I had PM’d Mark Squires, but he ultimately said that all old Social Hall threads would be deleted, after a certain age. Even regulators were lurking on it, to gauge where the next financial toilet would explode.
Subscribers searched the Archives on my behalf but found nothing. Fortunately, Walt Hoehler saved almost all of it.
See here: Negam-Aki Home Mortgage Default Correlation Debacle
The Sierra CarCrash scandal ultimately got Bob frustrated enough to close the door for open membership, figuring that subscription fees would keep out iconoclasts like me. I recall thrashing the other Jay Miller, Bob, and Mark with their own words and actions, for accepting free goodies before conferring 96 points on some doctored wine, which got me banned.
It was like Catholic bishops banning molestation observers for heresy.
Squires was just the hachet man.
I think it’s interesting to look back on Parker’s big calls in his last few years at the helm - most of which have turned out to be highly debatable. Like the “great” 2003 vintage, the supposedly tannic and overrated 2005 vintage, and 2009 being better than 2010.
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I am not sure that is exactly fair. And you can hardly call me a Parker apologist.
The 2003s he liked were all from the Medoc, and I have had decent results from Saint Julien north. Hardly a great vintage, but I don’t remember him saying it was.
I seem to remember he loved the 2005, and talked about the high tannins, which would need extended cellaring. The few I have tasted have been closed or surly, but all the elements are in place.
2009 versus 2010; that is an ongoing debate. Personally I think the 2010 Right Bankers, with certain exceptions, seem way less balanced because the alcohol levels are so high, but would agree that the Medocs are better than 2009.
You guys need to back off. He did give great advice on sushi pairing.
Don’t lie to us. You met your first wine friends during the post cornerstone laying party for the construction of Notre Dame? 
Agree, but the best call was Bryan Flannery meats, specifically the Rib Cap.
I still subscribe as the William Kelley articles on Burgundy are well worth the price of admission.
Good call, Undebatable on the Rib Cap. He moved a lot of steaks.
I’m sorry, but that’s not entirely accurate. Mark had autocratic tendencies and an unwillingness to tolerate dissent well before partnering with Parker.
Why did Squires ban an avatar?
I don’t think I followed that thread at the time. With hindsight, it’s delicious – like a super-slow-motion video of the car crash you know is coming.
Thanks, Victor.
Anyone heard from Andy Raffle?
He did this frequently, including mine
the Ray Walker that appears in the Negam-Aki is not the same Ray Walker, is it?
I agree. I nearly used the word quisling, and probably should have. I’m 100% certain that Parker was the force behind it all, but Squires was certainly an enthusiastic executor.
I had one “run in” with Squires. It was, to me, an innocent and minor bit of nothing, but I politely apologized multiple times anyway without questioning his opinion.
He still was a absolute utter douche about it far beyond the need of running the board and way beyond excusable because it’s a shitty thankless job running that board.
I don’t know him but he acted like a jackass.
But Mark’s not a bad guy in person. I’ve met him a few times and even had wine with him and he’s actually quite funny. He’s not a left-wing liberal so if that’s a dealbreaker, I guess that’s a sign of the times, but he’s not a bad sort. He would tend to be picky on line and would get into stupid debates about absolutely nothing, but from what I was told, Bob wanted to close the board much earlier than he did. Don’t forget, it was originally the Mark Squires board before Bob asked him to partner. So he was going to watch his baby go down and it wasn’t something he wanted to see.
Bob was an affable sort before his ego got too overblown. He was basically just a guy from a farming community who liked to eat and drink. Essentially a glutton like so many folks. Then he started getting medals from big time Europeans and everyone in the wine world started blowing smoke up his ass. He tried the humble brag approach for a while but on the board, some of his fans started questioning him and he didn’t know how to react. He’d always had detractors, but it was different to start losing former fans.
And that started innocently enough. Just a few questions here and there. The premox thread on white Burgundy for example. Then when Rovani left and he brought on Miller, that was a bit too much. His rationale at the time was that Miller was a buddy and he liked Spanish wine. But he had to hire a guide to teach him about it! What the hell kind of critic was that? And the calls he made were wide of the mark, giving 100 points to wines that some of us had known for years were going to fall apart. I think Miller was probably an OK guy as well if you were talking about a corner wine store where you’d hang out on Friday. But those guys happened to be the premier wine critics and they ran the operation like a hick-town good ol’ boy club. Once people started looking closer at the operation, it fell apart.
Mark on the other hand, when given Greece and Portugal, set about learning. As did Neal Martin. I respect both of those guys for their approaches.
I never subscribed to the WA. I couldn’t understand references to graphite and reviews of wines I wasn’t planning to drink. I tried a few wines that had rec’d high scores and couldn’t understand the thinking behind those either, so figured I had to teach myself. Once I learned a little bit about wine, I just got interested in learning more and reviewer notes didn’t help. I found Mark’s site and enjoyed it for the exchanges and information posted by people who actually knew things. Reading and writing tasting notes never particularly interested me.
It’s a shame what happened. I agree with Wes that the site really did enhance the brand. There were more participants than WA subscribers and the content was richer. They could have leveraged that into Food Network programming, tours, lectures, or many other things. Gary V understood how to market - they should have tried working with him. They were the Facebook of the day vs MySpace and they pissed it all away. From what I understand, Bob’s not in good health these days - you can’t overeat and overdrink for 50 years and get off scott free. I wish him will though.
Greg, excellent summary.
I agree that Mark was fun in person. I got to know him through the Prodigy board that he moderated before there was an eRP and met him in person at some of the earliest offlines in Philly and NJ. Mark was always opinionated but once the eRP board got big it got the better of him and he turned autocratic and unpredictable online.
Parker was always easygoing in person and a joy to eat and drink with.
Yes, the Ray Walker of Maison Ilan and St Cloud bourbon was in real estate in CA before he lost his license.