The Wine Trade: Time to Move On

Two major questions were recently raised and then ignored by the wine press and the wine trade. They are: who will be the next Robert Parker, and/or is “Parkerism” dead?

With Parker’s expanded team and Anthony Galloni and James Suckling all prancing around the wine world, awarding high scores and auditioning for the role of Parker Redux, It is time to examine these two issues presented in the December 16, 2016 issue of The Financial Times.

The author begins with this observation:

“Everyone in the trade is crying out for the next [Parker],” says Ella Lister, head of online ratings site Wine Lister.

Seriously? This is from the British Financial Times? If there is one takeaway from my many years of contributing to Decanter Magazine and working with the British staff, it is this: for over 30 years the Brits could not conceal their resentment, even hatred of Robert Parker for his influence. They constantly criticized the 100 point rating system.

Clearly, they disliked both the person and his methodology.

Decanter eventually caved, wrote something pleasant about Parker during an interview, and not long after that went with the 100 point system.

Now that he has backed way off, do the Brits honestly want some new guru to replace the tired, worn out one who at the top of his game was super-powerful?

Or is this all about the money?  It is true that every time Parker gave a hefty score to a Bordeaux or an unreleased California Cabernet, the one sure thing to happen was a price increase.

That was good for the wine trade. They thrived whenever Parker raved about a new vintage or gave high scores to individual chateaux. And they exploited his reviews to the max.

But his dominance was such that the British wine press which once was “the” source of information and opinions of Bordeaux was greatly diminished in impact, influence, and stature.

Parker usurped their role in the Bordeaux world. And was king in California circles. But the 2nd fiddle role in Bordeaux really hurt.

But to go back to the FT article, the author later adds, “Parkerism is not dead yet.”

Now I’m fascinated by the word “yet.” What really lies behind this article and the issues raised? Well, at the end, there’s a suggestion that the top candidate to replace Parker is Neal Martin, part of the new team assembled for Parker’s Wine Advocate.

Who, not surprisingly, is from Essex. Oh, what a coincidence, he is British?

And as we begin 2017, it now seems certain that Martin has been chosen as the Parker surrogate for Bordeaux.

Leaving the Brits to deal with their own issues and wounded pride, the question still remains: is Parkerism alive?

My answer: barely, and better off if we let it die a natural death.

My reasons may surprise you because writers like me are usually accused of being envious of Parker and dismissive of Parkerism whenever we dared offer something even remotely negative. And that normally ends the conversation.

But not here. The fundamental problem with Parkerism is not that the critic wielded too much power but that his influence created a uniformity of wine style. Primarily red wine, and mainly those from the Bordeaux varieties. But that style, which some refer to as the "modern style," expanded to include red wines from the Rhone and from warm parts of Spain.

Any analysis of Parker’s vocabulary defines that style:

Pure, dense, lush, seductive, and lush and heady

Well-endowed, gobs and gobs of fruit

Concentrated, ripe, forward, packed, penetrating, stunning

Compelling (lawyer bs), hedonistic

Given these Parker parameters, any good winemaker could come up with a wine to be rated 90+ by Parker. At least in the lab or on a small scale.

On a large, commercial scale any effort becomes expensive. Often, the formula calls for a high percentage of new oak and low yields in the vineyards to concentrate the fruit into an ultra-ripe condition. That means cutting off clusters early in the season and taking some risks later to aim for super ripe, balanced grapes.

Winemakers around the world were asked to make a Parker wine and evidently many did. Sadly, sometimes the career of a winemaker was impacted by less than desirable Parker scores.

Jess Jackson paid top dollar for many hillside or mountain vineyards in the quest to make Parker 90+wines. So among the 50 or more brands now part of Jackson Family, the majority offer a Parkerized Cabernet, Merlot, or both.

To return from this digression to today’s consumer, Parkerism elevated prices to the absurd levels we now see and it also diminished the stylistic choices that once made wine so varied.

One could also argue that Parkerism made selling wines too easy for the wine trade. Selling techniques were reduced to providing his scores and often lengthy and self-indulgent notes.

Meanwhile, by 2017, the wine world has changed dramatically:

Millennials are the prime consumer now representing 42% of total wine sales.

Their emphasis on social media for information is diametrically opposed to following one person’s opinions.

Direct to consumer sales are going crazy as traditional wine outlets fade away.

Hedonism, Parker’s rallying word, is too self-indulgent, especially for those still living with their parents.

Parker’s success was, to borrow from Thomas Carlyle’s study on heroes, “a coincidence of the man and the moment.”  

The man now wants to back away and live the life of a hedonist.

And the moment has totally changed.