OMFG LOL - Best Parker Note/Score ever

[ToddFrench]

Not to add to the Parker tension here, but this was too good to pass up, regardless to which professional wine writer/rater/taster would have published it…

BILA HAUT (MICHEL CHAPOUTIER) 2010 ROUGE COTES DU ROUSSILLON VILLAGES
WA 92-94
$10.99

Robert Parker writes in Wine Advocate: “These Chapoutier wines are sometimes reviewed by my colleagues David Schildknect in his Languedoc-Roussillon report and Lisa Perrotti-Brown in her reviews of Australian wines, so I will just list the wines, my score, and the region from which they emerge. They are of very high quality and deserve readers’ attention. Hopefully my prose has convinced more than a handful of readers to try these remarkable wines from one of the most fascinating and compelling personalities in the entire wine world, and one dedicated to the highest quality.”

Essentially, ‘one of my staff may or may not taste this, and rate it, but I’ll just toss out a random score based on a lucky guess, and hopefully you will drink the wine’. Sweet! LOLOL

[Nate_Simon]

Silence, infidel Frenchie!
The High Potentate has spoken!

[Gordon_Fitz]

Todd;

I don’t see the problem here. Parker obviously tried the wine and like it. Enough so that he opted to write a note on the wine and publish it. WS is now letting their staff cross taste wines from areas covered by other tasters and post on them. One would take from the note that the tasting was not blind, but that he was very impressed with this $11 wine. So do you beleive that if Shanken really liked a wine he shouldn’t post on it since he has people assigned to all parts of the world?

[Neal.Mollen]

@Gordon Fitz

Todd;

I don’t see the problem here. Parker obviously tried the wine and like it. Enough so that he opted to write a note on the wine and publish it. WS is now letting their staff cross taste wines from areas covered by other tasters and post on them. One would take from the note that the tasting was not blind, but that he was very impressed with this $11 wine. So do you beleive that if Shanken really liked a wine he shouldn’t post on it since he has people assigned to all parts of the world?

Gordon, finding things to hate about Parker is why Todd gets up in the morning. Please don’t rain on his parade.

[Gordon_Fitz]

Neil;

Thanks!

Todd;

Sorry!

[Travis_Fantz]

It is interesting because the whole point of his commentary is to sell wine versus review it. Just seems backwards from the way it should be.

[ToddFrench]

Gordon, you don’t know Neal’s humor very well…

If you see no problem with that style of writing when it comes to a review, than I salute you. I, perhaps, would demand a bit more substance if I were to use notes, ratings, and reviews to buy wine. More than ‘my colleagues will write about it, but here’s a score - go!’

[Jim_Anderson]

I really know nothing about this and don’t read the WA but why would LPB review a Languedoc-Roussillon wine in an Australian wine review? Am I missing something?

[ToddFrench]

FYI, it was taken from a retailer’s email offer of said wine - I don’t have a subscription to WA

[Eric_LeVine]

@Jim Anderson

I really know nothing about this and don’t read the WA but why would LPB review a Languedoc-Roussillon wine in an Australian wine review? Am I missing something?

He is referring to Chapoutier who has Australian projects: Add Wine to My Cellar - CellarTracker

I don’t actually have an issue with the original note, somewhat preposterous as it is. Bob loves the Chapoutier wines.

[David_Bu3ker]

I seem to recall the Gault-Millau German guide (Diel/Payne) giving out scores with no notes for all the wines.

[Larry_P]

I got an offer on this wine as well. I did not get the impression that Parker hadn’t tasted the wines or was guessing at the scores. It sounds like he’s saying he doesn’t want to publish a tasting note for a wine under his contractors’ purview, which I really don’t see a problem with.
But… he doesn’t mind overriding their scores?

Here’s the entire offer as it hit my inbox.

Chapoutier
Domaine de Bila Haut
‘Occultum Lapidem’
Cotes du Roussillon
Combo Includes:
12 Btls of 2009 - in stock
12 Btls of 2010 - pre arrival

Wine Advocate, 91-92 Points:
2009: “From Grenache, Carignan, and Syrah planted in a mixture of gneiss, schist, and chalk, and vinified half each in tank and barrel (demi-muids as well as barriques), the 2009 Cotes du Roussillon Villages Latour de France Occultum Lapidem - due to have been bottled in May - is scented with rosemary, sage, blackberry, mulberry, which are joined on a rich, expansive palate by marrow-rich meatiness and a striking, saline, iodine-tinged savor that I can only liken to shrimp shell reduction. (It there’s a wine for “surf 'n turf,” it’s this.) The sense of clarity, brightness, and energy here is utterly infectious and the combination of pure dark fruits, invigoratingly pungent smokiness, and saliva-inducing salinity is bound to induce hunger - among other things for the next sip. Look for at least ten or a dozen years of stimulating acquaintance.”

