William Kelley is the real Star Wine critic. The real differentiating factor is his amazing objectivity and tasting capability in both old and young wines. His slightly geek profile shows his pure objectivity, because he cant do otherwise, not affected by the broader opinion or politics. William is a wine master who truly “masters” the subject in every aspect.
Donald? Is that you?
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I love the title of this thread.
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Apologies in advance of this is a honest attempt to compliment William Kelley (who has earned it) and just got scrambled by autocorrect or something — but the OP comes across as “I can haz Chambolleburgurz”. I say AI-generated text…
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I am assuming we are talking Parker part 1, and not his later, sadder years post 1995. In the early days, I found him extremely useful for Bordeaux, although I learned early not to trust his Burgundy notes.
I think William will prove better than Parker mark 1, as his Burgundy palate is far more refined. But I do worry about the longevity of any critic tasting as many as 100 wines a day.
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Interesting as a passionate winelover from Amsterdam (can AI do that?) I am already “blamed” (cant yet take it as a compliment) to actually be AI. Funny how we start to mix real and fake worlds. But at the same time: is this relevant: I would just take a hard look at Kelley’s tasting notes and judge yourself:)
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Coult not agree more!
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Apologies for that - the original post just kind of came out of the blue and had an odd ring to it. At any rate, I don’t think anyone can have the same influence as Parker did, and I also think that’s a good thing, although it might be a little more confusing to people new to the sport not to have an easy and universal reference point.
I agree w @Mark_Golodetz in that Parker progressively degenerated in the 1990s. Even in his heyday, I would distinguish between his tasting notes — which helped me understand a wine I hadn’t tasted — and his scores, which often made not much sense below the tasting note. And yes, I never took him seriously on Burgundy, not because I knew (or know) anything, but because I found out early the story of his being “banned” from Burgundy after accusing a domaine (think it was Faiveley) of doctoring their wines on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence. Not the best way to make friends - even worse than calling someone an AI chatbot 
.
I don’t see a state of the world with Kelley where some celebrities (I can think of one off the top of my head) declare in public that they refuse to drink “anything that isn’t a Parker 100 pt wine.” This is partly the market and partly Kelley’s “geekiness” factor. To me that’s good - people actually, you know, have to read Kelley to get the value of what he is saying. And to me that value is tremendous; it doesn’t hurt that he writes extremely well.
Anyway, sorry again for confusing you with generated text. Glad you appreciate Kelley, as do I.
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Yes, it was Faiveley, and of course the story goes a lot deeper than that. Parker wrote that a wine that he tasted in bottle did not taste the same as the one he had at the Domaine. I don’t think there was an issue with that. He did add “Hmm!” which implied that it was deliberate. Francois Faiveley took exception and sued. The big problem was of course, the case was going to be tried in France, with different laws, and rules of evidence . For instance, I seem to remember there is a pretty arcane law in France concerning disparaging a product, and Parker did not want to risk a major loss, so settled.
(BTW, cattle farmers in Texas tried to pull the same kind of stunt with Oprah and lost. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/02/27/oprah-winfrey-wins-case-filed-by-cattlemen/dd4612f5-ccbf-4e3d-a1c1-f84d1f4fd23c/).
I have had the same experience of tasting very different wines at the property and then the same wine in the US. It is a reason why critics should taste in bottle a couple of years after their initial notes. Barrel tastings are a minefield anyway, and although primeur tasting is way more transparent than before, I still hear stories where barrel samples are a little or sometimes a lot better than the finished wine. Most wines around 2000 did malolactic in tank, but a few quite openly did it in barrel to “give a clearer idea of the wine’s potential.” Hmm!
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I think I understand what you were trying to say. It also looks like you have not posted here in about three years. In the past three years William Kelley has been highly active and a major contributor to this wine forum. I think opinions of him on this board are generally quite favorable. I actually re-subscribed to the Robert Parker website just because of him. I think I ended my subscription of Parker back around 1999, so it was quite the paradigm shift for me. My palate aligns with his quite well in Bordeaux, Beaujolais (although he can handle the riper years better than me), and Northern Rhone.
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Also, while I have no comment on whether Faiveley did anything untoward with respect to the wines he presented to Parker, those weren’t very good wines either way, and ironically made towards a style Parker liked (enough oak to make them hard to tell apart from St. Estephe blind).
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I agree that he’s the best of the current crop. I’m not in the market for EP, but I like the way he spends so much time in the area, retasting several times before making his mind up. I also like the fact that he tries to reduce score inflation. His writing is much better than most of his peers and he has technical knowledge which sets him apart. Of course, that he actually makes wine himself is another plus point - it isn’t a prerequisite to be a good wine writer, but it must help understand the challenges faced by wineries.
But I also agree with others that he is unlikely to ever have the hegemony of Parker, and it’s just as well.
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He’s okay.
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In 1993(that is the vintage in question as I understand it) Faiveley made wines which I have loved almost more than anything else I’ve ever drunk. Not that I’m claiming the authority of objectivity, of course.
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William is great but, can he overcome the poor technology that is used to present his work online? Especially when compared to the much better Vinous site.
I pay for both but rarely go to the WA. Cellartracker always leads me to Vinous seamlessly. Finding Dr Kelly’s notes are harder but, worth the effort. I also find the WA articles too short, like the ones in Time magazine.
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Lots of untapped regions outside of France that could use a little attention from Mr Kelley to highlight quality and raise prices. Spain and South America come to mind.
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WK is a good and well skilled wine critic. No one is ‘purely objective’ though. It’s not possible even if it were desirable.
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I’m not even sure what “objective” means when we are talking about what is basically art.
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That is a theme of todays times: To find the truth and quality in news is the major challenge these days as marketing budgets of the lesser gods will steamrole the real heroes. Has history ever been different?
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I’ll leave the navel gazing to others. I’m just here (on the www) to get some enjoyment.
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