The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste by Elin Mccoy Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.70 You Save: $21.25 (82%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.44 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste
Book Review: Nice summer reading
Summary: 3 Stars
Nice but a bit long and not specific enough like what did the team PArker& Rolland bring etc Book Review: Pinot Love
Summary: 4 Stars
Pinot Envy...
Reviews by Joe Rosenberg
BOOK:
The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the reign of American Taste
by Elin McCoy
Ecco, 2005
FILM:
"Mondovino"
by Jonathan Nossiter
Think Film 2005
Both The Emperor of Wine.... and "Mondovino" are centered on wine writer Robert M. Parker, a lifetime resident of Monkton in Baltimore County, and detail his journey from the law to international fame as a wine connoisseur.
The book is a chronicle of Parker's life to date by a fellow wine writer. The movie is a lengthy discourse on the ills of modern winemaking and marketing by a director who lacks objectivity and balance.
Time out for my disclaimer: From 1978 to 1985, I spent many Friday nights at Mr. Parker's house as part of a sounding board he set up to calibrate the accuracy of his judgments. I also spent other nights at the Parkers' home, and Parker spent time at wine tastings I sponsored at my Woodlawn apartment, Dalesio's and Chez Fernand's restaurants, and other venues. Parker introduced me to people I eventually worked for in the wine business. I watched him grow as a person and saw how scrupulous he was in conducting his business. Although I rarely see him these days, he is still a friend even though he never reviewed one of my Winemayven Selections.
That said, Ms. McCoy's 300 pages of biography has captured Parker--generous, affable but wary of criticism--starting even before he scooped the wine world on the high quality of the 1982 Bordeaux. To those not in this rarefied world, red wines from Bordeaux are the Rosetta stone of collectors of old wines and of baby-boomer yuppies anxious to own everything worthwhile in the universe. So when Parker announced that the 1982 vintage was most collectable, a combination of demand fueled by major wine stores and nay-saying from other wine writers led Parker to leave his day job and begin work on his book on Bordeaux wines.
Parker was able to branch out from his bi-monthly Wine Advocate to other venues. He often prefaced his wine reviews in other publications with words like "As I told you in Vol. 6, Number 4, the Chateau Vonce estate is beginning to make..." His "As I told you" reminded his readers that he found the wine first, or at least early on. As a businessman, he wanted his Wine Advocate to be a wine geek's publication of choice.
Until Parker, wine criticism was a world of bull and avarice. Parker was among the early newsletter writers who were champions of the consumer and not lifestyle mavens. If you've ever tasted a wine in Europe and then back in the USA, you'd realize that the wine was mishandled in transit. By encouraging Kermit Lynch, Marc DeGrazia and other importers who knew that reefer was not just another word for a joint, Parker raised the level of how a wine was handled. When the Wine Advocate started publication, you could not find a rosé in Maryland that was less than three years old; great vintages were not delivered to Maryland because wholesalers still had mediocre vintages in inventory. Parker created demand.
All in all, for those unfamiliar to Parker's rise from drinking Coca Cola at the feed store to downing Dom with Charlie Rose, this book is a good read. I would have liked to have seen some more of our Friday night crew mentioned, like Geoff Connor, Steve Sheriff and Mitch Pressman.
On the other hand, Nossiter's screed on the screen is a mean-spirited attack on Parker and celebrity winemaker Michel Rolland. Nossiter had some valid points but his editing is slanted. Parker and Rolland have influence in the wine world because consumers like the wines Parker praises and Rolland consults for. To me, some consumers are overly finicky and fanatical, not buying any wine scored below 95 points or wanting to buy the entire allocation a store is allotted; and people in the trade don't try to acquire and then sell wines not praised by either the Wine Advocate or the life-style oriented commercial Wine Spectator. Most of the wine sales in the US are not the artisan wines coveted by subscribers to those publications, but everyday quaffs that make the day a bit brighter.
Robert M. Parker, Jr. has made it possible for the public to move from merely drinking wine to experiencing wine as an aesthetic, culinary and cultural pleasure. He has become an American icon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2005 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on July 26, 2005.
