The Emperor in Winter

This is a piece I wrote in December of 2014. Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Editor in Chief of Wine Advocate, announced the official retirement of Robert Parker yesterday.


For more than thirty years I was the most powerful critic in the history of the world. I say that with complete humility. There were many critics in my chosen field, but they were to me as carbuncles are to my hairy butt—I never saw them, but they were forever riding my ass.  My words alone were enough to make fortunes, while their weak exhortations were the critical equivalent of Bitcoin—imaginary money, imaginary influence. I declared geniuses and goddesses in an occupation that otherwise generated only pretenders, robots and dinosaurs. I found no joy in being the most powerful critic in the history of the world. I’m glad to be done with it. I hope to miss it someday.

Now that it’s over, I can reflect on my accomplishments. With the clarity of hindsight, I can see the reach of my influence. Wine will never see my like again. The world has changed. I began in the print era, when reviews had the timeliness of messages in a bottle. Reviews had to be delivered by the Postal Service, which is like wiping your nose two weeks after you sneeze. Really doesn’t do anybody any good. Every review seemed to be published months too early, or weeks too late. There were only a few important regions to cover—Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa Valley, Tuscany, and the Rhône Valley. No one bought German wine. They still don’t buy German wine. Who buys German wine? German Riesling is the greatest white wine in the world that nobody buys. It’s the Edsel of wine. It’s the Betamax of wine regions. It’s the Conan O’Brien. I drink it about as often as I read Decanter. Which is also too often cloying.

I was in the right place at the right time. Wine publications are in their death throes now. Many of them are magazine zombies, still stumbling around stiff-legged, eating the brains of their contributors, which are slim pickings, and not even aware they’re dead. They’re frightening consumers, all these wine critics walking around dead, still publishing scores when they should be resting in their Graves. And now the zombies are eating other zombies. Vinous devoured the brains of International Wine Cellar to create a super-zombie. Tanzalloni! Tanzalloni wants to become the most powerful critic in wine, but even a super-zombie is still the walking dead. Even a team of Tanzalloni zombies walking the wine regions of the Earth won’t have the power that I once possessed. Everywhere they go there is the smell of death on them, a smell that will not go unnoticed by winemakers. Marketing people won’t smell it, of course, they’re used to the smell of death, having killed truth a long time ago. But the wine world has begun to notice that there are nothing but magazine zombies among us, and that their days of walking the Earth, dead or undead, are numbered.

When I ruled the wine world, people knew what to expect. “Integrity” was my middle name. Even my severest critics at the end of my career acknowledged that. They always referred to me as “R.I.P” in tribute to it being my middle name. When I had all the power, the wine world was a simpler place. I made it that way. I introduced the 100 Point Scale to criticism. What’s simpler than that? I understood before anyone else the wine-buying public’s deep-seated need to be shallow, their passion for the easy answer, for shortcuts to expertise, their love for distilled wisdom, their willingness to pay for someone else to make them seem savvy to their friends. I wrote complex and florid tasting notes to go with the scores I awarded, but I knew that those notes were read about as often as Miranda rights in Missouri. It was the numbers that were magic. Wine doesn’t have to be complicated, the numbers said. No wine is unique, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. No matter what, they all have numbers, somewhere between 80 and 100. Only 21 different kinds of wine. Even you can understand that. This is my proudest accomplishment.

When I was at the peak of my power, wine knew it had to answer to me. When I awarded a wine 100 points, everyone knew how to make a great wine. Before I came along, the wines of the world were all over the place stylistically. This was stupid and confusing for the average consumer. Imagine that every time you read a James Patterson book it was different! How annoying would that be? You want it to be the same formula every single time. Same with Bordeaux, or Australian Shiraz, or Super Tuscans. Thanks to me, the average consumer can go to his local wine shop and buy a $150 Napa Valley Cabernet that will taste exactly like the last $150 Napa Valley Cabernet he purchased! Sure, there’s some variation, winemakers aren’t perfect, they don’t really know a 96 point wine like I do, but it will be pretty damned similar. Again, I’m proud of this. I standardized Bordeaux and California, Oregon and Washington, Spain and Italy.  There may be 5000 different grapes, but, dammit, there are only a handful of styles. Someone had to do it. It was chaos when I started. Someone had to set some standards. I was to wine what The New York Times Book Review is to literature. Its savior.

And now I’m through. I refuse to become a zombie. Let the damned Singapore mafia be the zombies, I’m finished. I’m the Emperor in Winter. I leave the wine criticism to the current tribe of zombies—Laube, Robinson, Olken, Meadows, Teague, McInerney, Bonné, Asimov… Be careful out there, wine lovers, they’re here to eat your brains. McInerney will probably go for your nuts, too. As for who will replace me, and the zombies still walking the Earth, I don’t know who that will be. Surely not the feckless and tiring voices of the Internet, that loud chorus of poodles barking into the darkness. If they ever move the needle, it’s just the irritating sound of it scratching along the surface of the LP. Their influence is that of a single Saccharomyces in a puncheon of hedonistic Syrah—not measurable or unique, and destined to die once all the sugar has gone. And the sugar is almost gone.

No, there will never again be a most powerful critic in the world. Oh, certainly wine will endure. People will still buy according to the 100 Point Scale—it is so stupid it is immortal. But wine will be adrift. Lost. Untethered. Wine drinkers will have to fend for themselves, try to understand wine on its own terms, find their own measure of its quality.

More’s the pity.

Parker in the Bardo

The Emperor of Wine was brooding. What had it all been for, he asked himself. The power, the points, the bluster. Now, nearly 70, the body breaking down like En Primeur sales without his scores, collapsing under its own weight, mired in the useless numbers assigned by wine writers with the combined integrity of a pack of hyenas, he was transitioning into a new time in his storied life. Where once the very mention of his name struck fear into every winemaker’s heart, now they felt only ennui. No more Emperor? Ennui go.


Since reading George Saunders' first novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo," I've had this title in my head. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but it just wouldn't leave me alone. "Bardo" was an unfamiliar concept to me, except for Brigitte. I take it to mean a place between death and one's next rebirth--which is essentially wine blogging, though no one seems to know it. Anyhow, I finally wrote this piece, which is rather dark and strange and different. Perhaps I'm trying to make sure no one actually misses me around here.

I think it's worth your time. But you'll have to jump over to Tim Atkin's site to read the piece. While you're there, feel free to leave a comment. You can leave one here, but I think the place is deserted.

TIM ATKIN MW

Excerpts from Parker's "The Emperor's Diaries"--Part Two

Editor's Note: The Emperor’s Diaries were only recently unearthed by an unemployed wine critic who found them in Antonio Galloni’s underwear drawer, right next to the 100 Point Lube (“100 Point Lube—Slip One In So They Hardly Notice!”). After a painstaking translation from Robert Parker’s native tongue, Hedonia, a few passages were provided to HoseMaster of Wine™ for publication before The Emperor’s Diaries are released in full to the public just in time for the James Beard Awards. The diaries are expected to handily win the Beard Award for "Best Book for Gluttons," ending the consecutive win streak held by Mario Batali. We are proud to be the exclusive outlet for excerpts from The Emperor’s Diaries. The diaries were authenticated by Maureen Downey, who noted, “The diaries are real, but as for the Lube, well, it’s a bit slippery.”

April 1983

I’m in Bordeaux to taste the ’82’s en primeur. I’m not sure I get the hang of this barrel tasting thing. They all kind of taste the same. Big, black and nasty, like Pam Grier. I wouldn’t put it past the French for them to actually be all the same. Like Jerry Lewis movies. You’d think that it would be harder for me to rate them when they all taste the same, but, actually it’s a lot easier. How can anyone say you’re wrong? They’ll never get to taste the same barrel, and even if they did, they won’t know what they’re tasting either. It’s very empowering. Of course, I already know the First Growths will get the highest scores, but I’ll be looking for those underrated wines, the ones that are a lot cheaper, but made at least one barrel as good as a First Growth.

I may have to tweak my 100 Point Scale for barrel tastings, though. I don’t mind putting a single integer on a bottled wine, but it seems presumptuous to be so precise for a barrel tasting. Especially since I have no idea what I’m doing. So if I decide I’m going to give the wine 95, and I’m definitely going to give a bunch of high numbers or why be here, I’ll just put (93-97). What makes it work, I think, are the parentheses. Gives it dignity. Indicates I deliberated long and hard over that barrel sample, when nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that quotation marks are glib. “93-97”? Like I’m quoting somebody else, maybe. They’re almost sarcastic. Parentheses are whispers, secret code between me and my 57 subscribers, information I wouldn’t give to just anybody. Yeah, that’s cool. Plus, I’m awarding four scores instead of just one. Wish I’d thought of that seven years ago.

May 1983

I am so sick of Bordeaux, I could crap Peppercorn. What a nightmare tasting en primeur. Nothing but a bunch of stuffy old Brits sipping, spitting and proclaiming. It’s like the Royal Shakespeare Company performing “All’s Swill that Ends Swill.” Everybody pretty much ignored me the entire time. The only reason I even managed to taste the First Growths was because I shouted, “Look! Peter O’Toole!” and the old queens took off running.

I’m also beginning to think that a lot of the barrel samples I tasted had been doctored. Which might explain why there was a case of empty Caymus Special Selection bottles behind the Mouton barrel. Oh, maybe I’m just being paranoid. What possible motivation could there be for the Chateaux to manipulate their barrels? They don’t sell futures that much anymore anyway. Only the dribble that the English purchase as futures. Americans don’t buy Bordeaux futures. They’d have better luck trying to sell futures to the Chinese! Yeah, like that will ever happen. More likely we’ll elect a black man to be President before the Chinese ever give a Great Wall of Shit about Bordeaux.

