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THE TALL PARKER SYNDROME

BRUCE PALLING | UNCORKED

Bruce admires Robert Parker's consistency and dedication, though not always his taste. If the great wine critic has too much influence on the market, that is the fault of his followers, not of the man himself ...

In Australia and now elsewhere, there is an affliction called the "tall poppy syndrome", which describes the desire to cut down to size any person who is considered to be too successful for their own (or the accuser's) good. At its best, it deflates pomposity, but at its worst, it is the politics of envy, or used to abuse anyone who does not adhere to prevailing myths of egalitarianism. I go along with Benjamin Franklin Fairless, who said, "You cannot add to the stature of a dwarf by cutting off the leg of a giant."

Robert Parker is commonly regarded as the wine world's most influential critic—and perhaps the most powerful critic in any sphere. He really does have the power to move markets, and more obviously so than any other individual. Using his 100-point scoring mechanism, if he re-rates a famous Bordeaux from say 97 or 98 points to the ultimate 100 points, its price can virtually double within hours (A recent example was his re-rating of Montrose '03, which shot up from £1000 to its current £1800 a case).

That eminence makes him an obviously candidate for the tall-poppy treatment. The latest person to turn on him is a former employee called Hanna Agostini, who has written a diatribe called "Robert Parker: anatomie d'un mythe". Note that there is form here, because Parker and Agostini allegedly parted company on bad terms.

The worst of Ms Agostini's allegations seems to be that Parker is known to socialise with a number of very important wine-makers and chateau-owners whose wine he happens to admire—especially Michel Rolland, a celebrated wine-doctor. I can't quite see how you avoid this behaviour, short of dining on room service when you travel to Bordeaux. Parker is also accused of not remembering tasting some extremely obscure minor wines, and sometimes cribbing from previous write-ups of the same wine if he retastes it. Given that he is said to taste about 10,000 wines annually, I think most people would forgive him such behaviour even if true.

What is worth giving more thought to is the complaint in certain French and British wine circles, that he has created a climate which favours big alcoholic wines, or "fruit bombs", as they are disparagingly termed, over more subtle and complicated wines that are less obvious or alcoholic. Let's just say that when it comes to styles of wine, Parker is generally a Page Three sort of guy rather than a reader of Vogue. I tend to agree with this assertion, but where I differ is that, to me, it is totally unfair to blame Parker for having a band of slavish followers of his taste. Yes, he does have an unhealthy influence on wine taste and style but that isn't his fault. It happens because his personal taste is in harmony with that of a majority of people who have the time or inclination to trust his scores of what they drink or invest in. A typical Parker comment about a high-scoring wine will be: "Wow! This has amazing length, and an after-taste that easily lasts more than a minute."

The important thing is to know where he is coming from and judge accordingly. I remember purchasing the first edition of his Bordeaux tasting notes in the mid-Eighties and being amazed at reading uncompromisingly honest—and accurate—accounts of certain big-name wines such as Léoville Lascases, Lafite or Margaux. For the first time, I found someone who wrote accurately about how the '70 Lascases was "charmless" and "undernourished". He also correctly disparaged Chateau Margaux from '62 to '77 and Lafite from 60 to 74.

There is no one else in the wine world with the knowledge and ability to consistently score wines as accurately as Parker does. I say that, even though I don't like the style of some of the wines he favours, such as Pavie and many of the bigger-boned New World wines or Chateauneuf du Papes, with their 14.5% plus alcohol, but at least he is consistent and true to his own tastes.

Nor does he always get it right, of course. His biggest blunder was the preliminary conclusion of his tasting of the great 1990 Bordeaux vintage. In May 1991 he reported that "The 1990s do not have the sheer concentration, glycerin or opulent mouthfilling textures that so many 1989s possess. Therefore, they seem destined to be considered inferior to their predecessors." Again, he was showing his consistent values as he has always preferred big wines to those that are less full scale. Even more embarrassing, his initial reading of the 1990 Pichon Lalande was that it was the best Pauillac after Lafite, Latour and Mouton and that Pichon Baron was "far below the 1989". Nowadays, he rates the Pichon Baron marginally higher than the '89, while the Pichon Lalande gets a virtually undrinkable score of 79.

However, it should be remembered that he quickly corrected himself (though these initial comments are not to be found on his exhaustingly comprehensive web site, www.erobertparker.com); and for someone who has tasted nearly a quarter of a million wines, this is a hardly even a blip on an amazingly impressive record.

The good thing about being able to read Parker's taste is that you can then search out for wines that suit your palate, but "only" score say 89, as this will definitely put speculators off them (they never go for anything below 90, and usually for scores above 94), so they should provide excellent value. The best example of this is Chateau Pontet Canet '01, which was recently raved about at a big London tasting, yet still sells for only £275 per case, because Parker gave it only 89 points. Other people try to guess which wines he will re-evaluate upwards, but this is a far trickier game to play.

But what about the future? Parker recently hired Neal Martin, a British wine blogger, who now runs a parallel site on Parker's own, prompting speculation that Parker, 60, was trying to anoint a successor. However, leading wine brokers and merchants doubt that Martin will ever have the cachet of Parker. In fact, there are many wines which Martin rates considerably higher (and lower) than Parker, but that doesn't appear to have moved the prices either way.

One leading wine broker says that after Parker's eventual departure, the trade will be desperately looking for the "new" Parker but it will be a vain search: "It will be same response as when the Beatles split up. Everyone was speculating about who would be the "new" Beatles, but it never happened."

When I started tasting wine, the ultimate accolade was a good comment from Harry Waugh, or Edmund Penning-Rowsell or Michael Broadbent. Nowadays, while I am closer to the tastes of Jancis Robinson and Neal Martin, Parker is still the only one to move prices. A few decades in the future, virtually everything he praised will be gone, and you can be sure that drinkers and wine investors will be scrabbling around for certainties comparable to those which "Big Bob's" laconic figures on paper currently possess.