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For
many wine enthusiasts, Robert Parker is the man with the 24-carat
taste buds; when Parker catches cold, the whole wine world sneezes.
Deified by half the population, demonised by the rest, the one
thing that is impossible to do with Parker is ignore him.
In
the United States, Parker practically drives the fine wine market.
You will search long and hard to find a wine store that does not
display its wares by Parker rating, or a serious collector who
does not subscribe to his Wine Advocate newsletter. British enthusiasts
may not focus so relentlessly on Parker, but I would guess he
is a key factor in most collectors’ buying decisions.
Sold
by subscription only, Parker’s Wine Advocate was first published
in 1978:
a
simple, no-frills newsletter devoid of advertising. The formula
has remained more or less unchanged ever since. Wine Advocate
drops onto the doormats of over 40,000 devotees every two months,
and there is an unholy scramble to secure the top-scoring wines
before market forces sweep them from the shelves – and drive prices
skyward.
I
am surprised that it has taken Parker so long to launch onto the
Web.
The
foundation stone of the new erobertparker.com website is his vast
archive of tasting notes: over 45,000 of them are gathered together,
and the latest database technology is employed to provide the
visitor with some of the fastest, most flexible and most powerful
querying options I’ve seen. This is undoubtedly the main attraction
of the site.
In
fact, erobertparker.com is a 'killer application': a website whose
excellent use of technology makes it essential viewing for its
target audience. Parker devotees will undoubtedly be prepared
to stump up the subscription fee of $99 (around £70). In fact,
this seems a bit of a bargain for Europeans in particular, because
in Europe, six issues of the Wine Advocate in print costs $85
(£60). An extra 80p per month buys a lot: massively increased
'findability' of specific references, the ability to see the entire
'tasting history' of a wine at a glance, and a growing collection
of added value features.
The
crucial advantage that the Wine Advocate retains over erobertparker
is that the latest issue is not added to the website until a few
weeks after the print publication appears. Die-hard devotees will
have to stump up for both if they want to maintain the absolute
cutting edge of information and enjoy the website’s depth and
superior functionality.
I
interviewed Robert Parker in mid-January, a couple of months into
this new venture. I started by asking him why it had taken so
long to get onto the web: 'The easy answer is a lack of time,'
he replied. 'The Wine Advocate office is very small, and the amount
of travel and wines that need to be tasted leave little time for
other projects.
'Additionally,
I have always been somewhat old fashioned in underestimating the
potential of the Internet – even though I use the Internet frequently
and do not believe it has been exploited to the extent that it
will be. I am convinced it is the medium of the future for information
and influence.’
For
Parker-bashers, the 100-point scoring system is public enemy number
one. It is ironic that although every tasting note he writes includes
a full and considered qualitative assessment, a sizeable portion
of the fine wine world – trade, consumers, even wine producers
– seems to see nothing but the scores. A 91-point wine will always
sell faster than an 89-point wine, and any wine scoring in the
mid-80s is destined for the bargain bins.
Though
I recognise the problem here, I have never believed the blame
should be laid at Parker’s door: he may have invented the scoring
system, but it is not the system that is
the problem; it is the level of intelligence with which the consumer
approaches all critics and all points systems.
Parker
is sensitive to criticism, and every issue of the Wine Advocate
carries a
warning not to get hung-up on the scores. Yet it appears he has
rejected the opportunity with erobertparker to assuage the critics
by forcing the scores into the background. In fact, he almost
seems to pander to the points-chasers: by default, lists of wines
are presented in descending order of score. Parker has definite
views on this: 'I have no regrets over my scoring system. If it
is abused by some members of the wine trade, so be it. Any scoring
system – whether it's 100 points, 51 points (which is what mine
is), or 20 points with half points (a 40-point system) – ultimately
makes the taster more accountable to the reader. I am comfortable
with my point system and I recognise its limitations: there is
nothing scientific about it, and it should not be interpreted
that way.’