Robert Parker, 95-97 Points:
2010: “These Chapoutier wines are sometimes reviewed by my colleagues David Schildknect in his Languedoc-Roussillon report and Lisa Perrotti-Brown in her reviews of Australian wines, so I will just list the wines, my score, and the region from which they emerge. They are of very high quality and deserve readers’ attention. Hopefully my prose has convinced more than a handful of readers to try these remarkable wines from one of the most fascinating and compelling personalities in the entire wine world, and one dedicated to the highest quality.”

There are a number of curiosities here. The retailer differentiates between the TWA vs. RMP review, which is a credit to them. Clearly retailers will cherry-pick the highest scores for these e-mail blasts. In this case, Parker wins the 2010 by simply throwing out a higher score. The first question in my mind was, “but how will Schildknect score the 2010?” If you were David, would you even want to publish a review on this wine now? It could be the 2009 is that much surpassed by the 2010, but since we get scores from 2 different reviewers, and the latter with no note to boot, we have no way of knowing.

Also, it appears that now a 95-97 point wine must be bundled to help sell a 91-92 point wine (for less than $21/bottle). This is surely a side-effect of score inflation: < 95 is the new “not recommended.” I was pretty sure I didn’t want 2 cases of this stuff.

[Phillip_Cobb]

@Larry P

I got an offer on this wine as well. I did not get the impression that Parker hadn’t tasted the wines or was guessing at the scores. It sounds like he’s saying he doesn’t want to publish a tasting note for a wine under his contractors’ purview, which I really don’t see a problem with.
But… he doesn’t mind overriding their scores?

Here’s the entire offer as it hit my inbox.

Chapoutier
Domaine de Bila Haut
‘Occultum Lapidem’
Cotes du Roussillon
Combo Includes:
12 Btls of 2009 - in stock
12 Btls of 2010 - pre arrival

Wine Advocate, 91-92 Points:
2009: “From Grenache, Carignan, and Syrah planted in a mixture of gneiss, schist, and chalk, and vinified half each in tank and barrel (demi-muids as well as barriques), the 2009 Cotes du Roussillon Villages Latour de France Occultum Lapidem - due to have been bottled in May - is scented with rosemary, sage, blackberry, mulberry, which are joined on a rich, expansive palate by marrow-rich meatiness and a striking, saline, iodine-tinged savor that I can only liken to shrimp shell reduction. (It there’s a wine for “surf 'n turf,” it’s this.) The sense of clarity, brightness, and energy here is utterly infectious and the combination of pure dark fruits, invigoratingly pungent smokiness, and saliva-inducing salinity is bound to induce hunger - among other things for the next sip. Look for at least ten or a dozen years of stimulating acquaintance.”

Robert Parker, 95-97 Points:
2010: “These Chapoutier wines are sometimes reviewed by my colleagues David Schildknect in his Languedoc-Roussillon report and Lisa Perrotti-Brown in her reviews of Australian wines, so I will just list the wines, my score, and the region from which they emerge. They are of very high quality and deserve readers’ attention. Hopefully my prose has convinced more than a handful of readers to try these remarkable wines from one of the most fascinating and compelling personalities in the entire wine world, and one dedicated to the highest quality.”

There are a number of curiosities here. The retailer differentiates between the TWA vs. RMP review, which is a credit to them. Clearly retailers will cherry-pick the highest scores for these e-mail blasts. In this case, Parker wins the 2010 by simply throwing out a higher score. The first question in my mind was, “but how will Schildknect score the 2010?” If you were David, would you even want to publish a review on this wine now? It could be the 2009 is that much surpassed by the 2010, but since we get scores from 2 different reviewers, and the latter with no note to boot, we have no way of knowing.

Also, it appears that now a 95-97 point wine must be bundled to help sell a 91-92 point wine (for less than $21/bottle). This is surely a side-effect of score inflation: < 95 is the new “not recommended.” I was pretty sure I didn’t want 2 cases of this stuff.

Looks like a different cuvee in your e-mail. There’s the $12ish “Bila-Haut” and the $20ish “Bila-Haut Occultum Lapidem.” I’ve picked up a couple of each for the past few years, and noticed when I picked up the lower-end one recently that it had neck-talkers touting the big 92-94 from Parker.

Yours is the first e-mail I’ve seen for the 2010 Lapidem. I noticed in another year–I think for the 07?–it was reviewed by both RP and DS. Certainly odd, but helpful to have those datapoints to cross-reference.

[Ken_V]

This was part of a report that Parker did on Northern Rhone. Presumably, he was at Chapoutier and tasted the wines, but since these aren’t Northern Rhone wines, he just mentions them and gives a quick impression. It’s not intended to be a formal tasting note as I see it.

