Steinberger on Parker on wine fraud

Fake Wine Follies by Mike Steinberger.

I was going to comment here after I read Parker’s “Breaking the Code” piece in the latest WA, which struck me as highly (if unintentionally) ironic in a number of respects.

First, Parker flags the wines in the Edgerton tasting as suspect in part because of a possible connection to Rodenstock – but then goes on to assesses their authenticity in several cases by comparing them to his recollection of the wines served at the 1995 Rodenstock tasting. At the end of the piece he concedes significant doubt as to whether the wines served by Rodenstock in 1995 were genuine (although he “suspect they were”). How can he then make them touchstones for the legitimacy of the Edgerton bottles?

Second, Parker makes it sound remarkable that, as he puts it, William Edgerton can “detect fraud just by inspecting labels and capsules.” It takes a certain kind of ego to suggest – indeed, as a premise so obvious it is unnecessary to state – that one’s own palate is a more reliable indicator of the authenticity of a 50-90 year old wine than actual physical evidence of tampering. By the same token, there is a self-congratulatory air to the writeups in which he pans wine after wine as undrinkable (or nearly so – median score of 73 points) after having been presented with physical evidence suggesting fraud. One has to wonder, as Steinberger does, whether Parker would have had the same reaction if those wines had been presented under different circumstances.

Third, Parker pats himself on the back as “the first to bring this insidious problem to the attention of wine consumers” without the slightest hint that he might have contributed to the problem when he gave his imprimatur to the Rodenstock wines in 1995. He digs the metaphorical hole a bit deeper when he wraps up the piece by saying that the tasting “clearly proved [his] suspicions from nearly sixteen years ago” about the prevalence of fraudulent bottles: If he was so suspicious at the time of the 1995 tasting, why did he keep his suspicions under wraps for several years while simultaneously lionizing the Rodenstock wines in print?

All in all, a puzzling contribution to the ongoing saga of allegedly fraudulent wines.

– Matt

(edited to fix url)

I wonder what it would be like living your entire professional life in the shadow of, and jealous of, another person.“Welcome to my 287th in a series of why you should lose respect for Robert Parker.” Sorta sad.

Um… what?

Super lame post. Steinberger is a journalist and he should absolutely call out important industry figures when they deserve it. The points he raises are good ones.

OK. Whatever you say Berry. I don’t give a fuck about either one of them but this guy seems to spend a disproportionate amount of time writing “Hey! Hey! Did you see what Parker is doing now?!?!?!” articles.

But I am sure you are right.

So, Neal, when Parker HIMSELF, writes an article about wine fraud, are you really saying those claims shouldn’t be examined critically? That we should just accept whatever RP says and that if logical or other inconsistencies are apparent we shouldn’t write or talk about them? Really?

Given that Parker is the single most powerful (not to mention one of the most interesting) person in the wine industry I don’t think its disproportionate at all.

I know that your rude comment was unfair to Steinberger. I usually avoid these types of online interactions because the insuing fights are typically lose/lose situations but I thought your take on it was pretty mean spirited.

…and so did I.
What’s the animus,Neal?It’s just a respected wine writer doing some research,and reporting a story.
No mean,spiteful,demeaning and jealous overtones to be seen there…except from you.
What’s the big deal?
Are we missing something written in code?

Amazing. Parker and his crew are repeatedly called frauds and worse here by the Amen Chorus and they are encouraged. I question the relentless, repetitive, personal criticism coming from some “journalist” who has made Parker his personal bete noir and I’m filled with animus.

OK, you win. I’m wrong. I give. Carry on.

The link I posted is just to a blog entry, not an article. The discussion started with Parker’s own piece in this month’s WA reporting on a tasting of allegedly fraudulent wines more or less tenuously linked to Rodenstock and “a Long Island merchant.” Steinberger has done enough actual journalism about fraudulent wines in general and the Rodenstock/Sokolin connection in particular that it did not seem out of place for him to comment, whatever you may think of his views on Parker.

I thought Parker’s piece to be worthy of comment in itself, for the reasons noted above.

– Matt

Oh please. What’s personal in Mike’s article? Parker wrote a freaking article himself. Are you really saying that when the most powerful figure in the wine world makes written claims those claims can’t or shouldn’t be examined?

Neal–If you want to provide a substantive comment on the issues involved–detecting wine fraud, the merits/demerits of RP’s article or Steinberger’s article, etc.–then I think that would be a meritorious contribution to the discussion.

If you don’t really want to contribute to the discussion and instead just want to p*ss on those do, then it’s really not helpful at all…

Bruce

Meinhard Gorke pwned a lot of people, including close personal friends of his, as well as Michael Broadbent, not just Parker. Some con men are very good at what they do. Until you have some experience with these type people it is easy to be fooled.

It seems as though this is the hottest, most controversial topic in the wine world. The thread on eBob is about as friendly as a mobster’s game of Russian Roulette, and while more toned down over here, still causing quarrels.

I found Parker’s piece interesting from a fundamental stand point. I deal with the wine consuming public on a regular basis, and some folks I would describe as serious collectors (maybe not to the standards on a per bottle basis like here, but some BIG $$$, and thankfully, great wines) and they are SHOCKED when I tell them that people make counterfeit wine. It’s a serious topic, but going off on Parker’s approach mutes the message that I think he is trying to convey: Fake wine is out there, be aware of what you are buying. I can’t comment on the methodology (I’ve only got my pallet for once bottles are open, I can’t look at a bottle and tell you if it’s the really think or an amazing fake) of Parker’s article, but do think he brings something very serious to the table.

Fraud, if rampant enough, could eventually have a major impact on the value of wine.

Who is the “Long Island retailer” ?

It might feel like a series, and most of the time I’m with you that I’m simply fed up reading about it (since I feel I know all I need to know about Parker), but in this specific case it doesn’t feel like piling on to me. Parker could well have put this matter to rest, but he instead chose to rewrite history to make himself appear as the white knight who had known all along… I can imagine why some other writers would want to call him out on that.

In short, “if you want to get out of a hole the first thing you do is to stop digging”–maybe Parker should take that to heart.

The most surprising aspect of the thread on Ebob is that it wasn’t locked down immediately!

I am a former Parker fan who has lost a lot of respect for Bob and the WA, because I ended up losing a ton of money buying a bunch of highly scored new world wines that don’t pair at all with food . (And for me wine and food are like earth and water - they need each other to survive).

So, in short, I am not a Bob Parker fan. However, Bob has been talking about counterfeit wine for a very, very long time. There is a section devoted to it in his Buyer’s Guide book.

That being said, Bob has been fooled before and he will again. It shows how dangerous counterfeits are to the market. (and how impressed Bob gets when dining with an uber-collector

It’s a pretty good thread that looks like will be kept around until Parker tells Squires to shut it. The most common take-aways are that most posters on the thread (excepting the predictable amen chorus of ball-washers Lahart, Kegl, Sunesen and other predictable acolytes) believe (1) that Parker is being used again, as he was by Rodenstock, to further someone else’s game and that Parker has participated in order to reiterate that he was right about the Rodenstock wines that he tasted being genuine, without knowing what else is in play, and (2) that Parker’s hubris, his inability to consider that he may have been duped by Rodenstock and used by others (eg the sexy boys), has led him to conduct himself recklessly in an attempt to prove the unprovable: that he is, and always has been, right about the authenticity of legendary wines that he tasted that were provided to him by people who appear to have engaged in massive fake wine fraud (as in, “they may be fraud perpetrators who flooded the auction market with tanker-loads of fake wine, but they only served real wines to me.”)