Book Review: McCoy's New Clothes
Summary: 3 Stars
One of the common consequences of being the best at what one does is becoming famous. One of the consequences of being famous is ending up in the cross-hairs of `colleagues' and others who find the opportunity to ride on one's coat-tails by writing (a usually negative) expose about them. Unfortunately it too often leads to a tiring diatribe designed to knock the famous one down a notch or two. Does Elin McCoy's book, "The Emperor of wine-The Rise of Robert M. Parker Jr. and the Reign of American Taste" fall into this mantra? Or does McCoy offer a "fair and balanced" view of the World's most powerful Critic?
I first discovered Robert Parker and his Wine Advocate in the early 80's, when first putting together my wine cellar. I am a wine drinker, not a wine collector (meaning my interest was in finding and storing wines to accompany food). At that time, young (meaning those available in the stores) California Cabs and most Bordeaux were austere, tannic, and difficult to decide if they would eventually become (pleasurably) drinkable. As a wine neophyte, it was a laborious (if not fun) task to buy dozens of new wines to `taste through' and decide which ones warranted purchase in quantity to lay down for future (hopefully enjoyable) drinking. RP and his WA allowed me to effectively narrow the choices considerably, and, in fact, his (prescient) advice about purchasing futures of 1982 Bordeaux resulted in my laying down enough wine to enjoy over the ensuing 20 years that I have only recently needed to aggressively re-stock my cellar.
With that "disclosure" about Parker's successful influence on my personal wine buying, let me talk about McCoy's book about the "Emperor".
McCoy states the theme of her monograph in the prologue. Is Parker to be blamed "for reshaping the taste of wine to his own personal preference for dark, high-alcohol wines with lots of power and intensity, and in the process killing tradition and reducing great wines to mere numbers", or is he to be "revered" for being "largely responsible for the vastly improved quality of wines made across the globe and [being] the wine consumer's best friend?"
The first part of the book is an interesting discussion of the wine world of Parker's formative years of the 60's and 70's, as well as Parker's early life before and at the start of his wine career. His decision to offer the first truly independent and consumer-favored (rather than industry-favored) wine reviews is presented in detail. His `breakthrough' (and lonely) assessment of the 82 Bordeaux, its significance to his career and to the wine buying public is well documented here.
The title of the book reveals the tone for the latter portion of McCoy's essay, where overuse of `emperor' and related pejorative terms ("his imperial sway", "his reign", "visiting royalty"," the great man's sense of smell") clearly suggests a sophomoric attempt to set a specific bias of Parker in the reader's mind.
Let's look at three important criticisms of Parker that McCoy posits.
The first is that RP's "concept of wine greatness" is "firmly on the side of fruit, concentration, overall sensory impact, and sensuous texture." Is this bad? (Am I missing something here?). She asks the same question, but clearly argues that it is, and that he is "killing tradition" by scoring "high alcohol wines with power and intensity" so highly. McCoy considers this a very important negative of Parker's "reign", so much so that she decided to `prove' the point when given the opportunity to mentor a tasting entitled "Parker's Favorites" at this June's Aspen Food and Wine event, which I attended (and for which was the premier early-release event for this book). She offered six wines at the well-attended tasting designed to show (she told us) that Parker's preferences were for big, alcoholic wines, that are powerful, concentrated, and that show well by themselves (without food). Included was a Bordeaux (2000 Ch. d'Issan) which she noted was not her first choice, but was included because the proprietor of her first choice declined to have his wine included because (she stated), he didn't want to be known for producing a "Parkerized" wine. (I suspect the wine may have been Ch. Pavie, but when I asked McCoy at the tasting, she declined "to go there"). Parker indeed rates this wine highly ( a "93", therefore a valid wine to be included in his `favorites'), but a read of Parker's tasting notes on Ch. d'Issan appears to invalidate McCoy's own point: "A suave, aristocratic, classic built on delicacy and finesse as opposed to power and blockbuster fruit...graceful...refined effort...". By the way, the other wines chosen were spectacular (and powerful, concentrated, and sensuous), and were a revelation. It was the best tasting at the whole event!
