Yes, and yes again. Europe’s wine consumption has declined over Parker’s tenure, so one can’t claim he had much impact there. And in the USA, did Parker’s rise coincide with the rise in wine appreciation or cause the rise? I strongly believe the former.
I agree with Bill K that if Parker wasn’t around some of the popular wineries might be different, but there would still be quality wine, and it would be growing more popular over our lifetimes in the US.
Whether he single-handedly cleaned up the wine world from their old dirty, bretty habits with his scores is also doubtful. Burgundy has largely ignored him, yet their wines have gotten cleaner over time. I am sure the same is true of other regions as well.
Yeah, the prices and maybe style of a few wineries, I suspect he affected that. But our overall wine world? Not so much. If he wasn’t around, there would still be plenty of amazing wines available to wine geeks today.
Yes, as he was just part of a larger phenomenon that happened around food culture, alcoholic beverages, etc. Others would have filled the same role IMO. Winemaking already had CA well in its grip and was moving forward and capturing interest. Quality would have improved without Parker, although I’m sure he contributed to the pace. Mostly, however, he contributed to the culture of winemakers creating wines designed for his palate, and pronouncing alignment with his palate as synonymous with quality.
No, Andy, 'tis you. Your perspective is skewed. I made the point above, incontrovertible due to Parker’s continuous assertion that he reviews only the “cream” of the world’s best wines (in his view), that wines carrying an enticing Parker rating constitute a tiny drop in a huge (spit) bucket of global wine sales. How many times does he need to tell you, for example, that most CA wine is plonk and he only tastes at the tip of the iceberg? How many cases of Yellow Tail have moved around the world without benefit of his wisdom? In your area of interest, how many bottles of vintage port do you suppose Parker has moved in his LIFETIME? Not as many as Suckling moved in a single vintage when he was at the WS. Roy Hersh has moved more. Perspective is important here, and one of the problems with the Parker phenomenon has always been giving him credit for things that he does not influence at all. Greg T’s example of phones ringing off the hook at the next 100-point Peter Michael Pinot is one thing. Parker slinging a dozen 100s at high-end Bordeaux has impact, but him slinging a dozen 100s at northern Rhone wines has little or no impact, unless the price is $40. This requires thought that few on either side of the Parker influence issue are willing to give it…
Wow, as much as I love Rock music, Sinatra was the greatest popular singer of my lifetime. I did not like him as a person, and late in life, he did become a kind of self-parody, but as a popular interpreter of songs, he was unmatched. Then again, I can no more explain why his singing moves me than I could explain why Giacosa’s wines move me. My point is not to argue, but just to point out how people can easily agree or disagree on matters of taste.
Of course we’re only talking of the top percentage of the huge wine production world. And we’re not talking about our very small community of on-line wine nerds who pay attention to small region specific reviewers/publications. The majority of the wine buying world who are interested in getting upper end wines are paying attention to two main publications. WA and WS. Those two alone can cause wines to sell, from any region, that would normally not move anywhere near as well if it didn’t receive a good score from them.
Lets look at the Port world since you mentioned it. RP (and the WA) has moved as much Port as WS (Suckling) has or did when Suckling was there. Since Suckling left WS his Port reviews haven’t had anywhere near the same impact on sales as when he was there. Yet the recent WS Port reviews, done by someone else now, has helped move a significant amount of Port. I wish I could say Roy Hersh (FTLOP) has moved more Port than WA and WS has. But I assure you that is not the case. The two publications which have the biggest effect on sales of upper end Port are WS and WA. That is fact as I’ve been told directly by a number of producers there. So I know what I speak of in this regard.
I don’t see the basis for comparison between Sinatra and Parker. Sinatra was a singer and an interpreter of the so-called American Songbook. Whether you like him or not, people continue to play his music, and I expect you will continue to hear Sinatra’s songs being played 50 years from now. Parker, by contrast, is a critic–he reviews things made by other people–and then he moves on to the next wine vintage to review. Does anyone think people will be quoting Parker (in a widespread fashion) 50 years from now (other than, perhaps, in auction catalogues)? I doubt it.
Sinatra, of course, was more than a singer–he was a celebrity whose moves, romances, and marriages were followed by the media and the populace. Parker, by contrast, is a writer who mostly lives outside of the public eye. You could put Robert Parker in a grocery store in Middle America and the vast majority of shoppers would have no idea who he was.
Bruce, here is the original Vanity Fair article. I was never comparing them, just the influence they had on those around them whom relied on them for a livelihood. Sinatra and his bands, managers and club owners and Parker and his followers, retailers, winerey owners etc.
And my point is that it’s comparing apples and oranges. Parker is a big fish in a small pond. Sinatra was a HUGE fish in a much larger body of water.
