What an interesting year in wine. Legal battles, political battles, movements rising, technology, new markets, and changes in the media led the news. Here are my top wine stories for 2011 A SMALL CRACK IN THE WALL: Initiative 1183 Takes Washington Out of the Booze Business and Into the 21st CenturyIt has been a long time since a state abandoned its control of the alcohol marketplace and turned it over to the private sector. Initiative 1183 in Washington State did…
My recent interest in the work of Robert Parker flows from the recognition that in my 20 years working in wine marketing, this critic has ranked among the most influential forces in the American marketplace. It's a remarkable story insofar as the Wine Advocate was not begun by Robert Parker to so impact the marketplace. And yet, there he stands. In addition, along with the Wine Spectator, Wine & Spirits Magazine and the Wine Enthusiast, Robert Parker has been an…
This post continues a series in which I look at the meaning of Robert Parker's Wine Advocate's ratings of California wines. In these posts I assume that the Wine Advocate's power is important to the California wine industry and that the percentage of wines within a category that are rated 90 points or higher is an appropriate proxy for the Wine Advocate's overall view of the quality of a category. As I noted in yesterday's post on the history of…
This post continues a series in which I look at the meaning of Robert Parker's Wine Advocate's ratings of California wines. In these posts I assume that the Wine Advocate's power is important to the California wine industry and that the percentage of wines within a category that are rated 90 points or higher is an appropriate proxy for the Wine Advocate's overall view of the quality of a category. A funny thing happened on the way to the 2002…
It was an astounding 78% of 2009 California Pinot Noirs receiving 90 Points or more from the Wine Advocate that got me thinking more about Robert Parker's history of rating wine and what it meant. I've come to the conclusion that the percent of wines within a category that received 90 points or higher from the Wine Advocate is a reasonable proxy for a reliable assessment of that category by Wine Advocate reviewers and Robert Parker in particular. The above…