I
asked if he had sympathy for those who thought the 100-point system
had a negative effect: 'I am not an apologist for the system,
or its effect. I think it has raised the quality of wine, made
producers more accountable and educated an entirely new generation
of wine consumers, empowering them to make more informed buying
decisions.’
One
of the most intriguing parts of the site is the Hedonist's Gazette,
'a chronicle of the gustatory experiences of our two wine reviewers
– Bob Parker and Pierre Rovani'. Exclusive to the website, this
occasional series of articles affords a glimpse of Parker and
his assistant Pierre Rovani 'at home', cracking open bottles from
their own cellars, or attending wine-tasting dinners. Parker is
a private man, and I ask how he is finding this experience: 'I
have always made a practice of spending an enormous amount of
money on bottled wines. This ensures there is a legitimate correlation
between what I taste prior to bottling and what appears afterwards.
These tastings and dinners are covered in a light-hearted but
serious manner in the Hedonist's Gazette, but I have resisted
the temptation to download digital photos from trips and tastings,
as that strikes me as somewhat of an invasion of privacy.
'I
realise I am a public figure, but living in the rural countryside
of northern Maryland, the only time I really notice it is in viticultural
areas or restaurants. Having said all that, I like the Hedonist’s
Gazette because I am a hedonist; I have just as much interest
in cuisine as I do in wine.’
Like
the Wine Advocate, erobertparker carries no advertising. As advertising
is still such a major part of most websites' profitability, I
asked if this had been considered. 'Advertising will not be permitted,'
says Parker, emphatically. 'Obviously we will have links to retailers
that carry many of the wines, but that is as far as I am willing
to go. If business suffers because of it, I will have no regrets.
That kind of philosophy has served me very well for the last 24
years.’
Already
in place is a link with fine wine finding service, winealert.com.
Against many reviews is a small icon which reads 'Find it Online!'
A click brings up a list of retailers who stock that wine, along
with prices. This powerfully illustrates the 'added value' of
the website, but there is no commercial tie-in between the two
websites. Parker's website manager (who prefers to remain anonymous)
told me: 'A lot of work goes on behind the scenes to provide the
seamless interface between our wine tasting database and their
retailer database. I think you will note that the two are in near-perfect
synchrony: the list of retailers we provide is comprised of those
that are offering precisely that wine for sale. Anyone familiar
with the extreme complexity of wine nomenclature will appreciate
that achieving this degree of accuracy was not easy.’
Where
erobertparker really scores is in this sort of feature-rich implementation.
To their eternal credit, the website team (six full- or part-time
workers) has created a simple, no-frills but beautifully useable
environment. One and a half years’ development work pre-launch
went into the site, and it has resulted in some very nice touches.
The
vintage chart is a fine example: based on Parker’s standard vintage
chart, it shows scores and maturity for 28 regions over the past
30 years. However, the chart is also a powerful querying tool:
click on any cell from the matrix and a comprehensive list of
wines reviewed from that region and vintage is displayed.
The
list is in Parker-point order, but can be re-ordered by price,
by maturity or alphabetically at the click of a button. Select
one or more wines from the list and click 'Display' to see Parker's
notes – if he has tasted the wine several times, you will see
all the notes in chronological order of tasting.
In
terms of subscription sales so far, the erobertparker team will
only say they are 'better than we had anticipated', but adds that
the conversion rate of those switching from the site's free trial
area to a full subscription was 'far higher' than they had expected.
So far, around 25% of subscribers live outside the US, and around
15% of those live in the UK, making it the biggest non-US subscriber
base.
There
are plans in the pipeline to add more features and expand the
capabilities of the site, while making sure that 'nothing takes
away from the core design goal of flexibility, speed and simplicity’.
It
will be interesting to see the progress of erobertparker.com over
coming years, but the power of the brand and the sweetness of
the implementation suggest that failure is not an option.
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Robert
Parker Jr. also takes an ad-free approach to his latest venture,
a Web site with something for everyone, whether the dedicated
consumer, the wine geek obsessed with comparing vintages or merely
the culinary/oenophile voyeur. 