Criticizing the Wine Critics
Famous critics wield enormous power in the wine industry. Luminaries like Robert Parker can literally make or break a wine based on their professional opinion.
Parker burst onto the international wine scene when he strongly advocated purchasing Bordeaux from the 1982 vintage. More traditional critics dismissed this year as too fruit forward, but apparently that was exactly what the New World wine consumer was looking for. 1982 Bordeaux remains one of the most expensive years from that era.
He certainly struck a chord with wine drinkers who were baffled by discussions of terroir and “pencil shaving” flavors. Instead, they wanted wines that had overt fruit flavors, and Parker pointed these out by rating them highly on his 100 point scale.
> But in the process, the notion of finesse in the New World was pretty much thrown out the window by most producers. Suddenly everyone was trying to please the Parker palate.
The 100 point scale has always baffled me. Of course scores are correlated with quality, but I have no idea what each point represents and, put bluntly, it seems like an objective façade. But it certainly moves product, and consumers will quickly turn their nose up at a wine that scored a few less “points” than another. It seems like a placebo effect run amok.
I find it strange that average palates take their advice from rare, exceptional ones regarding minute details that they can’t perceive. Wine cannot be explained by one person; it is the give and take, and interaction with others that I have always found most helpful. Thankfully, the status quo is slowly changing, largely because of the blogosphere and community based wine websites.
This can be attributed to the development of wide scale user interaction. The casual consumer can now see what other wine lovers, just like themselves, think about a wine. Although this phenomenon has not reached the main stream, it is slowly building momentum. And as it does, the public is going to be less interested in a single person’s opinion, and more concerned with everyone’s.
Comments & Reviews
November 16, 2006 | Joe Birtchings
You make good points, but i find it helpful to have a numerical score to judge a wine's quality on. With all of the wines out there, it is difficult for me to pick good ones.
November 16, 2006 | Ben Bicais
Joeb, you are right that it was very difficult to pick winners out of the thousands of wines made each year... hence the rise of Parker. But that is changing as we speak. With the advent of social networking websites and interactive blogs, the tools are beginning to fall into place that allow people to pick good wines based on the consensus of others with similar tastes, and not based on one person's opinion in a magazine.
December 13, 2006 | JJ Yarlott
I think Mr. Bicais is right.
December 13, 2006 | Jessica Diamond
Both have a point though, point scales are always convenient for people who dont know that much about wine.
January 6, 2007 | stephan schindler
It would probably be more accurate and fair to rate wines with just one to three stars (like many publications do) and have separate categories for varietals and/or wine regions, but when you go down this route you quickly end up diluting the main value of a guide which is to make complex decisions simple.
That's like the map on a scale of 1:1,- accurate but not very handy.
I think the success of Robert Parker is (partly) due to the fact that you can pick up his book and make a decision quickly and with some confidence.
If you don't share Parker's taste, then obviously his recommendations are not for you.
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