I also overheard a lot of rumbling from the old sots that ’82 seemed like a below average vintage. I was thinking the same thing. They’re all kinda sweet and chewy. But I’m also thinking most Americans really like sweet and chewy, so I should give the wines high scores. And not just high scores, I should rave about the vintage in general. That’ll make people notice me. I know how to rave. How about this kind of quote:

“1982 is the greatest vintage in my experience.”

That sounds great. Though it’s a lot like saying, “Godzilla is the biggest dinosaur in my experience.” Ah, the best hype is the hype that’s the truth about lying. So I’ll stick my neck out and publish high scores for the ’82 Bordeaux. I’ll be the only one.

June 1983

It worked!  Oh, man, I’m a genius. Every major wine retailer in the country is taking out full page ads selling futures of 1982 Bordeaux, and guess who they’re quoting? I’ll give you a clue. It’s not the cast of “Cats.” Andrew Lloyd Webber isn’t the only untalented Brit whose work is about being a pussy, try the whole British wine trade. Those ads are quoting Robert Parker, Jr. (I added the “Jr.” part a while ago because it seems cool, like Sammy Davis, or Martin Luther King, or Mints.) My ratings and quotes are billboarded all over the place!

“The ’82 Margaux is legendary, and should rival the ’59! (96-100)”*

“Wise buyers will be lining up to purchase the brilliant ’82 Cheval Blanc, the greatest wine from this estate since the ’47! (96-100)”*

“Serious wine collectors will want a case of ’82 Lynch-Bages, a tour-de-force that surpasses even the legendary 1870, which was only released to the wine club. (92-96)”*
*Robert Parker, Jr.

My phone has been ringing off the hook with people who want to subscribe. I may have to hire someone to work in my office just to keep track of all the samples I’m receiving. Someone I can trust, and who knows about wine. Come to think of it, I met a guy who might be perfect. German guy, what was his name. Rodenstock! Hardy Rodenstock. I think I’ll give him a call.

Excerpts from Parker's "The Emperor's Diaries"

Editor’s Note: The Emperor’s Diaries were only recently discovered in the shopping cart of a homeless natural wine salesman living on the outskirts of Monkton, Maryland. After a painstaking translation from the Emperor’s native tongue, Hyperbole, a few excerpts from The Emperor’s Diaries were made available for publication prior to the diaries’ holiday release. The excerpts only hint at the importance of the document to the history of wine. We are honored to be the first to publish them.

February 1978

I think I’m going to start a brilliant wine publication, with hints of brimstone and new-mown hubris. I’m sick of being an attorney. No one likes attorneys. I want to be liked. I’m sure that if I become a successful wine writer, everyone will like me. Wine writers are far more popular than lawyers, even though both occupations are based on empty rhetoric. I would be able to travel the world and taste the greatest wines with the greatest winemakers, show them what they’re doing wrong. Wine needs a writer like that, with impeccable balance, and subtle notes of ultimate authority and papal infallibility, a critic whose palms aren’t quite as unctuous as our current wine writers’. I’m the guy.

Now I just need to think of a name and a gimmick.

June 1978

I’ve been wrestling with what to name my new wine publication tour-de-force. I have so many ideas, but none seems to stick. “The Wine Tour-de-Force” sounds pretty good. I might go with that! Imagine seeing my wine reviews published everywhere—in winery newsletters, on wine shop shelves, on the damned wine labels themselves—followed by the initials “WTF!” I predict this is exactly what will happen. And everyone will know what “WTF” stands for—it will be suffixed to my name for decades. But Wine Tour-de-Force just doesn’t sound right.

My wine publication will have a sole purpose. Not sure what that will be, but I’m dedicated to it. If it were up to me, the sole purpose would be to make me rich and famous. But that won’t work. Wine critics don’t get rich and famous. They get drunk and gout. Maybe the sole purpose should be integrity, to bring truth and independence to wine reviewing! Nah, that’s just crazy talk.

I’m still stuck on a name though. Right now I’m a lawyer, so maybe “The Wine Lawyer.” That could work. Or maybe “The Wine Public Defender!” Sticking up for your wine rights at no charge! Oh. That’s not quite right, either, but I think I’m getting warm. I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, I have to go and read the interview with Robert Lawrence Balzer in the new issue of “The Advocate.” Can’t wait.

July 1978

For practice, I’ve already started writing wine reviews. They’re dazzling, with lingering notes of thesaurus and echolalia. But I think I need some kind of ranking system so that my readers will know which wines I prefer. Writing reviews is easy for me, I have the nose of cadaver dog and and the vocabulary of William F. Buckley, Jr. getting a blowjob from Farrah Fawcett, but the wine descriptions will be the least important part of my new wine publication, “The Wine Closet.” (Not yet sure of that title, but the Balzer piece inspired me.) What will be important is the ranking system I employ. The ones out there right now don’t appeal to me. The 20-Point Scale is for academics. Everyone hates academics, even more than they hate lawyers. And, besides you have to spend all this time assigning numbers to crap that doesn’t matter, like aroma and clarity. Hell, I go to the john for aroma and clarity. Besides, I want to review hundreds and hundreds of wines in every issue of “The Wine Dandy.” (Getting closer…) Having to pay close attention, and then doing a bunch of addition, just won’t cut it.

And then there’s those guys out in California who rate wines with “stars,” though they look more like pasties for hot, busty Smurfs, or those rubber thingies you put in your bathtub so you don’t slip. Doesn’t matter, but that’s a damned stupid rating system. Wines have to go up higher than three. Three’s not a number that catches your attention. “Why, this fantastic wine is a 3!” That doesn’t make anyone want to buy it. Those guys are stupid. Maybe 100 would get your attention, but not 3. I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it some more.

I didn’t know it would be so hard to start a new wine publication.

August 1978

The 100-Point Scale! It was there all along! I can be so stupid sometimes, like when I bought all those ’72 Bordeaux futures. I’ll rank my wines using a 100-Point Scale. It’s genius. Everybody who went to public school knows that 100 points is a perfect score. Oh, I won’t give out 100 point scores very often. That would cheapen them. When you only have three crummy stars to award, well, you have to give three stars a lot. There just aren’t that damned many scores. There are only THREE! Duh. I’ll have 100 points. I’ll award 100 points maybe a couple of times a year. Any more than that and, well, I’d look like a profligate jackass. Oh, this is really gonna work great.

So now I just have to make up an explanation of how I arrive at my numbers for wines. No problem, I have a law degree, making up specious explanations comes under, “Previous Job Experience.” Now I’m just free-ballin’ it here, but let’s just say I start at 50. A wine gets 50 points to start with, kind of like how you get $200 when you start playing Monopoly for no apparent reason. Yup, 50 points, and then I start rolling the dice. Just off the top of my head, let’s say I give up to 10 points for color. Color doesn’t mean shit in wine, but I need to jack up the points, so let’s say 10. What the hell would a wine look like that got a 3 for color? Who knows? Who cares? It would have to be orange. Yeah, like orange wines make any sense.

Of course, for aroma a wine can get up to 20 points. It doesn’t really matter. I’m not ever going to actually assign numbers for color, or aroma, or intensity, or finish, or anything else individually. I have a life, for Christ’s sake. It’s only wine. But the 100-Point Scale needs to have the appearance of objectivity. Otherwise, people will think I’m just making the numbers up. Which I am, but I don’t want them to think that. It won’t take long, and I’ll know exactly what “87” smells and tastes like. Scoring for color and aroma and texture and balance and length? You can’t give numbers to those things. That’s crazy. I’ll just give a number to the wine.

Oh, I’m getting a good feeling about this. If I work hard enough, everyone will rely on my new wine publication. Everyone will want a subscription to “The Wine Probe.”

The Supreme Court of Wine Rules

The Supreme Court of Wine ruled on some important issues this week. Arguments before the distinguished Justices were animated and contentious, but Chief Justice Parker continued to exert his unprecedented power over the other Justices. There has been much speculation that Chief Justice Parker may be stepping down soon, but in a written statement, Parker wrote, “I won’t be stepping down until I’m dead, and even then it’s not a sure thing. I may continue to review wines after I’m dead. Hell, Laube’s doing it, why not me?” Parker has been Chief Justice since 1982, when he was unanimously self-appointed.

Here are the most important rulings to come from the Parker Court in 2015:

In the case of Consumers vs. Bordeaux En Primeur, the Court ruled 7-1 against Bordeaux. Chief Justice Parker wrote for the majority, “I’ve ruled in favor of Bordeaux 37 goddam years in a row. I made those clowns, and in the twilight of my career, I intend to break them. I tasted so many doctored wines out of barrel over the years I should get an honorary M.D. Buying wine futures based on a barrel tasting of Bordeaux is like buying a Thoroughbred based on sniffing the horseshit. It might tell you something, but mostly it tells you you’re one step removed from an asshole. The En Primeur system is broken. Buying wine En Primeur is like paying for an expensive hooker and getting a blowup doll instead. The inflation kills you. Only an idiot would participate in this old Bordeaux sham. So I’m sending Justice Neal Martin in my place.” The lone dissenter, Justice Perrotti-Brown wrote, “I’m in charge now, why isn’t anyone listening to me? I’m the only M.W. on this Court. Shouldn’t you all be bowing to me? I’m a Master of Wine, dammit, my opinions are indisputable. I wasted the best years of my life studying for those letters after my name. Listen to me! Since when do we favor the consumers? ‘Wine Advocate’ is just a figure of speech, like blind tasting—no one really believes it. In my view we should send our top talent to judge the 2014 Bordeaux out of barrel. Who’s going to buy expensive red wine based on numbers from Justice Martin? We owe it to the Bordeaux producers to promote their outdated system. After all, they certainly promote our outdated system.”