I think one can comment on Parker’s influence (or not) on the wine world without what I consider a rather belabored comparison to the influence of someone like Sinatra. As always, my personal opinion.
Or what happened to Pontet Canet pricing after Parker started giving it 100s - ruined the QPR of what was my go to purchase every year. Pontet Canet wasn’t exactly “high-end Bordeaux” before that, even if it was delicious.
I’d like to buy some 05 Guigal La Turque (100 WA, IIRC) at the price of its sibling 04, 06, 07; or some 09 Chapoutier Le Pavillon (100) at the price of 07,08,10. Those are closer to being $400 wines than they are to being $40 wines.
There are more examples all over the place, as in Saxum, Cayuse, Ramirez Ganuza.
Parker moves wine.
Andy is completely correct that Parker and Spectator move much more wine than the other publications, at least here in the U.S… One might find some micro-category where that is not true, as in village burgundy. But from $15-$1500, Parker moves wine. Andy is also correct in saying that the producers, again aside from some small producer, know that Parker moves wine and despite distribution have plenty of means to know why their wine is being moved. Especially the larger producers like Chapoutier, Dom, Mouton, Mondsavi, or Beringer. Even a small producer like Saxum, were they to have no feedback once their wine leaves the cellar (which does not happen) can correlate sales figures to reviews on something like the 07 James Berry.
Don’t forget Stony Hill, Ridge, Long, Mayacamas, Chalone, Heitz and Diamond Creek all relied on the mailing list model in the 70s or early 80s for their most sought-after wines, before Parker had a big impact on the market.
You are still talking at cross-purposes with me. The idea here was measuring Parker’s impact, period, and you agree that only a small segment of total wine sales even involve wine reviewers. Nobody questions that WA and WS are the two most prominent wine publications, but their audiences are tiny, and in the case of WA, shrinking because of Parker’s hijinks. If you count those who subscribe to both only once, and cut out the doctor’s office and ITB subscriptions, you might have 100,000 total subscribers on earth. Anecdotal evidence of what producers tell you does not change that reality. If Parker is given credit for moving every bottle of SQN ever made, it means nothing to the larger world of wine. It is only a small number of people chasing an even smaller number of bottles of wine. That is why Bordeaux, with 10,000-case producers, means something, but moving 500-case cult Cabs does not. WA has never really provided timely, consistent port coverage, Andy. Parker was never crazy about it, and it is yet another WA orphan…
Yes, but how many people knew of those mailing lists? The phenomenon did not take off, nor were there lengthy wait lists, until Parker began publishing addresses and phone and fax numbers, and encouraging people to sign up…
Serious wine people certainly know about those producers’ lists.
It’s hard to separate Parker’s impact from the fact that the wine-drinking population expanded so there were more potential targets for all marketing strategies. You’re probably right that big scores were necessary to sustain the mailing list sale of wines that no one was going to be able to taste before buying. It’s faith-based purchasing.
First, who the audiences actually are isn’t so much the point - it’s that people who don’t subscribe to WA or WS still look at the ratings as a guidepost. I’ve had multiple people bring me wines (some of which were great, some were not) because it got x points. Those points aren’t always from Parker, but more often than not, they are. So the actual subscription levels are less relevant - the prominence of reviewers like Parker has given justification for retailers and distributors to price off of points scores. Parker has to have some standing for that to be effective and credible, and he clearly does. Arguably Parker’s biggest “achievement” has been to legitimize tasting scores as a populist basis on which to purchase wine, whether or not you’re a subscriber to WA or have even heard of Parker.
Second, stating that this effect extends to “a small segment of wine sales” is eliding the issue, because the majority of wine sales are to people who don’t buy wine for more than $50 a bottle. Obviously they don’t care, but that’s also not really the segment of the market that’s generally being discussed here. It’s Parker’s influence on the high end market that’s relevant, not that the college kids buying Franzia or the grad school kids buying Yellowtail don’t know who he is. For wines that I buy, for example, Parker matters, as evidence by the price of Pontet Canet vintages he rates highly.
Third, whether WA has provided port coverage isn’t actually relevant - it’s the fact that they have some coverage at all. A consumer who wants to buy some port needs some guide to consider, and a Parker score is as good, if not better, than anything else he has. YOU know Parker’s port coverage is weak, but how exactly is a random consumer going to know that? He walks into a store, sees that x bottle of Taylor has a 95 from Parker - that’s as good of a reason to buy that bottle as anything else. Especially if that bottle is being bought online or from a large store whose employees don’t know much about port themselves.
I’m not a huge fan of Parker’s palate or influence (though he was a factor when I first started learning about wine), but I think you’re significantly minimizing his impact.
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