[mstockley]

[quote=“Todd F r e n c h”]Not to add to the Parker tension here…/quote]

No, of course not.

[Ron_Kramer]

@Phillip Cobb

@Larry P

I got an offer on this wine as well. I did not get the impression that Parker hadn’t tasted the wines or was guessing at the scores. It sounds like he’s saying he doesn’t want to publish a tasting note for a wine under his contractors’ purview, which I really don’t see a problem with.
But… he doesn’t mind overriding their scores?

Here’s the entire offer as it hit my inbox.

Chapoutier
Domaine de Bila Haut
‘Occultum Lapidem’
Cotes du Roussillon
Combo Includes:
12 Btls of 2009 - in stock
12 Btls of 2010 - pre arrival

Wine Advocate, 91-92 Points:
2009: “From Grenache, Carignan, and Syrah planted in a mixture of gneiss, schist, and chalk, and vinified half each in tank and barrel (demi-muids as well as barriques), the 2009 Cotes du Roussillon Villages Latour de France Occultum Lapidem - due to have been bottled in May - is scented with rosemary, sage, blackberry, mulberry, which are joined on a rich, expansive palate by marrow-rich meatiness and a striking, saline, iodine-tinged savor that I can only liken to shrimp shell reduction. (It there’s a wine for “surf 'n turf,” it’s this.) The sense of clarity, brightness, and energy here is utterly infectious and the combination of pure dark fruits, invigoratingly pungent smokiness, and saliva-inducing salinity is bound to induce hunger - among other things for the next sip. Look for at least ten or a dozen years of stimulating acquaintance.”

Robert Parker, 95-97 Points:
2010: “These Chapoutier wines are sometimes reviewed by my colleagues David Schildknect in his Languedoc-Roussillon report and Lisa Perrotti-Brown in her reviews of Australian wines, so I will just list the wines, my score, and the region from which they emerge. They are of very high quality and deserve readers’ attention. Hopefully my prose has convinced more than a handful of readers to try these remarkable wines from one of the most fascinating and compelling personalities in the entire wine world, and one dedicated to the highest quality.”

There are a number of curiosities here. The retailer differentiates between the TWA vs. RMP review, which is a credit to them. Clearly retailers will cherry-pick the highest scores for these e-mail blasts. In this case, Parker wins the 2010 by simply throwing out a higher score. The first question in my mind was, “but how will Schildknect score the 2010?” If you were David, would you even want to publish a review on this wine now? It could be the 2009 is that much surpassed by the 2010, but since we get scores from 2 different reviewers, and the latter with no note to boot, we have no way of knowing.

Also, it appears that now a 95-97 point wine must be bundled to help sell a 91-92 point wine (for less than $21/bottle). This is surely a side-effect of score inflation: < 95 is the new “not recommended.” I was pretty sure I didn’t want 2 cases of this stuff.

Looks like a different cuvee in your e-mail. There’s the $12ish “Bila-Haut” and the $20ish “Bila-Haut Occultum Lapidem.” I’ve picked up a couple of each for the past few years, and noticed when I picked up the lower-end one recently that it had neck-talkers touting the big 92-94 from Parker.

Yours is the first e-mail I’ve seen for the 2010 Lapidem. I noticed in another year–I think for the 07?–it was reviewed by both RP and DS. Certainly odd, but helpful to have those datapoints to cross-reference.

Isn’t that a bit too much of Copyrighted material to paste?

[jcoley3]

Speaking as someone who has actually tasted a couple of the wines (before seeing any of the scoring), I will say that I like the Bila-Haut whites a lot. I’m not inclined to score wines, but I would not hesitate to recommend the whites at their prices. I wasn’t as happy with the reds, but I also stocked Roussillon reds I liked better at the time I was tasted on them.

Suffice to say that my scores would be far closer to DS’s than RMP’s, but they are quality wines. As some projects can get tarred-and-feathered here by Parker Point Proximity, I would hate to see people dismiss them out of hand simply because Bob got a little wild with the scores.

[Bob_Wood]

@Todd F r e n c h

Gordon, you don’t know Neal’s humor very well…

[Bob_Wood]

@Ron Kramer

Isn’t that a bit too much of Copyrighted material to paste?

Who are you and what have you done with Mark Squires?

[Craig_G]

I hate to disturb the flow of this thread with an actual tasting note, but:

2003 Chapoutier Bila Haut Occultum Lapidem: Very nice, ripe but not over-. Lots of tannin, but the overall feel is quite soft. Nice smoky cassis nose. Good bet for age.

I have to admit, I bought this on Parker’s notes, in a PC sale. I don’t remember exactly why since I have generally avoided Chapoutier and almost entirely avoided 2003 in France.