ParkerTargeted and misunderstood

Surely that is the point of all the controversy — so long as both individual comsumers and growers recognise that Parker is just another consumer with his own likes and dislikes and don‘t give too much credence to a system which purports to distinguish one or two point differences between wines on a fifty point scale and, more importantly, they recognise that even a five point difference on his scale probably simply reflects subjective opinion at one point in time of a wine‘s life rather than subjective truth good for all time, no harm is done. What does matter is if any individual critic becomes so influential that people consciously begin to make wine in order to attract his praise, ignore what their terroir would be best at producing and prosbreastute their wines and their wine making skills for a quick or easy buck so that they offer at en primeur tastings wines which do not truly represent the tradition of their appellation and which may, or, more likely, may not, fulfill the potential of the vintage in which they were made. If his tastes were truly as catholic as he sometimes claims there would be no problem, it is simply because the wines he likes tend to one style that the word ”parkerisé• has come into French winegourwers‘ language.

Speaking personally as long as he hypes the prices of wines which do not fall into my own — admittedly very subjective — personal preference list he does me no harm in the short term; he may even keep th prices of the wines I like relatively reasonable. In the long term however criticism like his can in reality distort the market and we and he ought to recognise that. The real problem is people who do not, as Richard has done, ”find their own way• and go on relying on Parker without developing their own palates and likes. Tat truly would distort the market far too far in the long term.