AFTER PARKER: WINE IN
THE ‘AGE OF RE-DISCOVERY’
By Roger Morris
O
ver the past
few years,
American
s p o r t s
fans have
become obsessed with
the acronym GOAT – the
‘Greatest of All Time’ – and
argue about who that athlete
is for each sport. Among serious and amateur
wine collectors, sommeliers
and beverage managers,
winery owners and wine
sellers, there is no doubt that
the recently retired Robert
Parker Jr. is “The Goat” when
it comes to wine criticism.
His presence could suck the
air out of any cellar.
Basketball? Michael Jordan
was long considered to be
a shoo-in as The Goat, but
lately, it looks like LeBron
James might block his shot
at immortality. Golf is a
tough one – Jack Nicklaus
or Tiger Woods? Tom Brady,
still active, wins hands down
when it comes to The
Goat of American football
quarterbacks. In professional
tennis, three 30-something
guys are still out there on
the court, volleying for the
honour. Wine lovers born after 1985
missed out on the fl ourishing
fi ne wine scene during the
1990s, a time when Parker
was at his most dominant
and when a Parker score
in the high 90s could mean
instant financial success
for a winery. At that time,
French consultant Michel
Rolland was seen as Parker’s
‘whisperer’, the one person
who understood the critic’s
taste and could thus coax
wineries he consulted to
achieve great scores. I recall
Drink Asia
33
the two men, at the height
of their collective infl uence,
deep in conversation as
they hurried off to address
a packed symposium at
Vinexpo Americas in New
Yo r k i n 2 0 0 2 . “A l l t h e
wineries, not only where I
consulted, were looking for
scores,” Rolland wrote to
me recently, agreeing that,
“Maybe a few I worked with
had been more successful at
this time.”
Yet when Parker announced
in May 2019 that he had
written his last review, was
he going out with a bang or
a whimper? It’s a question
worth pondering – in fact, a
question that raises a series of
questions and observations.
Among them:
A generation of prominent
wine critics in America and
March-April 2020
Europe is vanishing. “The
question is not only Parker,
but my generation of critics,
all of whom more or less
agreed on what makes great
wine – extract, alcohol, oak,
etcetera,” says Steve Heimoff,
himself a retired wine critic
at Wine Enthusiast. “These
people are retiring or dying
off. Will they bring their
tastes with them?” Indeed,
future historians of the wine
industry may end up calling
the period between 1980
and 2010 as one representing
‘The Rise & Fall of the Wine
Critic’.
Not only are these wine
oracles fading away, so are
their traditional forums.
“It’s becoming more
difficult for wine journals
to stay afloat, particularly
those with the model of
not selling advertising,” says