Parker's Pen

Latest letter in the Times (17 December 2012): 

Dear Sir,


Tony Phillips (letter, 14 December) decries the influence of Robert Parker on the fortunes of wine makers, pointing out that he only provides the opinion of one man (it is in fact often two, since Parker's former assistant, Pierre-Antoine Rovani, has written a number of important entries in Parker's guide books).

Ironically, Parker himself downplays the rise of "Parkerization" amongst vineyards trying to create wine to suit him as opposed to anyone else. In terms of tasting he stresses that "there can never be any substitute for your own palate nor any better education than tasting the wine yourself".

As one who is happy to do so Parkerization suits me well: having found my tastes differ from his, I find a lot of excellent wine is much cheaper than it might otherwise be.

 

A non-vintage case

Published in the current edition of the New Law Journal (vol 162, 17 August 2012, p 1094)


In 1976, the famous “Paris Tasting” took place in the French capital. Organised by an Englishman, Steven Spurrier, a selection of judges drawn from the haute société of French wine undertook a blind tasting and found, to their amazement, that they preferred unknown Californian wine to some classic French offerings. The event amounted to a watershed in the history of non-French wine: more than thee decades on, the shelves of wine merchants now heave with offerings from across the globe. As well as the New World, the event also benefited older regions, with the realisation that perhaps France did not have a monopoly on the best terroir after all.

One such older region was Hungary, whose tradition of wine making dates back to Roman times. In fact, Magyar has the distinction of being the only language apart from Greek which has a name for wine that is not derived from Latin. Hungary is best known for a dessert wine, Tokaji, and the arrestingly named red wine Egri Bikavér, or “Bull’s Blood of Eger.”

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Wine as art

Letter 08:

Sir, Professor Ian Fells (letter, April 13 ) complains about the price of a Château Pétrus, claiming that it is “a triumph of branding and salesmanship and very little to do with quality”.

With respect, Professor Fells misses the point. Fine wine is like art or music. The prices commanded by works by, say, Picasso and Van Gogh over countless others may have little to do with superior skill of the artist, still less the intrinsic value of the materials used, and everything to do with the preferences of the buyer.

While there might be broad agreement over what constitutes technical skill in winemaking, music and art, the value placed on individual examples by the market involves many more intangible factors, some perhaps quite irrational. Ultimately a bottle of wine is worth whatever anyone is prepared to pay for it, no more, no less.