Parker on Twitter

If you don’t follow Robert Parker on Twitter, you should. He’s really on a roll today with his “thoughts… about today’s wine market”. My fave so far: “wines ratings and scores still matter as much as ever, but only from a few select sources as the ocean of numbers,etc…has caused a tone deafness from consumers as well as ratings’ fatigue”

He just can’t move on…

Robert M Parker, Jr @RobertMParkerJr

7. the jihadist movements of non-sulphured wines, green, under-ripe wines, low alcohol, insipid stuff promoted by the anti-pleasure police & … neo-anti-alcohol proponents has run its course as another extreme and useless movement few care about

Is he channeling Rush?

Yes, compare a winemaking attitude to violent religious-based “struggle” that results in the death of thousands. Tactful. Parker’s a real piece of work.

Irony alert

6.the cellaring of wine for long-term enjoyment,aging, appreciation, and speculation, is an endangered species as taste is changing,favoring efficiency, fruity,front-end loaded wines with immediate appeal as well as accessible,easy-going styles

While not at all agreeing with the substance his point, I do give him a nod for “anti-pleasure police” being a clever term. I don’t know if he coined that or is just repeating it.

The point 6 about cellaring wines is probably the most astonishing thing I’ve heard him say. Wow.

Wait, what? Don’t a lot of those massive, hedonistic fruit bombs have 50+ year drinking windows?

Maybe he thinks (6) is a good thing.

These tweets strike me as awfully self-serving, but at the same time he may speak the truth. His audience largely isn’t the type of wine consumer that reads these boards. The other 99% of wine consumers may well prefer ripe, high - alcohol wines meant for early drinking rather than cellaring.

A little hard to think of “cellaring” as an “endangered species.” Oh well…

And my reply to Bob:

Eric LeVine ‏@cellartracker
@RobertMParkerJr You are overthinking on many of these…

It’s too bad that he never actually replies to a Tweet. I don’t think he knows how to look for replies from people.

Thank you for that David! It made my morning.

Based on #6 he has completely lost it. WOW!!!

Once he figures out “MyWines” he’ll start working on that

I saw that. I don’t think engaging in discussion has ever been his strong suit!

You can say that again! (Not that it will change anything.)

Seriously. 2,370 tweets. I just looked at the last 9 months of them, and not a single one is a reply. I don’t think he understands that it is actually an interactive tool…

I finished reading Inventing Wine a few months ago, and one of the great sets of innovation in winemaking was the technology and methodology to permit wine to remain “fresh” months (or even years) after being made. For much of winemaking history, wine turned very nasty and/or oxidized within a relatively short period of time.

As for his #6, the reality is that for the past number of decades, the amount of wine that is intentionally cellared has been a fairly low percentage of the wine actually bought by consumers. But for those who immediately attack Parker on #6, take a gander at :

Bruce

Not surprising… He doesn’t understand the power of technology in general.