A second area of negative criticism that McCoy proffers is that Parker's tasting feats are too incredible to be possible (reporting some physiological `research' about palate fatigue, poor `taste memory' in the population, `limits' of even `super tasters', etc). The problem with this conclusion of McCoy's lies first in Parker's own work product. He DOES taste 10,000 wines a year, he IS consistent (she even provides reports of his uncanny taste memory and consistency), and tens of thousands (those who pay good money for his subscriptions) of wine drinkers find his evaluations useful. His tasting abilities ARE incredible. As a neurologist, I have come to the conclusion (at least theory) that Parker has a unique tasting "genius", perhaps related to a (well described in the medical literature) tasting synesthesia. Synesthesia (in its various forms) has been found to be associated with special savants and genius (not the place to develop this further, but I refer to the well documented genius and synesthesia of physicist Richard Feynman, writer Vladimir Nabokov, composer Scriabin, and I'm just scratching the surface). McCoy's account of Parker's description of his tasting impressions is a classic account of synesthesia: "As a wine went into his mouth, the first impression that popped into Parker's head was textural, then a picture, a photograph of the wine, almost in three dimensions...He knew it sounded like b.s. but he SAW the wine in layers and textures..."[emphasis mine]. However, one doesn't necessarily have to invoke such special abilities in Parker to account for all of this; his work process, grueling schedule, extraordinary dedication (all well documented in McCoy) and just a touch of some `regular' genius, is enough to account for his extraordinary work product.
Finally, is McCoy's statement, "I find scoring wine with numbers a joke in scientific terms..." My, and I am sure countless other's, cellar of 20 years would argue against her charge. The numbers are useful for their stated purpose-sorting through the thousands of wines to try. Parker has never claimed that the score number is the `wine experience'. Quite the contrary, his scores facilitate the consumer's search for a pleasurable wine experience.
So, is McCoy's depiction of Robert Parker fair? I think not, and would suggest that a more objective monograph about this most remarkable man has now been called for. Is her book worth the read, anyway? I think it is, and I think both the wine drinking public with no knowledge of Parker beyond the wine store tags sporting his scores, as well as those who have followed the Wine Advocate for years will find it an interesting, if perhaps flawed, read.
Book Review: An Even-Handed Tour de Force.
Summary: 5 Stars
I will say right up front: I am not a lover of most of the "big" wine style profiles that Robert Parker seemingly favors with his 90+ scores. That being said, Elin McCoy's book clearly revealed that Parker indeed spoke passionately from his heart about the wines he profiled. Numerous "insider" nuggets throughout made this page-turner almost impossible for me to put down. "Parker referred to smells and aromas more frequently than tastes, while (two Wine Spectator reviewers)....were far less likely to mention aromas at all." (As a lover of wine whose sinuses are in a state of ruin, I side with the latter two reviewers.) I read - wide eyed - of Steven Spurrier's "body-type theory" of wine preferences: "Slim ectomorphs liked delicate wines like blanc de blancs Champagne; big, burly mesomorphs (like Parker) gravitated toward big, brawny wines that matched their physique." an interesting take (one of many) of the "yin/yang" controversy of "delicate vs. big" wine that came up again and again in this real life saga. On the very next page, Gerald Asher "pointed out to me.....who could be surprised that subtlety and finesse seemed to be losing favor in wine when they weren't much in evidence elsewhere in culture?" And a number of times McCoy writes of Parker's love of Neil Young's music (who likewise sings passionately from his own heart!).
Chapter Two of this book alone is worth the price of admission for any oenophile! It outlines the early 1960s-mid '70s beginnings of the rise of wine with the American consumer (and Parker is not emphasized in this chapter). The famous/infamous 1976 Paris tasting is meticulously detailed in FIVE (!) pages, beginning on page 47; any other wine book would devote at most a paragraph to that significant event. ("The whites were poured first, then the reds.....'it has no nose', exclaimed (one judge) about a wine that turned out to be a 1973 Batard-Montrachet from Burgundy. 'Ah, back to France,' sighed (another judge), after a sip of a Napa Valley Chardonnay.")
This book is an incredibly interesting read, no matter which side of the "big/delicate" fence you prefer. No interested observer or lover of wine will be without this fascinating book in his or her library.
Book Review: A highly readable but somewhat flawed biography
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Emperor of Wine"
In the history of wine appreciation, there has certainly never been a wine writer as widely known as Robert M. Parker Jr., and it's unlikely that there's ever been one more controversial.
Based in tiny Monkton, Md., an outer suburb of Baltimore, Parker's no-advertising newsletter, The Wine Advocate, reportedly circulates to no more than 50,000 subscribers - one-sixth of the print circulation claimed by the much less influential Wine Spectator.