The Supreme Court of Wine’s ruling will have a significant effect on the Bordeaux market, although much depends on how well the decision is translated into Chinese.

In the case of Galloni vs. Larner, the Court ruled 7-1 in favor of Larner. Writing for the majority, Justice Squires said, “Listen, that pretty boy Galloni had to go. We all knew that. He just showed up here one day, years after I’d steadfastly been the head janitor in the chat room, doing the thankless job of cleaning up after that sausage fest, what a Macy’s Parade of hot air wine balloons that gig is, and he gets all the plum jobs—Italy and California—while I’m tasting stinking Portuguese wines. Yeah, Portuguese, like that’s where all the glory’s at. Well, he can kiss my low-hanging Baga and floss with the hairs. If you ask me, it was always a setup so he could make enough dough to buy Tanzer. Oh yeah, all the critics say they can’t be bought, what does that tell you? We’ve got Justice Larner now and she knows Italian wine like a horny pig knows truffles. Did I mention I’m a lawyer?” The only dissenting vote was Justice Larner, who wrote, “For the love of God, help me.”

In the case of Singapore vs. Return on Investment, the Court ruled that Return on Investment had no standing. Chief Justice Parker wrote, “I’m not sure how they expect to make that money back, but that’s not my problem. I’ve already blown that money on foie gras and cases of Just for Men® for this half-ass beard. Justice Perrotti-Brown has to worry about it, but this Court rules that she also has no standing—she’s sitting on her ass like the rest of us. Hahahahahaha. I don’t know how Singapore intends to win with this set of second stringers sitting next to me. We’re now the damned Oakland A’s of wine, and I’m Billy Bean-o, trying to keep this place from smelling like Natural Wine. It used to be Schildknecht and Galloni, a helluva lineup, now it’s Dunnuck and whoever that guy in Spain is, Pancho Something-or-Other. Campo, Pancho Campo. No, that’s not right. Whatever. Who are these guys? Not that it matters, I’m cutting back. I’ve got my little nest egg, and my stellar reputation as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Wine, the most powerful man in the wine world, so all I have to do now is have these occasional meetings and pretend the other Justices matter. Which no one believes, of course, but Singapore held up their end of the deal, so the least I can do is pretend I’m handing my empire over the ’27 Yankees instead of the ’62 Mets.” Justice Perrotti-Brown issued a second opinion, writing, “As the sole M.W. on this esteemed Court, why is it no one cares what I say? I know more about wine than the rest of this Court combined. I’m the smart one. Well, yeah, OK, I see it now. However, the Singapore investors are entitled to a return on their investment, though it’s becoming more and more unlikely. But I’ve got ideas. And not just that glossy ‘100 Points’ magazine. No, I have a lot of moneymaking ideas. What about glassware? There’s money in glassware. The Chief Justice Parker Bordeaux Wine Glass Collection—whatever you do, don’t drink out of the 89 glass, the wine will smell like failure. How about lunch food? Come on, lunch food is a huge deal. What wine lover doesn’t want to have a Perrotti-Brown and Jelly sandwich for lunch? I’m thinking Action Figures! Kinda like G.I. Joe. We can call it Upper G.I. Joes. Collect the whole set! Parker, Dunnuck, Martin, Gutierrez, Larner, Perrotti-Brown, Reinhardt, Squires--well, we won't make a lot of Squires. We'll make a killing! But remember, 'Scores sold separately.'”

The Emperor in Winter

For more than thirty years I was the most powerful critic in the history of the world. I say that with complete humility. There were many critics in my chosen field, but they were to me as carbuncles are to my hairy butt—I never saw them, but they were forever riding my ass.  My words alone were enough to make fortunes, while their weak exhortations were the critical equivalent of Bitcoin—imaginary money, imaginary influence. I declared geniuses and goddesses in an occupation that otherwise generated only pretenders, robots and dinosaurs. I found no joy in being the most powerful critic in the history of the world. I’m glad to be done with it. I hope to miss it someday.

Now that it’s over, I can reflect on my accomplishments. With the clarity of hindsight, I can see the reach of my influence. Wine will never see my like again. The world has changed. I began in the print era, when reviews had the timeliness of messages in a bottle. Reviews had to be delivered by the Postal Service, which is like wiping your nose two weeks after you sneeze. Really doesn’t do anybody any good. Every review seemed to be published months too early, or weeks too late. There were only a few important regions to cover—Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa Valley, Tuscany, and the Rhône Valley. No one bought German wine. They still don’t buy German wine. Who buys German wine? German Riesling is the greatest white wine in the world that nobody buys. It’s the Edsel of wine. It’s the Betamax of wine regions. It’s the Conan O’Brien. I drink it about as often as I read Decanter. Which is also too often cloying.

I was in the right place at the right time. Wine publications are in their death throes now. Many of them are magazine zombies, still stumbling around stiff-legged, eating the brains of their contributors, which are slim pickings, and not even aware they’re dead. They’re frightening consumers, all these wine critics walking around dead, still publishing scores when they should be resting in their Graves. And now the zombies are eating other zombies. Vinous devoured the brains of International Wine Cellar to create a super-zombie. Tanzalloni! Tanzalloni wants to become the most powerful critic in wine, but even a super-zombie is still the walking dead. Even a team of Tanzalloni zombies walking the wine regions of the Earth won’t have the power that I once possessed. Everywhere they go there is the smell of death on them, a smell that will not go unnoticed by winemakers. Marketing people won’t smell it, of course, they’re used to the smell of death, having killed truth a long time ago. But the wine world has begun to notice that there are nothing but magazine zombies among us, and that their days of walking the Earth, dead or undead, are numbered.

When I ruled the wine world, people knew what to expect. “Integrity” was my middle name. Even my severest critics at the end of my career acknowledged that. They always referred to me as “R.I.P” in tribute to it being my middle name. When I had all the power, the wine world was a simpler place. I made it that way. I introduced the 100 Point Scale to criticism. What’s simpler than that? I understood before anyone else the wine-buying public’s deep-seated need to be shallow, their passion for the easy answer, for shortcuts to expertise, their love for distilled wisdom, their willingness to pay for someone else to make them seem savvy to their friends. I wrote complex and florid tasting notes to go with the scores I awarded, but I knew that those notes were read about as often as Miranda rights in Missouri. It was the numbers that were magic. Wine doesn’t have to be complicated, the numbers said. No wine is unique, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. No matter what, they all have numbers, somewhere between 80 and 100. Only 21 different kinds of wine. Even you can understand that. This is my proudest accomplishment.

When I was at the peak of my power, wine knew it had to answer to me. When I awarded a wine 100 points, everyone knew how to make a great wine. Before I came along, the wines of the world were all over the place stylistically. This was stupid and confusing for the average consumer. Imagine that every time you read a James Patterson book it was different! How annoying would that be? You want it to be the same formula every single time. Same with Bordeaux, or Australian Shiraz, or Super Tuscans. Thanks to me, the average consumer can go to his local wine shop and buy a $150 Napa Valley Cabernet that will taste exactly like the last $150 Napa Valley Cabernet he purchased! Sure, there’s some variation, winemakers aren’t perfect, they don’t really know a 96 point wine like I do, but it will be pretty damned similar. Again, I’m proud of this. I standardized Bordeaux and California, Oregon and Washington, Spain and Italy.  There may be 5000 different grapes, but, dammit, there are only a handful of styles. Someone had to do it. It was chaos when I started. Someone had to set some standards. I was to wine what The New York Times Book Review is to literature. Its savior.

And now I’m through. I refuse to become a zombie. Let the damned Singapore mafia be the zombies, I’m finished. I’m the Emperor in Winter. I leave the wine criticism to the current tribe of zombies—Laube, Robinson, Olken, Meadows, Teague, McInerney, Bonné, Asimov… Be careful out there, wine lovers, they’re here to eat your brains. McInerney will probably go for your nuts, too. As for who will replace me, and the zombies still walking the Earth, I don’t know who that will be. Surely not the feckless and tiring voices of the Internet, that loud chorus of poodles barking into the darkness. If they ever move the needle, it’s just the irritating sound of it scratching along the surface of the LP. Their influence is that of a single Saccharomyces in a puncheon of hedonistic Syrah—not measurable or unique, and destined to die once all the sugar has gone. And the sugar is almost gone.

No, there will never again be a most powerful critic in the world. Oh, certainly wine will endure. People will still buy according to the 100 Point Scale—it is so stupid it is immortal. But wine will be adrift. Lost. Untethered. Wine drinkers will have to fend for themselves, try to understand wine on its own terms, find their own measure of its quality.

More’s the pity.

You Get a 100 Points! And You Get a 100 Points! And YOU Get a 100 Points!

“You get a car! And you get a car! And you get a car! And YOU get a car! Everybody gets a car!”

The unforgettable opening show of “Oprah!” circa 2004. Oprah Winfrey giving away a car to everyone in her studio audience that day. The screaming materialists out of their minds with greed. Oprah as the Car Fairy. Just as DeBeers convinced everyone in the 1920’s that diamonds proved eternal love, because nothing says love like dead Africans, the car companies have shown us through game shows and talk shows that the jackpot in life is truly, “It’s a brand new car!”

In the wine business, we now have the largesse of Robert Parker.

“You get 100 points! And you get 100 points! And you get 100 points! And YOU get 100 points! Everbody gets 100 points!”

100 points is the Brand New Car! of the wine business. And just like a brand new car, once you drive a 100 point wine off the lot and take it home, it’s instantly worth a lot less. It’s instantly a 96 point wine, for the most part because the jackass that bought it knows almost nothing about wine, which devalues it immediately.

