Must be one of those newfangled dictionaries that contains “irregardless.”
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I think you have to delineate the different Parke “eras”. There is the era you note above, when he first started out, as a bit of a rebel in the wine reviewing world. Then there is the second Parker era, where he did indeed move the market and influence many producers (even entire regions) to change their styles. Some of that change was no doubt good, some not so much (depending on your tastes). Some of us lived through both eras (most of us more the second than first). And the way you can tell the second era was so significant is that styles have rebounded to some extent since Parker faded from the scene. It was real, and can’t be just tossed off as nothing.
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How can you absolve Parker, when (as you point out) the average consumer can’t possibly taste most of the wines he did. I don’t think we can overestimate the number of bottles purchased based on Parker scores by consumers who never tasted the wines first (and often just put them away to mature, continuing to buy without ever tasting). The influence that had on the direction producers took also can’t be overestimated.
I don’t mind scores either, and they (and more importantly the accompanying reviews) can be a great aid to someone who doesn’t have experience with a particular producer. But there simply is no substitute for trying the wines yourself. That has been my quest in wine since I started exploring seriously 30+ years ago.
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You are not wrong.
No, those dictionaries respond to usage, not misusage. I’m guessing it’s the Mad Libs dictionary. The online Merriam Webster can be pretty loosey goosey, but it’s definition is straightforward:
You are both very clever gentlemen, but the definition was of a tautological argument, not tautology. They’re not quite the same thing. And a tautological argument is an argument that assumes its conclusion.
I did make the mistake of writing “tautology” rather than “tautological argument” in my post above. So I’m now glad we’re all on the same page. Which is, of course, irregardless of the topic at hand.
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Indeed, this rewriting does make your original claim coherent. It’s just inaccurate now.
Indirect evidence of Parker’s influence contrary to consumer preferences: this Bob Johnson cartoon for Pacific Wine Co. in San Francisco, late 80s/early 90s.
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I absolve Parker for several reasons:
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He was being honest. Or at least I think he was. If someone has proof otherwise that’s something else. (Greg mentioned the French medals effect and Jeff countered, but I’m open to proof that he wasn’t being honest.) He was rating highly the wines he liked.
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Climate change made it easier, in some cases natural, for winemakers to produce bigger wines. He liked those more. And so winemakers gave him more, and more, and more of what he liked. That’s on the winemakers. He couldn’t demand that. Jordan, for example, never did that and the highest he ever rated one was 87 points in the 5 vintages he rated. They’re still around doing the same thing. I don’t think business is bad for them. (My uncle and my cousin certainly buy from them.)
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I think his palate did change because everyone’s palate changes. Has a study been done on the effect of constant swishing of tannins in one’s mouth? I’m not talking about the effect in the body, mostly positive, of the tannins from having a glass or three. The stuff can be used to turn skin into leather. It must have an effect when your mouth is in contact with massive quantities almost daily. And that effect, in my mind, must make a person less sensitive to flavor. And the person probably wouldn’t notice. It’s true with sugar.
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Many wine-buying Americans agreed with his scores to the extent they could. I have friends who, from their own description of the wines they like, clearly agree with late-state Parker even to this day. They like soft, round, ripe wines. I have other friends who clearly don’t. There are people in this world who drink stout beer and love it. To me that’s like drinking oatmeal. But if they rate a stout highly that’s their palate, not mine.
As to the non-tasting buyers, I think most people were tasting. Not comparatively of course. And maybe they weren’t tasting the wine meant for aging for two decades, but the number of people buying those for that purpose based solely on his ratings was minuscule in the grand scheme of things. And if they stick the wine in a cupboard for 10 years it won’t be Parker’s fault when they open it and it sucks. 99% of people drink the wines young. In fact, most people buy wine today to drink today. They used shelf-talkers with his ratings as a guide. Now they use shelf talkers from Suckling or WS or WA or WE. This may come as a shock, but I don’t think consumers particularly cared (or care) whether the score on the shelf-talker was Parker or Wine Spectator or whoever, as long as it wasn’t the store’s score. What people want is a wine that will be a quality wine. I think most people don’t think the score will make them like it if it’s a region they haven’t tried. Most people see scores as a measure that someone thought it was a quality product. And if they like it, they’ll keep buying that same wine, year in and year out, until their palate changes.
Some people like shitty products. Look at all the people who buy Android phones. Look at all the people who spend money on diamonds.
A ITB friend reminded me of something in California that I wasn’t thinking about when I wrote the bolded part – picking very late and then watering back.
The increase in marked alcohol didn’t really reflect what was being done in the vineyards and cellars. Winemakers learned that Parker liked super-ripe fruit flavors (jammy, even pruny), so they picked at very high brix and then watered back. Hence, many 15+% cabernets would have significantly alcohol levels if they hadn’t been watered back.
For those who think he was more a reflection of consumer tastes than an influence on winemaking, remember that there were consultants who promised to help wineries make wines that would win 95+ scores from Parker. There were formulas, and super-ripe grapes watered back was one of them.
I think people here (myself included at times) often blur the legacy of Parker the critic with the unfortunate history of the old eBob board’s demise that led to our migration here. Although he obviously had preferences, any objective review of his career would conclude he was hugely impactful on the world of wine. I received a WA subscription (print!) as a gift at 22 years old and it changed my life.
