He alerted me to the SQN mailing list. ![[thankyou.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/d/df165fe9c1593d19166ae7e1ffe5e272089cc07b.gif "thankyou"){kind=small}
he inspired my super cool avatar for all to enjoy 
Excellent topic Berry!
Thanks to the draw of his name (and Squires’ setup) for the previous forum, I have been able to meet so many people that were incredibly open and generous about all things wine. For some reason, I hadn’t seen that level of discussion (on Burgundy oddly enough) prior to that board. I believe that the fact that he is a well known critic really did a lot for people taking that community seriously. Winemakers, shop owners/employees, vineyard owners, etc all came there and shared. Good thing much of us are still here and sharing. Let’s please continue with this important part of wine.
His influence made a lot of great Burgundy easily accessible financially, and I really appreciated this while it lasted.
In the 80s, he showed that the emperor had no clothes at many Bordeaux estates that were just riding on their reputations. As he claimed, he brought a consumer’s perspective because he wasn’t tied to the trade and approached wine with skepticism.
He wrote with passion about areas like the Rhone that had never been taken seriously by the wine press or consumers.
The 100-point scale forced him to state clearly which wines he preferred – in contrast to most critics at the time.
And, if I may be permitted just a trace of sarcasm. . . . Best of all, he never cared for Burgundy, so it fell outside his sphere of influence.
He hired Antonio, David and Neal to both broaden the scope of the WA’s coverage, and, perhaps most importantly, cover areas that he himself was either less interested with or remiss in regularly covering.
Robert Parker did not eat my baby, Gary V did!
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His reviews help put money in my pocket.
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I learned a lot about the Rhone and Bordeaux through his writing.
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As others have mentioned, he hosted a wine community that enabled me to meet a lot of great people, though I do think Mark gets a bit more credit here since he started it.
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He once told me I had a “great palate.”
He is an avid bicyclist who has forgotten much more about wine than I’ll ever know.
I have a pretty damn nice cellar of mature Bordeaux from the '82 through '95 vintages, and virtually every one I bought at the time had the RMP Good Housekeeping seal of approval. Every time I drink an '82 Calon Segur or Gruaud Larose, a '90 Angelus, LLC or La Conseillante, or countless other Bordeaux, I owe my initial foray into those wines to his TNs and chateau write-ups.
His writings like the Bordeaux book are undeniably benchmarks, whether you are looking to learn the standards he set out, or looking to react to them.
I bought a case of 82 Chat. Marguax, in 1986, based upon the wonderful reveiws of the wine and vintage from Parker.
Same goes for some wonderful 1989s and 1990s Bdx.
Harvey S, at the WS, turned me on to the incredible wines of the WV in the early 1990s. I made my first visit and wine buying trip there in 1994. 
Most people then didn’t know wine was made in Oregon then, only lumber and cheese came from there!
These guys have played a powerful role in the advancement of wine enjoyment throughout the years. Only the young and immature can’t grasp it. The baby bloggers can’t really grasp that 10 years ago, blogs and threads were basically non existent! WB is only about 18 months old, but to a twenty something that’s near a lifetime! 
Hey, we’re trying to keep this focused on the good things he’s done! ![[tease.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/c5b32b76bebaa359b0452ae247b61189ffe5fa7e.gif "tease"){kind=small}
Bob really helped me understand the differences – and importance – of tasting wine from around the world. I never would have been comfortable purchasing some of the wines I did without his tasting notes and comments. I have also always admired his refreshing honesty and courage to say what he is really thinking. Last, he supports the Dana Farber who saved my life in my ongoing fight with cancer – so thanks Bob for supporting a truly great institution.
Good job Berry!
whats been said, but a few others:
what matters is whats in the bottle, not whats on the label.
the most important critic is your own pallet
life is to short to drink bad wine
good wine and good friends go hand in hand
don"t be afraid to open any bottle at any time for any reason
I have many many great wines because of him
Where to begin? Giving it some thought I have much praise to offer.