I’m the type of contrarian who thinks there aren’t enough wines awarded 100 points. In just the past month I’ve had sixteen wines I rated 100 points. That’s 16 out of the 20 I tasted. That seems about right to me. Now, many critics make the mistake of thinking that 100 points equates to “perfect.” Idiots. There’s no such thing as a perfect wine. If there were a perfect wine, I’d know about it. A wine that’s rated 100 points isn’t perfect any more than the clown who gave it 100 points is perfect. So I say give out more 100 point scores! 99 is so last century.

Everyone hates the 100 Point Scale. Everyone. We all know it’s stupid, but it has become necessary, so some people feel the need to defend it. Sort of like when George W. Bush was President. From every standpoint, its integrity, accuracy and honesty are indefensible. From a logical standpoint, from a scientific standpoint, from a practical standpoint, it’s nothing more than shorthand. We see it, we know what it means, we know how to translate it, it’s the coin of the realm. It’s easy to understand, which is its only redeeming value. Just like when someone gives you the finger. That’s shorthand, too, and easy to understand. In practice and in essence, the 100 point scale serves to give the wine consuming public the finger. Which, by the way, they richly deserve.

But like a lot of things we know are stupid but love—professional football, “The View,” Jim Carrey, the Academy Awards—the 100 point scale feels like a necessity. The argument in its favor always begins with, “The public loves it.” Like that’s a good argument. The public used to love a good public hanging. Many folks are still nostalgic for a good ol’ country lynchin’—witness Fox News talking about Obama. “The public loves it” is something Michael Vick probably said when he was busted for dog fights. The public “loves” the 100 point scale. Yeah, that’s a valid argument.

I wish there were more 100 point wines. A lot more. Ones I could afford. But not 100 point wines from all the wannabe critics. James Suckling gave 100 points to a piece of goddam luggage, which automatically disqualifies him from serious wine critic consideration, so his 100 point wines don’t count. I carry around my wine glasses in a beat to shit old cardboard box which couldn’t possibly rate higher than 72 on the Suckling/Ferragamo scale. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a brilliant idea to store wine glasses in fine leather—helps to disguise the Brett. Someone tell me with a straight face that Suckling rating the glasses he designed for Lalique, and the Ferragamo briefcase they fit in, 100 points isn’t giving us the fucking finger. Which, by the way, we richly deserve.

I only wish I were still a working sommelier and some guy (it could only be a guy—women only buy Ferragamo shoes) came into the restaurant carrying his wine glasses in a brief case. I’d immediately ask him, “Will your dummy need a chair, Mr. Winchell?” If you have wine glasses in a brief case, you’re an asshole. Period. Hey, have you heard? The people who make the Rabbit™ now have a new product called the Gerbil™. Guess where it helps you store your corkscrew.

And I don’t want any Tim Fish 100 point wines either. Or Burghound. No fish, no hound. Sounds like my love life. Burghound was duped by Dr. Conti, and you want his recommendations? That’s like asking for sex tips from the French diplomat in “M. Butterfly.” Hey, not me, I know boobs when I see ‘em. So did Rudy. Rudy and the French diplomat had the same problem in the end—they had to deal with a Koch.

Well, let’s be honest. I want a lot more 100 point wines from Parker. Not Laube, not Molesworth, not Tanzer, not Donner or Vixen. I’d like it if Parker threw 100 point scores around like wine competitions mint brand new Gold Medals. Anything under $30 and I’m in. I want to have a 100 point every night of the week, and I think it would be good for the wine business. Why is everyone so worried about score inflation? Shut up about it. You should be worried about score deflation. What if we wake up one day and the newest Wine Advocate doesn’t rate a wine over 85? Now what, wine marketing geniuses? Now how do you sell wine? On merit? On actual quality? On your own tasting acumen? Good luck with that.

So please, Bob, if you’re reading (yeah, right), be more generous with those points. Anything 95 and above, round up! (Wineries love Roundup.) As long as we have to live with the 100 point scale, make it a benevolent dictator. Everyone will complain at first, accuse you of having lost your mind and your palate, but they’ll come around. And if you do it, all the other kids will have to do it. The world will be awash in 100 point wines. Sounds like Paradise to me.

Robert Parker on The Road to Shanghai

World-renowned wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr will kick off his "Grand World Tour", hosting a series of interactive wine events, in Beijing on Feb 26. He will then head to Shanghai on March 1 and 2 and Hong Kong from March 4 to 6. According to Parker, the events have been designed to engage wine lovers at multiple levels. --from a press release 2-12-2014


Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. It’s great to be here in Shanghai, or as they call it in Bordeaux, “Our 2013 Warehouse.” My name is Robert Parker, and I’ve come to educate you about wine. I’m the most famous wine critic in the world. People say I am the most powerful tongue since Mao Tse. Tonight we’re going to learn a little bit about wine, how to evaluate wine, and how to recognize fake wines. The Chinese market is full of fake Bordeaux, just like the wine world is full of fake experts. How can you tell the difference between genuine and fake? Easy. The smell. Have you even met James Suckling? Oh, but I kid…

Now, listen, everybody and his goddam assistant winemaker is making their way to China to try and get in good with you people. Man, there’s a lot of you, and you know what those guys are seeing? Dollar bills. Moolah. Yen. They got a yen for your yen. They’re dreaming of yenburgers and yengasms. They want yen lining in their designer pants pockets. They’ll put their sticky fingers in your sticky buns. Translate that, weird guy making hand signals behind me. Don’t I know you from the Mandela funeral service? They’re all going to tell you their wines are the most prestigious, most desirable, most famous wines in the world. Don’t believe them. It’s my job to tell you what the most prestigious, desirable and famous wines are. Listen, I do it for white people, I can do it for you.

I started my publication, The Wine Advocate, back before Bordeaux was important. Just to give you a little background on the history of Bordeaux, there was a Great Classification of Bordeaux Vineyards done in 1855. Then nothing much happened until I declared 1982 the greatest vintage ever. You know, really, you don’t want to drink the wines from before that. They may have been good, but who was there to really notice? Sure, a bunch of British guys, but, well, these were primitive wine critics who were unable to use the 100 Point Scale. It’s hard to believe, but most of the Bordeaux produced between 1855 and 1982 were never evaluated using the 100 Point Scale. So buying those wines would be like having sex with a porn star who hasn’t recently had a blood test.. Think of the 100 Point Scale as your Guaranteed Condom of Wine Pleasure.

I can see that a few of you are unfamiliar with the 100 Point Scale. It’s the accepted measure of wine’s quality. It’s an easy concept to grasp. Think of it terms of Human Rights. Now, we start at 50 Points. Those are points awarded for simply being human. The Rights part isn’t something we take for granted. Add points for freedom of speech, for strict child labor laws, for freedom to worship any other wine critic or God, and so on. The highest points wins. So China would get 34 on the Human Rights 100 Point Scale whereas the United States gets a solid 93. OK, sure, we depend on your 34 for our iPhones and electronics and cheap clothes, but that’s a different story.

Wine works about the same way. It gets 50 points for being wine. Well, it makes sense. When we taste wines for ratings, we don’t spend much time with them. In a sense, we taste them halfway. So by starting at the halfway point, 50, we’re making it fair. Then we add points for color and aroma and texture and intensity. Just random points, it’s not really very precise. It’s a little bit like judging at the Summer Olympics. That gymnast from the USA gets 9.9, while the gymnast from China gets 9.2. Why? Well, it’s the same reason Cabernet Sauvignon can get a 99, but a damn Beaujolais is never going to go over 92. One is just naturally better than the other. So, great vintage in Bordeaux? 19 perfect scores. Great vintage in Chile? Yeah, right, Chile. So it’s pretty simple.

Once you’ve grasped the idea of the 100 Point Scale, you’re almost a wine connoisseur. In front of you are six wines. All of them have scores, but they aren’t listed on your programs. Now, if you want to cheat, you can sign up for my eRobertParker website and look them up. I’d encourage you to do that. For only what it costs you to employ 300 young girls for piecemeal labor for an entire year, you can utilize my wine insight year round! That’s a remarkable bargain. And, you’ll also have exclusive access to the most interesting wine chat room on the Internet. See, there’s one thing I learned from your government—control Internet access! You guys were so far ahead of us on that one.

Now let’s taste the six wines. Start by sticking your nose in them. Put your nose in as deep as you can. Good! You’re just like the guys on my chat room! Notice the color, take some notes on what aromas you’re getting from the wine, now taste it. Hold it in your mouth for a while, let the wine bloom in your mouth, then spit it out. What did it taste like, how would you characterize the texture, how long was the finish? OK, now that you’ve asked  yourself those questions, fuck it. Give it a number. That’s what matters. The rest is just like the plot in a video game—window dressing. It’s all about scoring.

How many said 92 for the first wine, raise your hands? Wow, a lot of hands. Looks like a North Korean rally. And you got it right. Can you tell me what grape it’s made from? Of course not! And who cares? What is this, Chinese Jeopardy? Actually, I tricked you all a little bit. All six of the wines are 92 point wines! Yup. I know, amazing. 92 is a pretty rare number. I tell my contributors to think about a 92 point wine like you think about ballet—hell, you’re just pretending to like it. See, every score has its own personality. You’ll learn. Just taste these six wines. Yeah, I can see, most of you are pretending to like them. There you go. 92 points. I’m making it seem easy, but it’s really not. Imagine having to taste 150 wines in one day, AND give them scores. It’s not like these are imaginary numbers either. These are the real scores. See, really hard to do.

Now that you’ve learned how to taste wine, let’s talk a little about how to spot a fake wine. You can’t. Hard to spot a fake when you don’t even know what a real one looks or tastes like. But it doesn’t matter! Your Chinese friends don’t know either. And, really, what matters about wine isn’t its reputation, or its history, or its rarity. What matters is how much you paid for it. The same is true for subscriptions to wine publications. Or sex workers. If there’s a difference.