That being said, the negative behaviors and pettiness on eBob certainly cloud how I view him now. I just think he was a human being as we all are and therefore it’s complicated. I’m glad to hear he’s still enjoying wine and good company.
Has anyone mentioned how retailers helped make a name for Parker. I had lunch earlier this year with Mike Lynch and others who were associated with Pacific Wine Company. On one hand the cartoon did mock how people followed Parker’s palate rather than their own, but the store used Parker’s admonition to mortgage your house and load up on '82 clarets. A lot of retailers made a lot of money off that vintage and they can thank Bob. Mike also talked about visiting Burgundy with Parker and how open Bob was to Mike’s opinions.
At the time I felt that wine merchants were surrendering to Parker. In California that was fueled by the end of Fair Trade laws, which set prices, and the rise of mega stores. It was easier to write numbers next to a wine and leave it at that.
Parker made the '82 vintage and vice versa. Finnegan dissed it and never recovered.
All of this is true. I know that some of it happened in CdP. And I’m sure the practices did garner high scores. It still doesn’t prove that there wasn’t an audience that wanted what he was selling. After all, he’s gone, and that kind of wine is still selling. Jeb Dunnock still has a following, as does Jeff Leve and the black forest cake critics you love to cite.
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I think Parker’s obvious knowledge that this was happening and willingness to play into it (in the later stages of his career) is part of the reason he was partially responsible for “Parkerization”. Early on I suspect he would have been somewhat aghast at this cynical formula, but as he became more convinced of the superiority of his own palate it clearly bothered him less.
The same way that he began tasting 50/60 samples a day. There was nothing “dishonest” about it, but honesty isn’t the issue. He trained his palate in a certain way, and failure to recognize that as a critic has a real effect. And, to be clear, I don’t think this makes Parker in any way a bad person (I wasn’t around the old boards and don’t care about that), but I completely agree that it’s just not true that he was just reflecting the tastes of the American drinking public.
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Plus, Finnegan lost his sense of taste and spell for a year or so after rating the '82s and stopped publishing!
You know what, I may have a solution. Maybe.
I’ve been a longtime outspoken advocate of technical data in reviews. Things like Brix, malic and lactic acid at picking, TA, ABV, RS, some other phenolic ripeness indicators, potassium, TDS, picking dates, wood regimens, etc.
We should pressure paid critics to institute a rule. Published scores are hard-capped at 94 unless the winemaker provides the technical data for publication. AFAIK you can’t chaptalize, acidify, deacidify or water-back a wine without it becoming obvious through the chem numbers. Of course, that doesn’t mean a critic must ding a wine for doing one of those. But the critic should state it was done, even if for good reason.
A system like that would cover the critic’s back and would help consumers decide beyond the language of the critic or the score.
Of course I could just be confirming my priors.
Mel’s post should not be ignored: '82 Bordeaux marked the beginning of the producer/Parker/retailer/symbiosis and the marketing and sale of points. To say that Parker merely reflected American tastes is naive. The American wine buying public purchased Parker points, often blindly, sold by retailers. Producers had a much easier and more profitable time selling wines with big Parker points to importers/wholesalers/retailers. His acolytes (Jeb!, LPB, Jeff, et al) still puff those types/styles of wines, but without Parker’s ability to move markets.
I don’t think anyone is saying Parker didn’t play a big role in the growth and sales of wines that were in his generally preferred styles. Of course he did.
I think the distinction some of us had made is that (A) Parker was successful because his ratings proved to correlate well with what a lot of the wine drinking public turned out to like, as opposed to (B) Parker caused people to like those styles because he rated them highly. Had Parker given high scores to thin, vegetal, funky wines, that style wouldn’t have become popular – instead, Parker would never have had any success and nobody would have heard of him.
To use extreme examples, tons of people love Prisoner, Caymus, Belle Glos, Butter-whatever chardonnay, etc., and those aren’t even making their sales mostly off of Parker or other critic scores at this point. They’re just what a lot of wine drinkers like. Parker was sort of a bridge between the wine industry and the actual taste preference of most wine drinkers.
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A wine critic’s job is to review the wine, not to reverse engineer it.
The assumption is that Parker was almost perfectly aligned with the American palate. I think that’s neither true nor possibly to prove - Parker could have kept the palate from his younger years and continued to score bigger vintages well without going overboard with super ripe vintages. The movement towards bigger and riper wines didn’t occur independently of him.
The “thin, vegetal, funky wines” comment is also framing this debate from Parker’s perspective. Even self-described AFWE drinkers don’t want wines that have those characteristics. It’s really hard to know how Parker really aligned with wine drinkers because most wine drinkers simply don’t think that much about wine! We do, but the average person isn’t engaged on that level. So when they see that a wine is 97 points, they are both more primed to buy it and to enjoy it, because high scoring wines (just like labels) induce confirmation bias. Yes, the average person often likes some sugar in their wine, but judging from my experiences, the average person will also quite happily drink Mugneret-Gibourg.
If Parker had scored the 2003 and 2007 super high alcohol CdPs at 91 rather than 99 would he really have not been reflecting the will of the masses? I really don’t think there’s any definitive way of arguing either way. I also think it’s a slightly odd argument, because certain producers in Burgundy began using special (super toasted) barrels for American export to get higher Parker scores. Does that mean American palates in general are radically different from French palates? I’m pretty suspicious of that argument. Just like I remain dubious that 03 CdP is a wine average Americans pair with sushi.