Wasn’t sure where it would be apt to post this, so forgive me if posting in the wrong section. Interesting article from Dr. Vino on WA Accounting. I liked the comments about Dunn and Ch. Montelena, exactly what others were wondering as to why he never tasted Mount Mary.
Interesting article thanks.
I especially liked the responses. 
Thanks for posting. Interesting.
I posted the link in the 2007 Bordeaux thread as well.
The Wine Advocate, and Robert Parker, caught in more lies. Shocking.
Great posts on that link from Dale Williams and Eric LeVine.
I wonder if someone will draw the attention of Parker on Ebob with this story.
Interesting post.
The comments raise the question whether it even matters if most of the wines reviewed by the WA are free samples. After all, while being able to rely on free samples in general probably makes a significant financial difference for the WA vs. having to go out and buy everything, no individual free sample is going to make such a difference that you would expect it to influence his view of the wine. Even in the sleazy scenario where he takes 2 bottles as free samples, reviews one, and the other finds its way into his personal cellar, that’s not really a perk unless he liked the wine to begin with, so again it doesn’t seem like it would affect the validity of his reviews.
But I think it does make a difference, and here’s why. The Dr. Vino post divides wines into two categories - wines that the WA pays for and wines that it doesn’t. I think the latter category itself needs to be divided into two subcategories - (1) bottles that magically appear for free in the mail or in mass lineups in a hotel, and (2) samples that Parker tastes for free while visiting the winery and chatting up the proprietor or winemaker. Parker is a rich man and I don’t think he is vulnerable to corruption from the financial perk of getting wines for free, even very expensive wines. But Parker is also an egotistical man and I think he is intensely vulnerable to the personal corruption that comes from meeting with a winemaker who tells him what a genius he is and how all his critics don’t know what they’re talking about, then feeds him the local gossip, etc. And when he’s been meeting with those same people for years and years and they start to enter his orbit of friends, his judgment becomes particularly impaired. Parker is not tasting these wines blind. And he takes good care of his friends.
Well-stated, Keith.
Mark my words; look for an exacerbation of Parker’s beating of his chest and talking about blobbers and those “against him.”
Probably early on, he did buy a lot of the wines. In its heyday, Parker had a throng of subscribers, he only had the print edition (which he owned outright) and life was good.
As time has gone by, there are indicia that the subscriptions have declined, and more and more people migrated to the electronic version sold by eRP. Remember, Parker is not the sole owner of eRP; one even wonders what % of eRP he owns, and how insightful he might have been in the beginning regarding the eventual migration to the e-version in order to arrange his percent of ownership of eRP in order to protect his financial interests. There are some indications he didn’t fully see this migration coming. Why do you think he insists that the electronic version not be released until the print version is mailed? Shouldn’t it work the other way?
As all this has happened, we see the financial standards start to crumble; hence, Jay Miller’s and Mark Squires’ trips, and Parker’s initial reaction (before the WSJ article) of “ok, but so what?” We also have seen his secretary (remember, this is basically and 2 or 3 employee office in his home) tell the NYT that the “vast majority” of wines he tastes are free samples. Financial pressures came to bear on the operation, and the initial practices may have slipped.
The problem is that Parker has continued to loudly proclaim (and print) the ‘old’ standards. He sort of boxed himself in–after all, if ‘blind tasting whenever possible’ and the purchase of most of the wines (remember, until very recently the published figure was 75% as shown in posts on his site by him) were the ethical requirements–how could he now change them? Ethics should not change over time.
Most of his readers don’t so much care which approach he uses, frankly. But I do think people care if they feel they are lied to. When someone states something (and advertises it) and the evidence (and comments by their employees and other industry observers) points differently, people start to question the credibility of the thing. And that matters.
What I mean by watch for an exacerbation of his behavior, is that–as financial and other pressures increase, the bombastic response to the stress will simply increase in proportion.
Agreed. And this could become another train wreck.
JD
Very interesting article, goes to show the wine ratings business is definitely a business! Humm, so at 60% of 16,474 wines, that would result in quite a few invoices and financial transactions, across quite a few wine merchants and wineries. Wouldn’t want to be his accountant!
Interesting?, yes. Anything new?, no.
Thanks for checking out my number crunching.
Keith - It would be interesting to parse the data further. Unfortunately, the reviews are only accompanied by a price or not, so I had to code as BS (barrel sample - or no price) or not. Also, some of the wines with prices may have been among those that Parker tasted during his 40 winery visits last October so they’re not necessarily a subset of the BS category.
Considering that Sierra Car Crash was one of the biggest hits of 2009, I’m surprised that it’s not on more people’s minds.
To me the biggest difference between off-the-shelf and free-sample-bottle is that you don’t really know what’s in the sample bottle. It would be one thing if he said it doesn’t matter, but to me, claiming 60% off-the-shelf means that he’s saying that it does matter and that he’s got that detail covered.
(Personally I think it matters a hell of a lot, a lot more than most people think. Think of any/every other business where the stakes are so high, not to mention the odds for getting caught are so low.)
As so many have remarked, the issue is his claim. Lose the “Independent” part of the title of WA for starters. By his own admission, 40% of his tasting is a result of largess of wineries/importers/industry associations/whatever. That is a big assed dollar value and ensures a “dependence.” Does it bias his reviews? Who knows but, for me, it clearly invalidates the “Independence.” Put in the terms of, I believe it was, “Marsha,” in the comments section of Tyler’s site, that is one helluva’ full page glossy ad that the 40% of $3.7 M (or you supply your own estimate) of wine sampled (or you fill in the estimate) in avoided costs. Keith’s point regarding the “setting,” if you will, where winemakers/importers, etc. are providing the “setting” still stands as another issue that RP needs to eliminate or come clean about. RP railed against the implied corruption in the industry, establishing rules he thinks should be followed then, as King, doesn’t apply them stringently to himself and publicly states that his “men” aren’t held to the same “vapour” standard that he himself maintains. Lets face it, his rules must apply to the men (his contractors, other reviewers) and kings (him) or they are not rules at all. In politics, such vapour rules are put in place for a reason (eg. third world country enacts stringent environmental laws but, doesn’t make an effort to follow them; the purpose of enacting them could be to march them out as support against their detractors or to set themselves up as bastions for some gain amonst other possibilities). Makes me wonder what the purpose of the rules are in the first place. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just restate his purpose/rules to make his current practices comply and let his flock determine if they still want to follow. ![[scratch.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/42a16863a8714da3c1604419e3eb9206bb87aa50.gif "scratch"){kind=small}