1Wine Dude interviews Parker

[Fred_Daniels]

The internet is a two edged sword. Before, it was easy to have a copyrighted newsletter and have a monopoly on wine criticism and rake in the residuals. Now with the internet, everyone has an opinion, and sometimes they even quote your proprietary scores! (gasp)

Really, I value all the information, but that is all it is…raw data. You have to do some analysis to pick out the crap and find the chestnuts. That is to say, there are bits of truth and wisdom scattered throughout.

Case in point…I read a blog from this guy in Scandinavia who loves sauternes. He was tasting with the Comte de Lur Saluces who volunteered that there was a mistake in harvesting the 83 de Fargues while it was underripe, hence the wine was a bit short and not up to par for the vintage. I have never heard that before, and rarely hear about “mistakes” that result in less than stellar wine. It’s always rosy. Now it is interesting to go back and see which reviewers rate the 83 Fargues an “89” saying it is somewhat “short or shallow”, versus those that say it is a pinnacle of the vintage at “96” and tastes just like Yquem.

Bravo to the comte and to the blogger for posting a tidbit of info that helps us understand the wine. But I doubt we would have ever seen that “in print” in the old days.

PS: Thanks to the internet, I get access to plenty of wine criticism and don’t have to pay $100 a year for it (or whatever crazy amount eRP charges). Bravo, bezerkers!

[Rick_Gregory]

@DCowell

Thousands of valuable opinions? Weren’t there about 150 people who did most of the talking on eBob (now down to 50 or so)?

I was banned years ago, but there were over 10,000 signed up members in 06.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

Boooor-ring! Old news … shit, this is so old it’s not even “news.” Parker is an asshole … WE GET IT!!!

[DCowell]

@Rick Gregory

@DCowell

Thousands of valuable opinions? Weren’t there about 150 people who did most of the talking on eBob (now down to 50 or so)?

I was banned years ago, but there were over 10,000 signed up members in 06.

Signed up members do not equal active posters. Registrations are not opinions.

[Paul_Jaouen]

@Marty Glembotzky

“we also eliminated all the jerks and troublemakers who didn’t care about wine, but simply wanted to divide people’s tastes into convenient black and white boxes.”

Looks to me like he missed the biggest one.

[Dieter_Muller]

Hey, that’s great, man! Applied logics requires that subscribers can’t be jerks and/or troublemakers because all of them were eliminated by Bob’s phantastic action.
So this also becomes kinda religious aspect: if you feel wine-dirty or wine-guilty, just subscribe and your soul is saved (right after first payment, I guess). But what about the liver???

Those subs who place their contributions here and there are candidates for the purgatory??

Holy Bacchus please help!

[Cole_Kendall]

@Fred Daniels

Case in point…I read a blog from this guy in Scandinavia who loves sauternes. He was tasting with the Comte de Lur Saluces who volunteered that there was a mistake in harvesting the 83 de Fargues while it was underripe, hence the wine was a bit short and not up to par for the vintage. I have never heard that before, and rarely hear about “mistakes” that result in less than stellar wine. It’s always rosy. Now it is interesting to go back and see which reviewers rate the 83 Fargues an “89” saying it is somewhat “short or shallow”, versus those that say it is a pinnacle of the vintage at “96” and tastes just like Yquem.

Bravo to the comte and to the blogger for posting a tidbit of info that helps us understand the wine. But I doubt we would have ever seen that “in print” in the old days.

I am not a comte but a mere paysan who has had the good fortune to try the 1983 de Fargues over a dozen times. If you have some you would like to get rid of I would be happy to take it off your hands; while I have only had 83 Yquem once (and tried a number of 83s from other producers) the de Fargues is a great wine.

[GregT]

Lyle - you didn’t need to provide the translation or any commentary. The comments themselves were fascinating reading. In truth, reading the entire interview creates a different impression. But buried within very reasonable comments were these almost outlandish claims.

For example:“Now that you brought it up, I suppose there is an element of trying to exploit that event for his personal gain, but it didn’t bother me.”

Um, let’s see . . . having a garnacha tasting in Rioja? Where none of the wines have anything to do w Rioja? That was paid for largely by the local wine trade? And at the last minute adding a few local wines? If anything, Gary was exploiting someone who was exploiting, no?

I don’t think RP is a bad guy. I just think that nobody can be an authority on all wine everywhere and he has a hard time with people who notice that. Jancis isn’t, Johnson isn’t, Tanzer isn’t, and Parker isn’t. It’s OK.

Thanks for posting the link tho - I’d never have looked at it otherwise.