First and foremost, I am deeply grateful for Parker’s fierce approach to the very troublesome issue of how wine is shipped and stored. Bringing awareness about the importance of provenance and the danger of assuming a bottle of wine sitting on a store shelf is in good condition has been, I think, his greatest contribution to the hobby. The whole business of tasting, comparing, arguing about and enjoying wine hinges on the need for the consumer to have a properly handled bottle in the first place. For the education I received reading his books, and for all the times I go into a wine store and feel a chill when crossing the threshold or see a cold room in the back- I am more deeply grateful to Robert Parker than any other wine critic.
I do also credit him for encouraging customers to expand their horizons. Sure, over time I have been sometimes happy and sometimes disappointed with some of the wines and wineries he has drawn attention to- but I never would have traveled down those paths without his guidance.
Going somewhat back to #1 above- in reading his various Wine Buying Guides I have found over time that the most valuable information for me was in the front of the book. When I got started tasting wine in the mid 1990s, I read as many books as I could find. More than once I found information on the “fire and feather method” to open old bottles of Bordeaux- talk about intimidating. It was Parker’s book where I read specifics on decanting a wine and how it can change over several hours, or about the perils of blind tastings and mega-tastings.
Parker was not the inventor of these concepts- but he had the vision and the voice to bring them to the wine buying public in a way we could all understand. That is just as important as the ideas themselves- if not moreso. The trouble with so many existing books when Parker came along was that they were written either for connoisseurs or to dazzle the uninitiated with the mythic tales about a mysterious hobby. They were books for their time given that wine did not enjoy the broad appeal and acceptance as a “cool” luxury indulgence as is the case today- but they were hardly useful for new enthusiasts.
While I will certainly argue over specific wineries, comments or TNs reported in the WA any time, whenever I hear a general bashing of Parker I get annoyed because such broad comments often ignore that Parker’s influence and fame is a product of the timing of his emergence just as much as of his talent and passion for what is in the glass. If, back in 1995, it was China and not the US that experienced a massive wine appreciation renaissance, we would all be sitting around criticizing some guy from China who happened to be writing about wine in a way that could be appreciated by Chinese citizens- just as how Parker achieved it with the 100 point score. For all the criticism of that methodology, it never escapes my attention that all the major US wine critics are using a 100 point score approach.
To take the issue of fame and accusations of market influence etc. out of the equation, and to really know where my feelings lay- I gave some thought this evening to what would Mr. Parker be doing today if fine wine appreciation had not experienced such an enormous boom over the past 15 years and if the internet had never become a household tool.
I think he would still be writing his newsletter, eager as ever, and sharing his views with that small audience of fine wine drinkers that existed 20+ years ago. And believing that, I still respect him enormously.
My brother gifted me one of Parker’s books years ago, from that time I read, subscribed to WA and joined the BB . It’s been an investment of my time to continue to learn ever since, partly because of the passion RP shared and made me want to experience some of that passion of different wines I was not familiar with and otherwise may not have tried. Parker had a way of exerting enthusiasm in his writings like no other and reading his TN would make one salivate to have to have the wine, no one else has had that influence.
Once I joined the BB I started experiencing wines through others eyes & palates, it made me want more, my passion continued to grow and has to this day because of it. The best part was all of the relationships that grew from the BB. I’ve made so many friends that I will always have a soft spot for my start there but I also have to thank them for making it possible for this board. Everything happens for a reason, no matter what, why or how is irrelevant.
My experiences have continued to grow as well as my friends but all of it started because of Robert Parker.
He skewered more than a couple of sacred pigs; forcing them to up their game and care what was in the bottle.
He hosted the Squires Board, which had a huge impact on me in terms of friends I’ve met. The majority of my wine buddies, many of whom I consider to be actual close friends, I might not have met otherwise. Nothing any critic has written, or any mentor has taught me, has had as much of an effect on my wine life as that.
Cheers,
-Robert