Wine is about ceremony and privilege. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Don’t believe idiotic statements like, “Just drink what you like.” That’s mealy-mouthed, Western society, democratic, Year of the Horseshit. The people who say that don’t know anything about wine. They’re just cheap bastards. Or worse—bloggers. Those morons.

I predict that one day, very soon, China will become the world’s largest consumer of the world’s greatest wines. Even if most of them are fake, so what? We’re just paying you bastards back for all the fake Chanel we buy.

Thank you and good night.

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.

The Godfather Parker and Pretty Boy: The Movie

The Story So Far: Don Parker has increasingly been feeling the ravages of time. His back hurts, his gout is acting up and his prostate is the size of Mary Lou Retton, and performing better backflips. He checks it constantly with his thumb. Don Parker’s power is waning, his once indomitable empire is challenged on every front, his influence is still powerful yet he wields it clumsily now, bestowing gifts of 100 points willy-nilly where once he bestowed fear and envy. Don Parker is used to being feared and revered, but now the talk is only of his age and weakness—he feels the wolves nipping at his heels, trying to separate him from the rest of his pack of critics because he is one of the old and infirm; and though they are all old and infirm, it’s more fun to take down the one who was always the most powerful. Plus, he’s the only one with any meat on his bones.

Don Parker has recently told his Family that he is selling his empire to an Asian Family. The Family is in an uproar. Things are made worse when he hands the reins over to the only woman in the Family, Donna Lisa “The Blowfish” Peretti-Brown. This is no business for a woman. The Parker Family fortune is based on the 100-Point Scale; most women don’t like scales. The Family sees it as a mistake. On top of that, a year earlier, Don Parker had been forced to make one of the Family, Jay “The Walrus” Miller, disappear. “The Walrus” got caught with his hand in someone else’s till, and Don Parker didn’t like it. “The Walrus” begged, he even blubbered (blubber is how he got his nickname), but Don Parker had no choice. In a powerful and poignant scene, Don Parker kisses “The Walrus” on the lips. “86,” he whispers to “The Walrus,” whose face shows he recognizes it’s not a score.

But now Don Parker’s favorite son, Antonio “Pretty Boy” Galloni, wants out of the Family. Don Parker had personally groomed “Pretty Boy” Tony to be his ultimate replacement, the new Don of the Parker Empire. But the impeccably mannered, yet headstrong and temperamental, Galloni doesn’t want to work for “The Blowfish” and her shady Asian overlords. He intends to leave, and take the Family secrets with him. As the scene opens, we are in Don Parker’s office in Monkton. Don Parker sits behind his desk, the head of “The Walrus” is beautifully stuffed and mounted on the wall behind him, with what appear to be the testicles of an M.W. dangling from his mouth. A plaque beneath says, “Miller Teabagging Campo.” Next to Miller’s head is a crucifix. It’s “The Walrus” and the Carpenter. Antonio “Pretty Boy” Galloni enters. Don Parker stays seated.

Don Parker:  Come in, Pretty Boy, come in. It’s nice to see you. How’s your wife? I’d stand up to greet you, Tony, but my back hurts from carrying Bordeaux all these years.

“Pretty Boy”:  My wife is good, Don Parker. She asks for you. She wants to know when  you’ll grace us with a visit.

DP:  Soon, I hope, Tony, soon. (He pauses.) Does she know about your decision to leave the Family?

PB:  (Tony is clearly shocked Don Parker knows of his plans to leave.) No, I… I haven’t told anyone. I wanted to speak to you first, Godfather. How did you know?

DP:  I know you like I would know my own son, my own flesh and blood. I gave you life, Tony, I made you somebody. I gave you money and power and the knowledge to abuse it. And this is how you thank me? (He glances over his shoulder at “The Walrus.”) You take everything and just walk away? Is this how you show your gratitude to me, and to the Family?

PB:  (humbly) Godfather, I always told you that I wouldn’t do contracts. Didn’t I? Didn’t I always say, “I don’t do contracts?”

DP:  (quietly) You come to me, how many years ago now, Tony, three? And you’re tired of being nobody, your little publication, you’ll excuse me, it’s shit. Twelve guys and a chimp read it, and the chimp wants a discount because he’s a blogger. So I give you a real job, I hand you my name and my reputation, I teach you how to use the 100 Point Scale the way a man uses the 100 Point Scale—like you use your salami on a woman, Tony. It’s the tip that matters. 95 to 100, the tip, that’s what gets you in. In return for all that I’ve given you, Tony, you won’t do a contract? I’m the Don of this Family. If I say contract, you do a contract.

PB:  (deliberately) I cannot work for “The Blowfish.” This was never a part of our Family, Godfather. (now angrily) You sold the Family! You sold it and took all the money. And then you ask me to work for some Asians and a woman? Like I’m some miserable Napa Valley winemaker? No, Godfather, I have my pride. Why couldn’t you have made one of the other family members Don?

DP:  Who, Tony, I ask you, who? David “The Windbag” Schildknecht? Mark “The Pretender” Squires? Neal “Buttkiss” Martin? Come on, Tony, it was supposed to be you. Don Antonio. But you couldn’t wait, you couldn’t just sign a contract and wait until I die. No, you had to try and kill your Father, betray me, betray the entire family. For what? Another of your shit publications? I know you, Tony, I knew you would try to leave. So I gave my title to “The Blowfish.” To teach you.

PB:  (A long pause, Tony trying to stared down Don Parker.)  I’m leaving, Godfather. I ask you for your blessings.

DP:  (he is thoughtful) If you go, Tony, you must not take anything of the Family with you. You must not betray any of our secrets, our codes—the Family business stays here. This you must swear to me on your life, on your wife’s life.

PB:  But I must use the 100 Point Scale. That is no secret, Godfather. Everyone uses the Scale, it is not yours.

DP:  I will not have you abuse it!

PB:  Abuse it?! You’re the one who abuses it, Don Parker! Everyone, all the other families, the Strums, the Shankens, they’re all talking about your abuse of the Scale. They want to destroy you, Godfather. But, no, you’re smarter than they are. You’re destroying yourself first. Handing out 100 point scores like they’re Cuban cigars to celebrate that you’ve screwed another wine region.

DP:  It was you, Pretty Boy, who didn’t hand them out often enough. You disappointed me, Tony. In front of everyone, you insulted me. Lowered my scores, MY SCORES!, on wineries I made rich and famous. You made me a laughingstock. Made me look like a tired, bloated old man. And now this. You leave me, my lifetime of work paving a path for you, my money lining your pockets, my fame the only light your name has, and you leave me. Go, Tony, never darken my door again. I’ll have your head up there with The Walrus if you do.

PB:  I take my work with me, Don Parker. It was always mine. It was never yours. If you try to take it from me, I’ll give it away, and with it, all your secrets.

DP:  (wearily) Fine, Tony. No one gives a crap about Sonoma, or your scores for Sonoma. Even I barely showed my face there. Farmers, they’re just ignorant farmers. It’s Burgundy all over again. (He sits up straighter. There’s a long pause.) I want you to know I wish you the best of luck, Antonio. Come here.

(Tony walks over behind the desk. Don Parker slowly rises. He looks at him squarely in the eyes. Tony lowers his, and Don Parker gently kisses him on the lips.) 

DP:  Goodbye, Antonio.

(The music swells, Pretty Boy leaves, a look of satisfaction on his face. And as the next scene opens, we see Pretty Boy in bed, the sheets covered in blood. Tony awakens, feels and smells the blood. He begins to panic, his breathing accelerates, and when he throws the sheets aside we see the bloody head of James Suckling, his mouth wide open and his eyes bulging, as in real life.

Antonio screams.)

The HoseMaster's Application to be the New Pope

Dear Cardinal Perroti-Brown,

I am interested in applying for the recently vacated position of Pope at The Wine Advocate. I’m certain that the abdication of Pope Antonio came as quite a shock to you and God, but you’ve accepted the Pope’s decision in a graceful and classy manner. Hell, He’s God, no one should be surprised. OK, I probably shouldn’t have said Hell.

It is the Pope’s job to speak for God. Pope Antonio, if I may be so bold, was never convincing in that role. I’m pretty sure he broke many of God’s commandments. For example, “Thou shall have no other gods before me, unless it’s Michel Rolland.” And no one really took Pope Antonio seriously, his Papal declarations fell on deaf ears. Winemakers ceremoniously kissed his ring, but then made fun of him after he left. “Sure, he’s the Pope, but he doesn’t know the Oakville Bench from the Rutherford bus stop.” So, in my humble opinion, the Church of Bob is better off without Pope Antonio. Yes, the younger parishioners may have been attracted to him, he spoke their language, but young worshipers show little interest in the Church of Bob. They’re flocking to other, newer, hipper places of worship—Our Lady of Wine Dude, and that crazy Canadian Nat Out of Hell First Congregational (though I think they plagiarized the Church of Bob mass). The more established members of the Church of Bob, his Choirbuttboys, never felt the kind of respect for Pope Antonio the church needed. It was his age, for the most part, and, frankly, news of his retirement has invigorated the faithful. They eagerly await a new Pope, a Pope who clearly and genuinely speaks for God. I’m that man.

I understand that there will be a Papal Conclave convening soon to select the new Pope for the Church of Bob. Cardinal Neal will probably push for some creepy sort of M.W. to be the next Pope. Please, Cardinal Perroti-Brown (oh, I miss the days when Dr. Miller was part of the church and I could address you as P-B & Jay—who doesn’t love a good P-B & Jay?), do not overlook the fact that M.W.’s are the spawn of Satan, and worship at his altar. Allowing one to become Pope would spell the end of the Church of Bob, and evil will have triumphed. They say M.W. stands for Master of Wine, but that’s only what they say to the public. They are actually indoctrinated as Mammon of Wine—that’s what the M.W. really stands for, Ms. P-B, so be sure and remind Cardinal Neal of that.