[Paul_Seah]

@Todd F r e n c h

@Victor Hong

@Robert M. Parker

… The general Wine Talk forum was a success, but there were non-subscribers who, rather than discussing wine, seemed to primarily be interested in polarizing the views of participants. We have been very happy with our move. Our e-mails ran seven to one in favor of making it subscriber only. The subscribers seemed to appreciate it, even though we lost some very good non-subscriber content, we also eliminated all the jerks and troublemakers who didn’t care about wine, but simply wanted to divide people’s tastes into convenient black and white boxes…

Dumb-founding.

Talk about spin. Sheesh.

Well, our numbers ran about 500 to zero stating it was ridiculous. Either way, I don’t care how he spins it, because it made this community larger and more dynamic! (Even WITH all these crazy Burgophiles!)

Hey! Who are you calling crazy?! I resent that!

That’s just the “jerk and troublemaker” type of content that needs to be “eliminated”

[B_Stucker]

@Lyle Fass

I was lined up for the interview but he didn’t like my questions . . .

Maybe he was just too busy working. After all, nobody in the industry workds as hard as he does.

The one thing that separates me from just about everybody else in the wine world is hard work. Yes, I have plenty of talent, but so do many of my colleagues. However, no one has ever worked as hard or as comprehensively as I have.

What an arrogant SOB.

[Victor_Hong]

@B Stucker

…

The one thing that separates me from just about everybody else in the wine world is hard work. Yes, I have plenty of talent, but so do many of my colleagues. However, no one has ever worked as hard or as comprehensively as I have.

What an arrogant SOB.

Surely, even his ur!ne has an ethereal bouquet.

[Jonathan_Loesberg]

The interview strikes me as having the standard Parker stuff in it, except that he’s on fairly good behavior for him. Much better behavior than the silly nitpicking going on here. If a non-wine geek read that interview and then read the responses here, who would he or she think had an axe to grind? I know that this board has the reputation of having started as a result of good posters over there who were banned (I came late). But really, get over it. It’s so last Tuesday. If you think Parker shouldn’t matter, don’t pay attention to him.

[Victor_Hong]

@Jonathan Loesberg

The interview strikes me as having the standard Parker stuff in it, except that he’s on fairly good behavior for him. Much better behavior than the silly nitpicking going on here. If a non-wine geek read that interview and then read the responses here, who would he or she think had an axe to grind? I know that this board has the reputation of having started as a result of good posters over there who were banned (I came late). But really, get over it. It’s so last Tuesday. If you think Parker shouldn’t matter, don’t pay attention to him.

But my Negam-Aki Mortgage Default-Correlation Debacle Thread is stranded there…

[Evan_Dawson]

Like Lyle, I know and respect Joe, but like Lyle, I found the questions soft and oddly pockmarked with false equivalence.

For example, Joe wrote this about Tyler: “Last year, Tyler Colman made inquiries into policies at The Wine Advocate, which some viewed as investigative journalism while others considered it a grandstanding move, as much about polishing his own star as it was about investigating TWA”

That’s wholly unfair to Tyler, as it limply implies that readers were 50/50 on whether it was even appropriate for Tyler to do what he did. When I asked Joe about it, he replied, " I think in the eRP forums (unfortunately not free access now) you can find those who viewed Tyler’s article as grandstanding (that isn’t my view - I’m just trying to reflect both sides of the argument here)."

Ugh. I don’t know how Tyler feels about that, but I’d be pretty unhappy with the phrasing. And of course the eRP forums backed Bob over Tyler.

The last question was pander-city; no one, and I mean no one, can possibly consider Bob to still be at some sort of peak. More than anything it’s a sad decline riddled with naked-Emperor revelations.

But I am glad that Joe was able to convince Bob to respond. It is clarifying to know who the first blobber was.

Joe knows his wine and his star has risen with this one.

[Carl_Steefel]

@Lewis Dawson

@Lyle Fass

I suppose this is a big event for those who are obsessed with Parker. For the rest of us, not much of a deal at all. I continue to be puzzled by the degree of Parker obsession some folks have.

For some of us this is not really a Parker obsession. I actually paid almost no attention to what Parker said or did not say there (also considering he was rarely there). It was about the continuing theme of censorship (of which the Subscriber Only is a new tack that had nothing to do with raising revenue, as some people had erroneously suggested) and the definition of what a “conscientious” versus “disruptive” poster is, as summarized nicely by Lyle Fass.

Parker does not mention how many of his subscribers left the Board when they went Subscriber Only…

[ToddFrench]

To those who express disappointment at the ‘soft’ nature of the questions, keep in mind that it is not uncommon for someone who rarely is interviewed to help design the questions, and pre-approve them. The interviewer’s hands may have been tied.

