The Auswine Forum

Well, I only lasted a couple of pages of the 8 or so, but it looks like another classic to while away time having a good laugh and exercising those shaking-the-head neck muscles.

Complete with a quote from TORBwine with the TORB converted to XXXX.

There are though some interesting comments from RPjr on "herbaceous" characters in wines.

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/sho ... ge=8&pp=30

Brian
Plenty of stupidness going on there at the moment. On the stupidness scale it's definitely a 93 point weekend there, though I acknowledge that there will be howls of anguish at 'points creep'.

Personally I'm happy there's so many tw*ts on that forum, as it means Robin Garr's (another US based) forum has the more level headed contributors.

regards

Ian

Yes, a good read. Page 4 is a scream.

Seems the thread relates to the 2002 Viking Grand Shiraz only getting 89 points from RP.

Viking are an interesting bunch that I discovered with their 1998 vintage. Very good wine for $25 CD, I bought some. Then they got 94 points from Parker and the price went to $30 and I bought some more, then it was $35, the 1999 was released $35, got 94 points from Parker, $40, next thing it was $50 and I'd lost interest. It mostly went to the US anyway.

A good case of not building (or burning) a loyal local base but just relying on RP points and the US market. Then the big crash back to 89 points for the 2002 and the US doesn't want it any more.

Guess what? They are now back in the local market for $30'ish. Probably still good wine, I'm trying the 2004 at Blacktongues this week so watch this space.

Thanks for the read. Although it was quite long (too long, as usual on Squires' board) I got much out of it:

1) No one there wishes to discuss the eventuality that Robert Parker may may a scoring mistake. This gives a sense at how many people blindly follow the Maryland guru... Not even Parker answered!

In the movie Mondovino, the producer of Mas Daumas Gassac (Aimé Guibert) had a great line about Parker... more or less like this:

"What I like is what is good"

With this as staring point, very little debate can happen about eventual mistakes: he liked it, it must be good!

2) Parker's brutal ignorance of Valtellina wines, not to mention Cahors, Madiran, Chinon, etc. One man can't cover the wine world... but he should have the decency to admit not knowning (and understanding) well some wine regions...

Anyone notice how defensive Parker gets when someone points out that there are “world class” wines that he has never tasted? And in this case I'm not sure that the guy receiving the brunt of RMP’s assault used world class as a descriptor – that seemed to be Parker’s qualifier. He did the same thing some time back with Aussie wines when there was some discussion that he had not tasted across the board of quality among Australian wines. I could be wrong, but it seemed like that led him to chase down Mt Mary, and rubbish it.

Mike

KMP wrote:Anyone notice how defensive Parker gets when someone points out that there are “world class” wines that he has never tasted? And in this case I'm not sure that the guy receiving the brunt of RMP’s assault used world class as a descriptor – that seemed to be Parker’s qualifier. He did the same thing some time back with Aussie wines when there was some discussion that he had not tasted across the board of quality among Australian wines. I could be wrong, but it seemed like that led him to chase down Mt Mary, and rubbish it.
Mike

Mike, I don't think there'd be too many he hasn't drunk at one time or another. He's been tasting wine full time for over 20 years - there'd be precious little that's escaped his notice by now - or at least precious little that's made in any kind of volume. He's probably a bit light on for the best of the recent Kiwi's, true, and there'd be any number of local garagistes that haven't crossed his table. But in the case of Australia, he's already decided that the best the country has to offer comes from Barossa, McLaren Vale, or fortified from Rutherglen. He's been here too, and obviously thinks that the Hunter, Yarra - most of Victoria, probably - even Margaret River are generally second rate, with the odd exception.

As for Mount Mary - well, RP made his reputation on two fronts; hailing those who were worthy but unrecognised, and trashing those who were living off their reputation (both in his opinion, of course). He's found plenty of the former in Australia, but other than some pot-shots at the non-Grange Penfolds range, not too much of the latter. A 'big name' that's not to his style makes the ideal target. Anyone expecting him to say especially good things about Yarra Yering, or Lakes Folly, or Brokenwood, Tyrrells, Wantirna, Bests, Bass Phillip, Leeuwin, Howard Park, etc. hasn't really been paying attention...
cheers,
Graeme

GraemeG wrote:Anyone expecting him to say especially good things about Yarra Yering, or Lakes Folly, or Brokenwood, Tyrrells, Wantirna, Bests, Bass Phillip, Leeuwin, Howard Park, etc. hasn't really been paying attention...
cheers,
Graeme

He's actually said some pretty good things bout Bass Phillip and Leeuwin (reds and whites) in last Aussie report....

Hi Graeme

Yes, I don’t think there is too much that he has not seen in terms of the best so its always difficult to call him on what he may or may not have missed. I would agree that he may not have seen all that much of New Zealand, but he is likely to counter that he’s looking for world class and he’s recently dismissed NZ in that respect. However so many others look at New Zealand SB as world class that you have to wonder. He’s also been noted to have missed the rise of west coast USA Pinot; although I’m not sure he missed all that much from what I’ve tasted.

I’m just tickled when someone mentions that he may have missed something. He rarely comments on his forum, but when these occasions occur he rises like a behemoth to cast a sizeable barb in the direction of the poster, usually in the form of a none too discreetly cloaked challenge. It really is a matter of “I’ve tasted them all, you don’t tell me what is great. I tell you.”

As for Australia, I’ve commented before that his experience is quite broad, more than I thought it would be. But the length of his experience is abysmally short. If you consider what he has recommended then he has tasted vintages back to 1952 but only 1 or 2 wines per vintage have been recommended up to 1986; this is mostly Grange. He made it to over 10 recommended wines with the 1989 vintage and over 100 with the 1995 vintage. If you want to be generous then you can multiply these numbers by 3 to get an approximate number of wines tasted, although I think the early vintages are just from Grange tastings.

So apart from tasting some pretty exclusive vintages of Grange and reviewing large numbers of wines over the last 10 years, his experience of Aussie wine is less that that of many individual members of the two Australian wine forums and a lot of non-forums member as well! It is way less than people like Halliday and the late Len Evans. And I would bet that his knowledge of the history of wine in Australia is lacking as well. Of course, he’s an ex-lawyer and so history does not matter. There are others of us who look at that history are realize that it helped create not only Australian wine but also Robert Parker.

Mike

The Ebob thread has now been locked.

Agree that Parker may have tasted a lot of Oz wines, but his time frame and length of experience is not very long in the scheme of things.