Between you and me, Lisa (may I call you that?, I feel like we’re somehow soulmates), Cardinal David is probably on his way out too. All the damned German Popes are on the way out. No one cares about the German part of The Wine Advocate, no one ever has, not even God Himself. Cardinal David must know this. There’s even been speculation, I know you must be aware, that there was a reason Cardinal David was banished to the wasteland of Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. Ugly rumors about Choirbuttboy abuse, his obvious disdain and abuse of them in the Holy Chat Room of Squires. But though I think he’s been a wonderful Cardinal, and that those Choirbuttboys had it coming with all their constant whining, don’t be surprised if he uses the Papal Conclave to announce, like that traitorous Pope Antonio, that he’s starting his own church. Just what the damn world needs, more places of worship—Holy Galloni Chapel and Schildknecht Kirche.

Cardinal Squires will nominate himself. He always does. We’re all sick of him and wonder what God sees in him. My guess is that, hey, shysters stick together. But don’t let him be Pope, that would be disastrous. He’s a backwater Cardinal at best, so Portugal is the perfect spot for him. Who buys that stuff? Make him Pope and give him Bordeaux and California? We know that God works in mysterious ways, but surely He doesn’t consider suicide. That’s a sin, right?

Finally, a word of advice, don’t let those Three Wise Men from Singapore into the Papal Conclave. They just handle the collection plate, they don’t know crap about wine and who should be the next Pope. Tell ‘em there’s a manger in Bethlehem needs a remodel.

I’m hoping that you’ll present my name to the Papal Conclave. I believe that I would be a wonderful Pope, a Pope the worshipers would not only heed but come to love, as they love God Himself. If anything, I am overqualified to be the next Pope. I’ve tasted three vintages of Chateau Petrus yet for the past twenty vintages I’ve awarded them 98+ and higher. I knew Chateau Latour when it was just a little brick shithouse. I almost married Michel Rolland, but she called it off when she found out that “micro” was also my nickname… When you talk about California, my name always comes up. I live in California and am widely respected in wine country. I’ve met Monsignor Harlan and walked the holy land of Harlan Estate, felt the very presence of God, and witnessed the miracles of the pilgrims who flock there to find a cure for their extra cash. I know the Angel Krankl and the miracles of Ventura, how the Angel Krankl took the loaves of La Brea Bakery and turned them into holy wines scoring hundreds and hundreds of points, and his devotion to all things God. When Pope Antonio walked among the winemakers of California they admired him, his fine suit, his cool pointy hat, his magic scepter, his hot wife. But when I walk among them, they are joyous. Well, they laugh anyway.

When the white smoke finally rises from the Church of Bob, I pray that I am the newly elected Pope. Mine will be a lifetime appointment. I shall not use the Holy Parish to make a name for myself only to abdicate and begin my own church. May those Popes who do so rot in Lodi. I shall worship at the foot of God and faithfully convey his wishes and demands to his flock. I shall devote my life to the quest for perfection, just as God Himself would have all of us do. And I will find perfection wherever I go, I shall not be reluctant to award perfection as so many other churches are. Hundred point scores shall flow from me as wisdom flows from God. For that’s where the money is.

See you in Singapore!

Tuesdays With Bobbie

The last lessons of my mentor’s life took place every Tuesday in Monkton. There, lying in the shade of his gout-swollen ankles, Bobbie taught me about the Meaning of Wine. His lessons were drawn from his life, his experiences, his vast knowledge of the boundless gullibility of humans. There were no exams, no wine reviews to write, none of his buttboys around to affirm his omniscience. There was but one student. I was that student.

No grades were given, nothing on the 100 Point Scale, but one was expected to occasionally perform some physical chore. Moving Neal Martin around to where he was most comfortably Bobbie’s footrest. Chiseling years of foie gras from Bobbie’s navel. Adding three points to every Antonio Galloni score when he wasn’t looking. A kiss goodbye earned extra credit, though he had more chins than a Chinese phone book. There was no graduation ceremony. There was a funeral. With a coffin the size of his reputation, and the only mourners a newspaper photographer, the winemaker of Sine Qua Non, and Bobbie’s grieving father. Yes, only Snap, Krankl and Pop.

I had heard that my mentor was terminally ill. Outwardly, he appeared fine, but there were signs. He’d sold his most precious belongings--his publication, his editorial control, and his Lisa Perroti-Brown hand puppet--to three mysterious men from Singapore, one of whom looked suspiciously like Dorothy Lamour. The Wine Advocate was off on the Road to Singapore. Hilarity would ensue, but we’d be left without hope--and crosby. It certainly was a harbinger of Bobbie’s death.

His death sentence came in the spring of 2012. Bobbie had awarded nineteen wines his perfect score, an unheard-of orgy of critical sploogemaking. Wine critics recognized his creeping dementia, and they quietly began to whisper about it. They’d always done what Bobbie had done. Followed his every example, from his pithy, overblown, pornographic wine descriptions to his 100 Point Scale, they’d obediently followed his lead like he was Temple Grandin and they were cattle. They knew the steaks were high. Though it would leave the wine critics bereft and desperate for someone else to copy, they began to openly talk about Bobbie’s imminent death. The cattle stampeded.

I decided to pay a visit to my wine mentor. Bobbie seemed fine to me at first glance, hale and chipper, suitably snockered for ten in the morning, and he greeted his prized blobber warmly. “HoseMaster,” he said, “it’s wonderful to see you. Make me laugh and I’ll pee my pants for you.” Judging by his pants, he’d already had a few chuckles that morning. And one serious damn guffaw.

“Good to see you, too, Bobbie,” I said. It was his response, the clarity of his dementia, that broke my heart. “2013 was the greatest vintage of my lifetime in Napa Valley,” he said. “And I have a small fortune in Twinkies in my sphincter. Will you come every Tuesday?”

Though something was clearly eating his brain (I suspected that Zombie Stephen Tanzer, whose palate was clearly that of the walking dead), there were many hours Bobbie was lucid. He would speak eloquently about wine, about wine criticism, and about life. It was never stated, but it was clear that I was meant to be his last voice, share his fading wisdom with a world starved and ignorant when it comes to the bounty of the grape. Yes, there was a bounty of the grape, and Bobbie was our Captain Bligh, listing starboard and besotted with Port.

“Wine,” Bobbie said to me, “is proof that God loves us, and hates Mormons. Wine is meant to deliver pleasure. Pleasure is wine’s only job, like a cheap whore. Always remember this, HoseMaster, and your life in wine will be infinitely finer--wine is a cheap whore meant only to deliver pleasure and then be tossed aside. You can dress it up, you can make it look like Julia Roberts, but it’s still a whore. But how does one measure pleasure? Answer me, HoseMaster. How?”

“A fake scale?”

“Yes, Grasshopper, you have learned well! But you miss the real point. Just like with a cheap whore, deep down you always fear your own performance when it comes to wine. The scale, your assigning an imaginary and wholly worthless value to that wine, that cheap whore, validates your wisdom and knowledge and virility. Always seek control of wine, my friend, not mastery. Leave the ‘mystery’ of wine to the sissies, the lazy thinking proponents of Natural and Authentic wines. Let them talk about their ‘journey’ like they’re actually going somewhere, the cretins. You don’t need to master wine, you simply need to judge it. Gods don’t master, Gods judge.”

Naturally, there came a Tuesday when I asked Bobbie about his love for wine, his obvious passion for what is, after all, mere alcohol dressed like a six-year-old beauty pageant contestant.

“Maybe I just had to love something,” he said. “Wine has prestige and status, though no one understands why. Like soccer. We are defined by who we love, what we love and how we love. Love is the yeast that transforms us, and makes us palatable to other people. Without that yeast, we just smell like old barrels. Did I choose wine, or did wine choose me? There is life’s mystery. I like to think we’re one. I am wine, HoseMaster, and wine is me and only me.”

On our last Tuesday together, Bobbie had a few parting thoughts for me. I think he felt Death was near, though James Laube had just left and, well, he does that to most people, and he had a few truths to share one last time.

“Remember to dance, HoseMaster, preferably with your pants down. Remember that it’s only wine, and it’s only numbers—it's just fools and rich white guys that think they go together. Remember that love and wine have one thing in common—when you’re clueless about either one, just make shit up. No one will ever know.”

God Sells His Kingdom

By Jose Saramago

Translated from Portuguese by Ronaldo Jose Meister

When God, who, when he is roaming the Earth tasting all the important wines his only son Jesus, who died for your sins, so in the future could you please make your sins at least worth dying for, is in charge of making, goes by the name of Bob, sold his kingdom to three guys from Singapore, all God’s children were stunned. God didn’t care about his children. He hadn’t cared about his children for a very long time, not even the ones that came to worship at his virtual heaven where they would heap praise upon his wisdom like one heaps more shit on a pile of manure. You have to heap that crap somewhere, and God had a loathsome Squire to carefully monitor it, a simple mark who believed nearness to God gave him remarkable powers, though it didn’t, he had little skill, but God wanted him to believe he had those powers, and the Squire was more than happy to believe him. Three wise men had appeared to Bob just as they had wisely appeared at the birth of his only son Jesus, guided by one of Bob’s dying stars, as though following dying stars was the smart thing to do, a mistake similarly engaged in by all of those jackasses at Bob’s virtual heaven website. Two thousand years ago those three wise men had brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, though how myrrh could be considered a baby gift God could never figure out, so he sent that wise man straight to Hell, Hell being one eternal baby shower, but this time around those three wise men had brought their checkbooks, and not just any checkbooks, but sycophantic, sizeable, Singaporean checkbooks. Bob was pleased. God doesn’t need money, he simply loves taking it from his stupider children, who send him money regularly in the form of a subscription, with the result that because the stupider children have given him money, they tend to believe his proclamations and commandments. No one believes advice that they haven’t paid for, though those that give free advice, for example, God’s lonely bloggers who believe they will one day replace Bob, are convinced that if they just act like Bob, talk like Bob, rate like Bob and, ultimately, bore like Bob, their advice will replace Bob’s. Ah, God thinks to himself, that old Oedipal myth I made up a few thousand years ago has them wanting to kill their father and sleep with their mother, poor things, not knowing that their mother is a flatulent bulldog, though if I gave her a hundred points they’d gladly pay to stick their arrogant noses behind her docked tail.