Jonathan Loesberg makes a poignant statement, actually. If a non-geek read the interview then saw these comments, I think we are nearly all victim to showing our nit-picky selves more so than Parker did in his interview, and it would likely paint us in a negative light. Among our fellow geeks, we can understand the history and reasoning behind the poking and prodding, but to those who have no history with him, or the Squires forum, it probably just makes us look like assholes.

[Carl_Steefel]

@Jonathan Loesberg

The interview strikes me as having the standard Parker stuff in it, except that he’s on fairly good behavior for him. Much better behavior than the silly nitpicking going on here. If a non-wine geek read that interview and then read the responses here, who would he or she think had an axe to grind? I know that this board has the reputation of having started as a result of good posters over there who were banned (I came late). But really, get over it. It’s so last Tuesday. If you think Parker shouldn’t matter, don’t pay attention to him.

Well, one would expect a non-wine geek to reach this conclusion if they are hearing Parker’s side of the story…

Again, Parker is involved in that whole brouhaha only insofar as the decision was made to uphold the “Parker brand” over free discourse. Otherwise, the whole issue had to do with the handling of divergent points of view. Any time a previously free forum, whether it be a newspaper or a parliamentary body or a Wine Forum, makes a move to restricting divergent points of view, there is cause for concern…

Anyway, I will make sure I send Parker and eRobertParker.com a note telling him that I at least was not in favor of the move, nor were at least two other participants who signed off on the same day I did…

[Evan_Dawson]

@Todd F r e n c h

To those who express disappointment at the ‘soft’ nature of the questions, keep in mind that it is not uncommon for someone who rarely is interviewed to help design the questions, and pre-approve them. The interviewer’s hands may have been tied.

Jonathan Loesberg makes a poignant statement, actually. If a non-geek read the interview then saw these comments, I think we are nearly all victim to showing our nit-picky selves more so than Parker did in his interview, and it would likely paint us in a negative light. Among our fellow geeks, we can understand the history and reasoning behind the poking and prodding, but to those who have no history with him, or the Squires forum, it probably just makes us look like assholes.

Some commenters look like assholes, sure. But most people on this board should not have to apologize for 1) understanding the context in fine detail, and 2) expressing opinions about that. The notion that this is just the same old, same old Parker bashing is silly. There are serious issues with RP, his wine world impact, and his practices. This is a new interview. For these commenters to ignore what they know would be idiotic.

[Hank_Gillespie]

Love him or not, Robert Parker commands an audience wherever he appears, in person or in print - and that audience extends even to this thread.

Thanks to Lyle Fass for including the link displaying Joe Roberts’ interview with Robert Parker. I read the entire series of questions and answers and came away with a somewhat different perspective than that being dwelled upon on this thread. I thought that overall Joe Roberts’ interview was fair, and not limited to the excerpts focused on in this thread. While it’s true that some of the questions may have been set in part by the interviewee, he should be given some consideration there.

Yes, Robert Parker may have a few warts, but everyone I know, or come in contact with, has that affliction in common. Without the influence of Robert Parker and The Wine Advocate, I wonder how many participating on this BB or any other would have become as aware of the World of Wines, or as discerning regarding their own personal tastes and appreciation for wine. To be sure there are some, but the largest segment probably owes something to Parker for moving that interest along.

I believe that Robert Parker, for all his integrity and influence, has not benefited from a strong business model, and instead has reacted to situations rather than a solid plan. How much of that results from errors in judgment regarding those around him, I can’t say. Certainly the Parker Wine Bulletin Board suffered from an oppressive hand which caused many good voices to depart. It can be difficult to make decisions which might involve one’s friends, and Parker may have delayed, or not made any decisions at all, in some obvious situations. “Spinning” goes on all the time in politics and business, so it’s hardly surprising that Robert Parker wants to present himself in the best possible fashion.

Anyway, I’m rambling a bit here, but I felt that little credit was being given to Parker in the posts that were focused on criticism.

Hank

[Cole_Kendall]

@Jonathan Loesberg

The interview strikes me as having the standard Parker stuff in it, except that he’s on fairly good behavior for him. Much better behavior than the silly nitpicking going on here. If a non-wine geek read that interview and then read the responses here, who would he or she think had an axe to grind? I know that this board has the reputation of having started as a result of good posters over there who were banned (I came late). But really, get over it. It’s so last Tuesday. If you think Parker shouldn’t matter, don’t pay attention to him.

Why is the opinion of a nongeek (presumably someone with no knowledge about the issues) relevant? If a nongeek listened to a polite interview with some madman who could feign sanity for a q and a with a helpful journalist for a half hour and then read a critique, would we care that the nongeek thought the criticism was invalid? This seems like an awfully low standard.