monkton at the moment. Where should I go to par-tay?