The three Singaporean wise men bearing checkbooks humbly approached Bob, and the first one, the tallest one, though he was shorter than the subscriber list at Wine and Spirits, acted as spokesman for the three. Bob, he began, we worship you and love you and we want to buy your kingdom, all of it if you’ll let us, but if you only want us to give you money for a portion of your holy kingdom we are prepared to do that, we only want your poor children living in ignorance of your wisdom and guidance in these Bobforsaken Asian countries to have their eyes opened to your word, and that’s not a racial slur for we are of that race and we can say that just like it’s OK for essentially dead wine writers to declare wine writers dead. God was silent. Please don’t misunderstand, the suddenly nervous spokeSingaporean continued, we only want to give you money, and we want to be able to say who will be your Popes and Bishops, your mouthpieces and surrogates, your blessed scribes, who, after all, have already sold you their own names and honor for the privilege of living in your Light, and so are meaningless to you, as they are to everyone who loves your kingdom and the kingdom of the grape, for there is only one Bob from whom all glory and adjectives flow, the rest is all steaming Schildknecht.

When God spoke, the three wise men quaked, for they had only ever dreamed of being in the presence of Bob with their checkbooks, and never really believed that they would be granted an audience with the holy father, for they had never made wine like his only son Jesus and his adopted son Michel, who breathed the very oxygen God had created into his wines so as to make them more holy to his adopted father, and God was pleased with his adopted son, and not so much with Singaporeans, unless they had large checkbooks. Many people, God said, want to buy my kingdom, but they all live in the world I already command, the world most dedicated to loving Bob, a world where I am worshipped in the manner I deserve, my name on everyone’s lips, my lips on everyone’s wines, my words the best they ever hear or the last they ever hear, my commandments obeyed, Thou shalt not filter or fine, Thou shalt honor no other God before me, especially one answering to Marvin Satan, Thou shalt not enter my kingdom without a subscription, and my many other commandments. But you three wise young men come from a world where I long to be worshipped, where I long for my name to be uttered in the same hushed tones as those of Mohammed, Buddha and Wilfred Wong, where I want to spread my gospel of good living, gluttony, and the useless pursuit of perfection that doesn’t exist chasing false numbers that do, where I want to convince your kind, my lost children, to seek out what I tell them to seek out so that they will know truth and, to honor that truth, give me money, as you wise young men are willing to do, and so I will sell a portion of my kingdom to you, how’s a cool 20 mil sound?

We are humbled and honored to give you our money, holy Bob, money we have earned screwing so many of your little children in ways that would most impress you, we believe, and we thank you, and we promise to help spread your gospel, the gospel according to our wise and all-knowing father, to every corner of our land in order to make it your land, where your word is final, your Book of Numbers the holiest of books.

It is done, God said, but, my sons, may I inquire what it is you get out of this, aside from being forever associated with me, with all that is right and good about my kingdom?

Yes, Bob, replied the middle wise man, finally able to speak through his tears, tears generated by Bob’s very presence, his Light, or perhaps by his relentlessly slinging shit everywhere, I will tell you what is in it for us. We want to rule the kingdom with you as our God. With prior access to your bimonthly Book of Numbers we can invest more of our checkbooks in your wise proclamations, corner the market in all of the nineteen future perfect scores from the next great vintage in Bordeaux, accumulate even more money with these investments, reselling your perfect Bob wines to the stupid, cash-laden brothers in our land. It should be easy, the Singaporeans agreed, and we thank you, God, for all these blessings you have bestowed upon us.

The pleasure, God said, was gold mine.

Robert Parker's Vintners Hall of Fame Speech

Wow, W. Blake Gray and Alder Yarrow. Amazing. I had no idea they even knew who I was. Quite an honor. I mean, I’m in the Vintners Hall of Fame, but they’ve won Wine Blog Awards! You can understand why I’m so flabbergasted. It’s like your local meth lab voted you the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

"Ah, smells like mendacity."

I am the most influential critic of any kind who has ever lived. Unless you count Pol Pot. The kind of power I’ve wielded in the wine business for the past thirty years is remarkable, and will never be duplicated. Galloni? I give him ten years, tops. Then he’ll go nuts and give 19 100-point scores to the 2020 Baroli in exchange for some Armani suits and a 2006 Maserati, and that will be that. Mark Squires? Come on, give me a break. I tossed him the Portugal bone and look how the stock in those wines has plummeted. Squires makes Jay Miller look like a sentient being instead of the title role in “The Blob.” Schildknecht? The guy has the writing style of Wikipedia. You read a couple of sentences and wonder why the hell you started. And those are just my guys.

It’s always been a hobby for critics and writers to take potshots at me. Maybe I should take some Pol Potshots back. But at whom? James Laube? Please. They say wines I like are Parkerized. With Laube, they’re “Laubotomized.”  Will Jay McInerney ever make it to the Vintners Hall of Fame? That idiot? I will say this for him; he’s the one guy who figured out what I figured out a long time ago. Writing bullshit sells. Just tell them what they want to hear. It’s like politics. It’s like marketing. Always remember that the truth is fungible and serves at your convenience. Don’t be a slave to it. Oh, proclaim it to the heavens, put it in print, attach a number to it, give it the weight of your authority, but don’t fall in love with it. It’s the wine business. Truth in wine reviewing is like sulfites in wine—low doses of it are best. McInerney gets that. But he’s a pretender, a name-dropper, and even the Mammon worshippers who read the Wall Street Journal will tire of him. On the upside, at least he’s not writing novels any more.

It’s hard to imagine why it’s taken so long for me to be elected to the Vintners Hall of Fame. It’s harder to imagine why I should care. After all, it’s hard to say who’s been dead longest—Schoonmaker, Cesar Chavez, or me. I can tell you one thing I’ve noticed, they serve a lot of Frank Schoonmaker Selections by-the-glass in Hell.

I have heard that I was a controversial nominee for the Vintners Hall of Fame. Really? Nice to know integrity is a stranger here as well. No one has done more for California wine in the past 30 years. I’ve put more wineries on the map than Google Earth. My ratings have sold more California wine at ridiculous prices than the French Laundry. When I started reviewing California wines, Napa Valley Cabernets sold for about $20. Now you can’t buy Helen Turley’s bathwater for that. Which, by the way, I rated 93. It was totally unctuous. And you clowns weren’t sure I belonged here in this pantheon of self-promoting baloney? I’m the epitome of self-promoting baloney. I invented self-promoting baloney in wine writing, though Kermit Lynch has perfected it. But it appears you’ve gotten past your envy of my unprecedented critical power and have done the right thing. Really, I’m serious, do I get my own wing?

When I began The Wine Advocate, I never dreamed I would become so powerful. Here’s the thing about power, it’s really fun. You can totally screw with people and there’s not a thing they can do about it. Like the 100 Point Scale. When I started that scam, I was the only wine reviewer using it. Now everyone uses it, even those snots at Decanter, with their high and mighty M.W.’s. And we all pretend that the score is broken down into parts like Appearance (0 to 5 points) and Aroma (0 to 15 points) when all we really do is smell it, taste it, spit it out and declare, in our authoritarian voices, “89!” or “97!” Truth and sulfites, my friends, use them sparingly.

And I about peed my circus tent after I rated 19 different 2009 Bordeaux 100 Points! I always wanted to do that. Just throw around hundreds like Charlie Sheen at TrannyFest. That’s power. Oh, the outrage that spawned! How can there possibly be 19 perfect wines from one vintage? I don’t know, maybe because I said so. Don’t you know who I am? I’m Robert Parker. I’m in the Vintners Hall of Fame. I’m the most powerful critic ever.

Now where’s the fucking foie gras?

Parkergate: The Results of the Investigation Are In. We Won!

The Wine Advocate hired the firm of Spin, Misdirect, Obfuscate, Kneejerk and Evade (SMOKE) to investigate whether the conduct of Dr. Jay Miller had compromised the standards of independence expected by The Wine Advocate. We focused on two questions:

1. Did Jay Miller receive anything of value, other than money, prestige and complimentary burro rides, for visiting a winery, tasting a wine for review, or promising inflatable Robert Parker dolls to grateful importers?

2. How could there possibly be confusion between Jay Miller’s tastings conducted for The Wine Advocate and “private” seminars the jackass didn’t tell Mr. Parker about for which he was handsomely paid though he spoke in gibberish the whole time and mostly complained he didn’t get enough respect from those other jackholes that review wines from The Wine Advocate who call him Mr. Toad.

To answer those crucial questions in the manner expected, SMOKE reviewed documents, emails, invoices, cigarette butts, doctored expense reports, junk mail from erectile dysfunction cures, blog posts, financial statements, and old reruns of “The Cisco Kid.” All while still searching for Nicole Brown Simpson’s real murderer (who we now suspect is the blogger Jim Budd, but that’s ultimately only speculation). The investigation concluded that Jay Miller is simply stupid. This is not the fault of The Wine Advocate. It’s simple genetics. You can’t hold someone responsible for genetics. He’s a naïve idiot, and that’s what everyone whose ever met  him would tell you. We wish we’d never heard of him. In the light of all the evidence, SMOKE also has some recommendations for The Wine Advocate to avoid any future appearances of impropriety.

