In 1975, a young, studious Baltimorean who had fallen in love with wine after visiting France with his childhood sweetheart began writing his own wine guide. Inspired by American lawyer and consumer advocate, Ralph Nader, Robert Parker set about writing on wine without the conflicts of interest that he believed might taint the reviews of popular contemporaneous critics, who also made a living selling wine. In 1978, Parker published a direct-mail newsletter, the first issue was free to recipients on a mailing list purchased from wine retailer, Addy Bassin. Six hundred readers paid to receive the second issue published later that year, and by 1993 Parker had amassed almost 30,000 paying subscribers.
Parker’s meteoric ascension was catalysed by forthright, pithy, and engaging prose, plus a heavy-handed commitment to impartial and objective reviewing, which he regularly reinforced beginning with the first and second instalment of his wine guide, which was adorned with a corkscrew shaped as a crusader’s cross. As well as heaping praise on deserving wines, Parker was not afraid to level criticism on even the most celebrated chateaux; the 1973 Château Margaux was slammed as thin and acidic with a dull dumb bouquet, scoring just 55, whilst Parker’s dissenting take on 1982 Bordeaux catapulted him to superstardom.
All this independence came at great cost. From the beginning, Parker spent an extraordinary amount of his earned income and spare time on wine and travel. In 1976, whilst working as assistant general counsel for the Farm Credit Banks of Baltimore, Parker’s spending on wine regularly exceeded $4000 per year, a disproportionate sum which his partner Pat regularly lamented. Parker also spent his weekends touring liquor stores in Georgetown and his Friday nights blind tasting with friends at home. Vacations were also committed to wine, he and Pat would drive between wineries in Napa and Sonoma and frequently visit France, travelling between Cahors, Fronsac, Bergerac, Burgundy and the Rhone. By 1978, Parker would visit Bordeaux at least twice per year, tasting at more than two dozen chateaux each time.
Parker’s workrate grew more extreme after he left his law career, as did his spending. By 1986, he regularly spent almost 20% of the Wine Advocate’s gross revenue ($500,000) on buying wine for reviewing, equivalent to almost a quarter million dollars today. Travel grew more frequent and schedules more busy, so much so that Parker began organising large tastings attended by producers, negotiants and importers where many wines were tasted in quick succession. At his height, Parker claimed to regularly taste 10,000 wines per year, a single 1993 edition of the Wine Advocate featured 764 tasting notes.
For all his faults, Robert Parker kept producers on their toes and offered readers unfiltered and unrestrained commentary on the world’s greatest wines served up by a monomaniacal wine lover who went to extraordinary lengths to uncover great wine. Motivated by disdain for his contemporaries who he thought were ‘on the take’, rarely pointed out when properties were not measuring up, and were too often influenced by junkets and freebies, Parker offered unbiased reviews readers trusted were his own. And he wasn’t alone, Robert Finigan in his ‘Private Guide to Wines’ was similarly unfiltered, damning the 1971 Bordeaux campaign ‘as hysterical ballyhoo intended to keep prices up’.
Five decades after Parker’s first publication, unfiltered, prominent consumer advocates are all but a thing of the past, and wine journalism has gone full circle. Far from representing buyer’s interests, today, legacy wine media has a symbiotic relationship with the trade, increasingly reliant on advertising money, entrance fees for international awards, and producers willing to fork out hefty sums for stands at curated events. Some publications go further, offering explicitly anti-consumer offerings to trade partners, whereby retailers, importers, and wineries can access scores in advance of general release. Critics employed by the same publications are equally guilty, rampantly inflating scores in competition for favour with accommodating producers; publicity from retailers and merchants; and sales of stickers, certificates and reports. Such is the extent of this inflation, readers would be forgiven for thinking there simply are no bad wines—even cheap supermarket plonk outscores ’78 Lynch awarded 82/100 by Parker in ’98—or that many contemporary critics suffer from chronic publication bias, resulting in a near absence of anything resembling robust or instructive criticism in almost any major publication.