But Parker's influence among wine enthusiasts, particularly those who pursue high-end, collectible wines, is a phenomenon without parallel in wine, or quite possibly in any field of criticism.
Widely publicized as "The man with the million-dollar nose" because he literally had his sense of smell insured for that amount (the underwriters allegedly declined to risk any more), Parker, it is said, can literally make a winery's reputation with a single good review ... or destroy it with a bad one.
As sketched in Jonathan Nossiter's current movie documentary Mondovino, Parker is given much of the credit (or blame) for nudging the international wine industry toward fashioning wines to suit his tastes: Big, powerful and driven more by fruit than earth. In fairness, Parker himself denies this charge, and with some credibility, as he frequently speaks well of subtle, graceful Old World wines.
But as author Elin McCoy points out in her new book, The Emperor of Wine (subtitled, "The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste"), a simple review of Parker's voluminous record makes clear that the blockbusters are indeed the wines he loves the most and rates most highly on the 100-point scale (which he, in fact, innovated and made popular for wine ratings).
A love-him-or-hate-him figure among serious wine enthusiasts, Parker has become a bit two-dimensional: Those who love him follow every word he writes, and rush to wine shops to strip the shelves bare of the bottles he rates highly. Even the less-enthralled typically pay him the backhanded compliment of claiming to read his tasting reports in order to choose the wines he doesn't like, assuming that these wines will suit their tastes for subtlety, elegance and terroir, with the added benefit that they'll remain affordable since the great one did not recommend them.
McCoy is perhaps the first writer to put meat on the bones of the public Parker. A longtime writer and editor who has written about wine for Food & Wine and Bloomberg Markets, she's a Baby Boomer who seems to have learned to write back when schools still taught nouns and verbs and such. She writes in a clear journalistic style, and she sketches characters and scenes with deft strokes that bring them alive. It's fun to read, and you really get a sense that you're meeting a full, well-rounded Parker, not just the the usual cartoon-character stereotype ... Noble Judge or Evil Influence.
Nor is this book entirely a puffy public-relations tale. To McCoy's credit, she dishes some tales that it's likely Parker would much prefer forgotten: The lawsuit by Burgundian producer François Faiveley, eventually settled for a single franc, that left Parker so persona non grata in Burgundy that a surrogate represents him in the region to this day ... and a more recent development in which a Parker associate in Bordeaux was charged with having used Parker's letterhead and stationery to lend credibility to a consulting project. (Although Parker was not personally implicated, the publicity and police involvement added no luster to his image.)
Nor is McCoy reluctant to record some of the less appealing sides of Parker's personality, including a thin-skinned and occasionally litigious response to criticism, verbal battles with fellow wine writers (including a particularly nasty exchange with Jancis Robinson) and an ego expansive enough to dismiss any criticism as based on mere competitive jealousy.
But all that said, "The Emperor of Wine" is ultimately a strongly positive portrayal, to the degree that at some points I felt eerie echoes of reading "Lives of the Saints" stories as a child in parochial school. Although McCoy lists dozens of sources at the end, it appears that much of the content of this admiring bio is single-sourced - based largely on interviews and time spent with Parker himself, with relatively limited backup information from his friends and fans.
She does a good job of sketching out how his influence grew out of all proportion to Wine Advocate's circulation through a combination of good fortune (He was first, loudest and strongest in his praise for the remarkable Bordeaux vintage of 1982, which just happened to coincide with a significant awakening of fine-wine interest in the U.S.) and good marketing (he promoted his publication through wine shops, which were delighted to have simple, plain-English notes about the wines, complete with numerical scores in a then-novel but easy to follow 100-point system). She is weaker on other voices, giving short shrift to (and possibly reflecting Parker's own opinions of) Robinson and other leading British writers; sketching some delightfully snide but certainly incomplete chapters on the concurrent rise of Marvin Shanken's Wine Spectator, and discussing Internet wine-information publishing and Parker's (until recently) low profile in that realm only from the viewpoint of the producers of a Website that licenses Parker's name and products.
Still, this remains the most entertaining (and well-written) wine book to cross my desk for a while, and if you have any interest at all in Parker and in the growth and development of wine culture - particularly in the U.S. - during the past generation, you won't regret reading it.