Scorebucks®

Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, and thank you for coming. I know you’re going to be glad you did. Tonight I am presenting you with the Wine Opportunity of a Lifetime, one that each of you would be crazy to pass up. Saying “No” would be like Dom Perignon going to the boss, probably bumping into a few walls on the way, telling him he had discovered a way to make wines bubbly and sparkly in the bottle, and his boss, Teddy Moët, says, “No, thanks, Dommy Baby, we’re going with orange wines.” How much would weddings suck now? Even gay people wouldn’t want to get married, not even, in that newfangled way, to other gay people. But Teddy Moët didn’t say, “No.” And he and his partner, Wink Chandon, went on to make a fortune in Champagne, though eventually, in a nasty moment of betrayal, Wink stabbed Teddy to death on the Ides of March--thus creating the famous Champagne named for Teddy’s last words, “Moët too, Brut?”

What I am offering you tonight is the chance to get in on the ground floor of the latest offering from the newly remodeled Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. Your very own Robert Parker Wine Advocate franchise! Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Scorebucks®!

Robert Parker is the biggest name in wine. We bought it! We own it! We intend to milk it like a six-foot rattlesnake and spread the venom everywhere. One day, in the very near future, there will be a Scorebucks® in every major city in the country. People will start their day with the latest wine review from their local Scorebucks®. Reviews that you will generate! From wines sent to you FOR FREE! How does that sound? Too good to be true? Don’t be stupid. It’s the wine business, it’s wine reviewing, it doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be precise. 96 points—that’s precise! This is how the Robert Parker World Famous 100 Point Scale works. Exactly like our sophisticated military drones—screw accuracy, it’s precision that counts.

When you decide to become a Robert Parker Scorebucks® franchisee, we will provide everything you need to run your successful business. You will be officially licensed to review wines and assign them numbers. With that license comes incredible power, and incredible fortune. The scores you assign as an Official Robert Parker Scorebucks® franchise can make or break a winery. No other franchise has that power. Robert Parker is the most trusted name in wine. What Colonel Sanders is to chicken, Robert Parker is to wines. Destroying them for your enjoyment.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, But I don’t know anything about wine, how can I rate them? You know numbers, don’t you? You know what you like, don’t you? That’s all you need. Knowledge and experience are totally unnecessary when it comes to wine. People win Wine Blog Awards without either! Taste the wine, give it a number. Yes, it’s that easy. Lots of reviewers give numbers to dozens and dozens of wines every single day! How hard can it be? I’ll tell you. It’s a three step process. 1. Put the wine in your mouth. 2. Spit the wine out. 3. Give it a number. Simple! And between you and me, most of those “bigshot” reviewers skip Step 2 half the time, and the other half they leave out Step 1 as well. Trust me, once you have authority (a word that derives from the same root as “authentic,” a word that every moron in the wine world finds convincing), you don’t need knowledge. What would you do with it if you had it? That’s the beauty of Scorebucks®--it’s 89 because you say so, and you have the power of Robert Parker behind you!

Once your Scorebucks® is up and running, get ready for your daily visit from the UPS guy, bringing you wines from all over the world. Open ‘em up, drink ‘em, give ‘em a rating, and let the fun begin. And, believe me, you will get lots and lots of wine. Wineries love scores like a Kardashian loves saturated fat. They want to swear off them, but, damn, it increases their enormous bottom lines.

OK, you’re thinking, I get the “Score” part, where do the “bucks” come in? Memberships, my friends, memberships. And, not long after your Scorebucks® is open for business, you’ll have thousands of memberships. And as the franchisee, you are entitled to 50% of those membership fees. It’s a license to print money, and then send it to us.

There are a lot of wine reviewers trying to sell numbers. Pathetic little pretenders who prey on the insecure and the underinformed, but they have little chance of success. They’re simply founders of fringe religions, like those of people who worship snakes or join covens or buy Bordeaux futures. They have a few sad converts, a few True Believers, a congregation of dunces, but you’ll be working for the damned Catholic Church of wine. And once you open a neighborhood place of worship, a Robert Parker Wine Advocate Scorebucks®, your wine collection plate will overrunneth.

We’re looking for visionaries, visionaries with money. The best kind of visionary. Investing in a Robert Parker Wine Advocate Scorebucks® franchise is the wisest decision you will make in your lifetime. It isn’t every day that a name like his comes up for sale. Sure, everyday wine critics, they’re always for sale. But not their names. And who would want them? But Parker doesn’t need his any more, and it’s the biggest one out there, so we bought it, and for way too much money. There wasn’t anything else of value to buy. The publication, The Wine Advocate, what’s that worth? Look at it this way. You take the Ripley’s out of Believe it or Not, and what’s that worth? Believe it or not, NOTHING!

So our investment can be your investment. We fronted the money for the name, and now we’re going to sell it, one little bit at a time. But only for a limited time. You need to act now. Before the bastard reads the fine print.