And, far from moving the market, many critics inexplicably inflate their own scores with suspicious expedience only once they’ve gotten wind of market interest from intrepid innovators of taste, who are frequently several steps ahead of their early adopting peers. Predictably, the writing resulting from all this is dreadfully vacuous, ranging from one critics preoccupation with bottle weight to top buys at discount supermarkets and an endless slew of tedious articles on sustainability and ethical affairs.
Online wine influencing is equally woeful, with an added dose of subterfuge and superficiality. Whereas Robert Parker refused sponsorship of any kind, bucked against the opinions of most other ‘experts’, and aimed to serve only the interests of wine consumers, ‘vinfluencers’ are in bed with the trade and incapable of critique or judgement for fear of losing favour with corporate paymasters at discount supermarkets and trendy marketing agencies. Under the auspices of accessibility and a selfless commitment to demystifying wine, gleeful Instagram personalities peddle gifted bottles, publish synchronised advertising campaigns, and lavish praise on whichever trade partners hosts the most extravagant dinner, all this with an abject disregard for consumer interest. Most notably, many of these ‘communicators’ are not in fact wine enthusiasts; one popular British ‘communicator’ admitted to me he had never visited a single wine region, and even fewer have worked harvests or spent their own cash stocking a personal cellar. None of this makes for trustworthy advocacy, instead, the wines we’re encouraged to drink are too often just those with the largest marketing spends.
If all this sounds dreary, it is. But there are glimmers of hope in new and established media. Under it’s current stewardship, the Wine Advocate—which is still funded almost entirely by subscriber fees—is hiring exciting talent, striving to temper inflated scores, producing insightful content, and promoting true journalistic integrity—Yohan Castaing’s recent skewering of the ongoing Brettanomyces problem at many Loire estates, including Clos Rougeard until 2023, is a noteworthy example. Select mainstream journalists are also using personal online platforms for consumer advocacy, like Eric Guido, who recently confronted the inconsistency of older Cappellano wines following a collector’s dinner. Whilst changing media trends and purchasing habits have contributed to the decline in independent wine journalism—there are hardly a handful of people alive making a decent living from writing—platforms like Substack, and features like Instagram’s Subscriptions are helping buck the trend, making it possible for writers and wine enthusiasts to publish independently; if my own email subscribers paid just £2 each per month it would total more than £6000 per month, significantly contributing to my ability to wholeheartedly pursue wine journalism. Some mainstream journalists, like Decanter’s Tom Hewson are already capitalising on platforms like these to supplement their own income. Independent wine enthusiasts with no commercial affiliations are also increasingly among the most reliable sources of unfiltered, unadulterated, and insightful wine content. From personal travel, dinners, and the contents of their own cellars, collectors like Cory Lipoff, Charlie Clay, Marcel Mühlberger, and Duncan Richmond, offer honest reviews of unattainable wines from their own collections plus well new discoveries and insights from extensive verticals and much more. The Wine Advocate’s editor-in-chief, William Kelley has remarked that the greatest threat to the Wine Advocate’s market share could be an industrious, wealthy enthusiast so inclined as to formalise their hobby.
Today, wine journalism relies increasingly on commercial relationships with trade partners, propagating an incentive structure largely unconcerned with consumer advocacy; unfavourable socioeconomic circumstances and technological ‘advancements’ mean that independent journalism is increasingly unprofitable, further disincentivising outspoken observers for fear of closing doors and falling out of favour with generous producers and marketeers. This landscape demands more of journalists and readers should we all want more trustworthy, stirring, and stimulating media. Journalists must be brave, putting drinkers first, challenging orthodoxy, and showcasing promising talent wherever they find it. Equally, drinkers must reward brave writers by celebrating those who put them first. Vote with your wallets, subscribe within means, and demand more of popular voices. The resultant separating of trade and journalism would do us all good. Down with the wine industry advocates!