Robert Parker: How his palate changed wine

Jon Bonné Food and wine writer • Profile

It is hard to drink wine without running into Robert Parker.

With his often-imitated grading system, Parker is indisputably the world’s most powerful wine critic.  His influence within the wine industry is akin to Alan Greenspan’s sway over financial markets: When Parker talks, wine people tend to listen.

Now after nearly three decades, someone has turned the looking glass on him.

Wine writer Elin McCoy tackles the Parker phenomenon, warts and all, in her new biography, “The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker Jr. and the Reign of American Taste” (Ecco, $25.95).  Hers is the first book to fully appraise this kingmaker, and she does so with precision and insight.

Parker’s power lies not merely in an ability to choose good wine from bad (though he can do that with remarkable skill with his uncannily precise palate, which, yes, is insured for $1 million, one of many Parker legends detailed in the book).

It’s his unique mix of outspoken advocacy, self-promotion and straightforward advice that helped make him a star. And his celebrity is one primarily fostered by American wine drinkers, whose ranks are growing: a Gallup poll released last week found that more Americans now consider wine their favorite drink (39 percent) than beer (36 percent).

In turn, he’s used his prominence to advance a taste for big, powerful red wines — to the point that he has globally reshaped the taste of wine and molded countless drinkers’ palates.

At least, that’s what McCoy believes (as do others, including me). Parker views himself in a far more modest light: as the consumer advocate he set out to be, exposing bad, overpriced wines.

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“I don’t think generally that he takes responsibility for having changed the taste of wine,” McCoy says in an interview, “even though I think he has.”

The wine world changes
Born in 1947, Parker grew up on a farm in Monkton, Md., in a family that kept soda and Bourbon on the table, not wine.

His future fancy was inspired by high-school sweetheart Patricia Etzel. He first tasted wine (Cold Duck, specifically) at Pat’s house, and found a passion for all things viniferous during his first visit to France (to travel with Pat as she studied there). Fluent in French, she would serve as his translator and her charm would gain the young couple entry to taste at prominent wineries like Château Latour. He and Pat married, and frequently returned overseas to eat and drink their way through the Old World. (One trip also included a Moroccan detour for “some good hash.”)

Parker went to law school and became a lawyer for a Baltimore bank, but as McCoy details, he devoted his weekends to patrolling the aisles of wine shops around Washington, D.C.

In the mid-’70s, as Parker toyed with starting a wine newsletter, the wine world struggled with major upheaval. The already-popular market for Bordeaux wines overheated amid speculation and retailers’ hype. At a now famed 1976 Paris tasting, a Stag’s Leap Cabernet proved California’s potential when it bested two top Bordeaux growths.

Parker found himself shocked by frequent discrepancies between price and quality; he reviled the sea of lackluster Bordeaux on the market and championed California upstarts. He loathed most wine writers for their often misguided reviews and what he saw as flimsy ethics.

He drew inspiration from another self-righteous lawyer: Ralph Nader. If Nader could put G.M. on the hot seat, Parker figured he could be a one-man wine crusader. In 1978, he unveiled the first issue of his Wine Advocate newsletter, pledging that his “objective” stance would separate great values from overpriced swill.

“It’s a compelling story,” McCoy says. “He characterized himself early on as the Lone Ranger.”

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