Wednesday, May 21 2008
What's That Sound?
No, wait, that's lemmings!
My buddy Ace has a great child-rearing philosophy, handed down from generations of hard-hearted parents. Whenever a young'un has the temerity to whine about a just and fair punishment, he asks if they recognise that sound. What sound? is the reply. "That's chickens, coming home to roost." And my sweet and gentle mentor, Robert Parker, must have a head full of clucks right now.
Picture shown not to scale. Ethics are much smaller on actual model.
After many years of distorting both the world market for wine and the style of winemaking itself, apparently Rob-o is breaking up under the pressure. Or, he's off his meds. Or . . . take your pick. According to Decanter Magazine, Parker savaged the 2005 Bordeaux bottlings and delivered a diatribe over the ridiculous prices that wine currently fetches.
To say this is hypocritical is to miss the opportunity to exercise one's vocabulary and call it disingenuous, dishonest, manipulative and clever (really, this is just professional admiration on my part). What makes it worse--much worse--is his continued spin-doctoring, portraying himself as a simple country bumpkin who likes cheap wine as much as the next millionaire lawyer from Baltimore. When Parker is justifiably criticised for his efforts to dumb-down wine to a simple series of numerical scores slanted to fruit-pop made by his friends, he counter-attacks that he's being picked on and misunderstood.
Of course, while he was claiming to be a bargain wine aficionado, he was on his way to dinner:
'Tomorrow night at the hotel, nobody on Planet Earth will be eating or drinking better,' he said, after revealing the wine list for his ¥315,000-a-head (£1,500, US$3,000) dinner.
Wines served at the evening include 1990 Chateau Petrus (£2,400, US$4,700 a bottle), 1948 Doisy-Daene (£290, US$570), and 2000 Cheval Blanc (£700, US$1,300).
Yup, lot of bargains there, Bob. It's one thing to feel the stings of criticism, but when the whole world of your peers starts piling on, perhaps it's time for a radical re-appraisal of your worldview. When I started learning about wine I often read Parker's reviews and descriptions, but I finally decided that his reviews enforced the suggestion error in sensory perception. When we use panel tastings to evaluate wine we work strenuously to avoid mutual
suggestion, which is defined as the response of a panelist/taster being influenced by other panelists. Vocalising opinions are prohibited, so everyone has a chance to decide for themselves what the wine tastes like. Parker has pretty much made a professional career out of suggestion, planting the idea that one wine is better than another and charging money for that opinion. Nice work if you can get it, but when it turns out that your taste actually sucks, attacking your critics might be less helpful than coming clean.
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