Jay Miller’s Assignment in Spain

After working with Pancho Campo, M.W. (“Crook”) and The Wine Academy of Spain (“Pendejos”) at a Wine Future event, Robert Parker asked Crook if he would be willing to help Toady with logistics and translations during his Spanish wine assignments. The only phrase Jay Miller understood in Spanish was, “Yo quiero Taco Bell!” Crook agreed to help, at no charge, though he seemed to have a severe twitch in his right eye. From that point on, Crook assisted Toady with the logistics of his trips, helping with itineraries, providing translators, and reminding him that 90 in American converts to 96 in Euros.

During the course of five trips to Spain, Crook provided three services to Jay Miller. First, he booked approximately 85% of Toady’s appointments for only a small service fee taken directly from the pockets of the member wineries of Pendejos. Our investigation concluded, shockingly, that no one at The Wine Advocate was aware of how deeply Crook was involved in the scheduling of Toady’s winery visits. They thought he was using Yelp. Second, he arranged for Jay Miller to speak incoherently to members of various regional Spanish wine associations in exchange for a speaking engagement fee of $8000 to $10,000. Had Dr. Miller not been associated with The Wine Advocate, his expertise in Spanish wines would have merited a fee of bus tokens and week-old tortillas. Oddly, he did request the week-old tortillas. In part, because of the language barrier and the tendency of the Spanish winemakers to laugh uncontrollably at Miller’s Spanish wine knowledge, Crook handled the contracts and negotiations. Again, there is no evidence that anyone associated with The Wine Advocate had any idea how stupid Jay Miller is. It is not incomprehensible to believe that a man with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology could be handily fooled by an M.W. An M.W. is exquisitely trained at fooling people. We get it, what’s wrong with you? The guy’s a dunce who doesn’t understand people, and Crook is a known con man. How is that The Wine Advocate’s fault? Third, Crook, as a practicing M.W. assisted Jay Miller in adjusting his scores, which was damned nice of him when you think about it.

No Evidence of Impropriety

Impropriety? No. Stupidity? Si.

The investigation spoke to many D.O.’s, private trade groups and winery associations and every one of them signed napkins to the effect that they were never under the impression that helping fund a lucrative speaking engagement for Dr. Jay Miller might possibly lead to a winery visit or favorable mention in The Wine Advocate. “What are we, Mexico?”

Furthermore, there was no evidence that Toady received any direct payments for visits to any wineries or organized regional tastings. Crook always took his cut first.

Jay Miller’s Resignation

Toady had planned all along to resign from The Wine Advocate. Hey, the guy’s stupid, but even he knows to quit while you’re ahead.

Recommendations

Based on SMOKE’s investigation, it is recommended that The Wine Advocate implement the following measures:

1. Award Higher Scores. In order to replace Dr. Miller in the eyes of the wine community while simultaneously deflecting criticism among Blobbers, The Wine Advocate should award higher point scores. 2009 Bordeaux would be a good place to start. Moron Blobbers will jump on that and forget all about this scandal, well, if it were a scandal, which it isn’t, that’s what we found.

2. Decline to publish Toady’s scores for Spanish wines written after June 30, 2011. Whether he was guilty or not, and we just convinced you he’s innocent and The Wine Advocate always knew he was innocent and, dammit, we were hired because he was innocent and they knew we knew how to make him innocent, his reviews should not be published. The Wine Advocate does not publish reviews from innocent contractors.

3. Continue the Practice of Actively Supervising Contactors' Reviews. Robert Parker occasionally conducts his own tasting of wines reviewed by his contractors, in general, but also, specifically, the highest rated wines. Not because he doesn’t trust them. No, why would he not trust a clinical psychologist to be a wine guru? Hell, Parker sometimes counsels families. Grace Family, Benziger Family, Jackson Family, Manson Family… Parker never once in the past took issue with Jay Miller’s ratings. This may require a separate investigation.

4. Make revisions to The Wine Advocate’s Writer Standards. Because, really, it isn’t made clear that working for the most influential and powerful wine publication in the world demands that you at least give the fucking impression that you’re not for sale. What are we, Mexico?

Parkenstein! Explains Perfection

THE VINTAGE

If you look back at the April 2007 issue, you’ll read that I predicted 2009 as the greatest Bordeaux vintage ever. That prediction has come to fruition. In my 35 years of reviewing Bordeaux, I have only declared 15 Greatest Vintages Ever. (I define “Ever” as Eternity, since I’ve been dead now for four years and intend to declare hundreds more Greatest Vintages Ever.) Ten of those vintages have proven unequivocally to be the Greatest Vintages Ever. The other five proved to be the Greatest Subscription Boosters Ever, and must, therefore, be considered extremely important. Personally, I think 2009 is the most important Bordeaux vintage of my career, primarily because it means no one is talking about that unethical fat jackass I fired a few months ago any more.

WHAT MAKES IT A GREAT VINTAGE?

The great oenologist of the Bordeaux Institute, Denis de Menis, lists five conditions that need to exist in order to have a great vintage. 2005, the Greatest Vintage Ever, only managed to achieve four of the conditions. 2000, the Greatest Vintage Ever, only managed three, but it was the Greatest Vintage Ever so it doesn’t matter. According to Denis de Menis, the five factors necessary to a great vintage are, (1) an early flowering which, in France, usually leads to a youthful deflowering and makes those old boys happy; (2) a healthy set, preferably perky nipples pointed at the North Star, and unrelated to the set that unethical fat jackass I fired has; (3) early veraison, which gets better reception than AT&T; (4) the grapes have to ripen fully which simply means that they have to ripen fully, what’s so hard about that, dimbulbs?; and, most importantly, (5) I say it’s the Greatest Vintage Ever. Only if (5) is true is it a truly great vintage.

HISTORIC PRICES DECIDED BY MY SCORES

Yes, the prices for the 2009’s, at the top level, will be in the $1000 to $2000 per bottle range. You’ll never get to taste these wines, so don’t bother to criticize how many of them I scored 100 points. You can pretend you’ve tasted them, like most of my buttboys in my chat room, but everyone knows you haven’t. For one thing, you’re not Chinese, and they’re the people buying these overblown caricatures of wine. For another, who would sell you these wines? You don’t have the clout. Just get over it.

The good news is that at every level, even the cru bourgeois of the Medoc, the 2009’s represent great wines that are great values. Don’t focus on the best wines, the 30-50 Classified Growths and the cult wines of Pomerol and St. Emilion, you can’t afford them unless you sell your daughter into the Thai sex trade (more on that in my next “Hedonist’s Gazette”). Instead, check out my glowing reviews for even the bottom tier of crappy ass Bordeaux (as I affectionately call it when I’m wandering through BevMo in my bath robe and laughing my ass off at Wilfred Wong’s ratings). These wines represent sensational bargains and will certainly drink well for many years, or at least until I rate 2010 as the Greatest Vintage Ever, at which point they’ll begin to taste like your biggest regret.

INFLATED EGO, OR INFLATED WINE SCORES?

I’m certain that there will be a tendency after reading through my report to believe that either I’ve changed the way I score wines or that I’ve succumbed to score inflation. This is certainly not the case. I score wines exactly as I have always scored wines—whimsically, and without any reproducible method. I find that this is the most accurate way to be largely inaccurate. It is my method to first declare a vintage the Greatest Vintage Ever, then I assign large numbers, rather creatively and unpredictably I like to think, to many of the wines, thus confirming it as the Greatest Vintage Ever. I do the same for “Wineries to Watch.” I declare them a Winery to Watch and a few months later I assign them, rather whimsically I think, high scores. Voila! I told you they were Wineries to Watch! My system remains the same.

Have I fallen victim to inflationary scores? Hardly. I only awarded 19 perfect 100 point wines in THE GREATEST VINTAGE EVER! This is remarkable restraint on my part.  But, want to hear something funny? Imagine the poor bastards I gave a score of 99+ to, I think there are about 15 of them. They’re going nuts now trying to figure out why they didn’t get 100 points. Pretty fuckin’ funny, don’t you think? What’s the difference between 99+ and 100? I can tell you in one word. Penmanship. But now all these crazy French Chateau owners will go nuts because 100 point wines are worth a LOT more money than 99+ wines. And a 94? In The Greatest Vintage Ever? Crap, that’s damn near worthless. So let’s stop this stupid talk of score inflation. You heard me. Just shut up, or I’ll sick my buttboys on you.

I invented perfect wines when I invented my 100 point scale. Until I came along, there were no perfect wines. I know perfect wines, and I’m telling you there are 19 perfect wines from the 2009 vintage. How do I define a perfect wine? I’ve always said that greatness is defined in wine by (1) the wine’s ability to stimulate the palate and the intellect in the 90 seconds I devote to deciding it’s perfect; (2) the difficulty normal people will have in obtaining it; (3) the ability to improve with age, especially financially; (4) me. The 2009’s indisputably meet these guidelines.

Much has changed since I first began reviewing wines professionally some 35 years ago. And by “professionally,” I mean I paid to have my notes published myself. I didn’t know crap about wine. Yet despite decades of being the King of Wine, admired and feared by everyone in the wine business; despite countless honors bestowed upon me by the French government, including a Lifetime Pass to Paris Disneyland and the much-coveted French Liver Society’s “Lesion of Honor;” and despite 35 years of tasting 150 wines a day, my palate and methods remain unchanged. Why would they change?

But wine, and especially the 2009's from Bordeaux, which I’m willing to stake my reputation on, is more perfecter than ever.