Biography
Robert M. Parker, Jr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 23, 1947. An honors graduate of the University of Maryland, with a major in History, and a minor in Art History, he attended the University of Maryland Law School, graduating in 1973. For ten and one half years he was an Attorney, a Senior Attorney, and later an Assistant General Counsel for the Farm Credit Banks of Baltimore. On March 9, 1984 he resigned his position as Assistant General Counsel to devote full attention to wine writing.
His interest in wine began in 1967, when he spent a month abroad during his Christmas vacation, visiting a girlfriend (who is now his wife of 30 years) at the University of Strasbourg in Alsace, France.
By 1975, he began to think about writing about wine and commencing his own "independent, consumer's guide," largely because of the paucity of reliable information on wine quality. At that time, few wine writers or reviewers were not involved in the wine trade, and Parker felt their opinions were compromised by conflects of interest. Parker proposed to be a consumer advocate, unencumbered by the need to sell wine. Friends and family advised that his career in law should be given top priority, and that wine writing was a romantic, unprofitable profession.
Nevertheless, by 1978, the concept of a wine publication was formulated. The first issue of The Wine Advocate], a complimentary issue, was sent out to mailing lists purchased from several major wine retailers. The initial number of charter subscribers in August, 1978, was less than 600. Parker received worldwide attention when he "called" the 1982 vintage in Bordeaux as superb, contrary to the opinions of many other critics who felt it was too low-acid and ripe. The debate about whether 1982 is a vintage for the ages continues through the early 2000s, but the wine market appears to have spoken, elevating prices for 1982 Bordeaux above other vintages from the period.
Now, over twenty years later, The Wine Advocate has over 40,000 subscribers, in every state in the United States, and in over 37 foreign countries. Today, virtually every knowledgeable observer agrees that The Wine Advocate exerts the most significant influence on the serious wine consumer's buying habits and trends not only in America, but in France, England, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, and China. Additionally, The Wine Advocate is translated into the French language.
In addition to doing the writing and tasting for The Wine Advocate, which is published bi-monthly in Parkton, Maryland, Mr. Parker has been a contributing editor for Food and Wine Magazine. He has also written periodically for the English magazine The Field and has been the wine critic for France's L'Express magazine, the first time a non-Frenchman has held this position.
In November, 1985 his first book Bordeaux was published by Simon and Schuster. Bordeaux went into six printings, was a selection of the Book of the Month Club, and received international critical acclaim. An English edition of Bordeaux was published by the London firm of Dorling, Kindersely, Ltd. It won the prestigious Glenfiddich Award as England's top wine book of 1986. The Paris-based firm of Solar published Bordeaux in France in 1989, where the book promptly was reprinted three times. Moreover, France's Book of the Month Club, the largest in the world, made Bordeaux its "selection of the month" in January, 1991. Foreign language editions of Bordeaux have been published in Japan, Germany, and Sweden.
In 1987, Simon and Schuster published two more wine books by Mr. Parker, Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide and The Wines of the Rhône Valley and Provence. The latter book won the Tastemaker's Award in 1989 as the top wine book of the year published in America and The Wine Guild's Wine Book of the Year Award in The United Kingdom.
In April, 1989, his second Wine Buyer's Guide was published, and his fifth book, Burgundy, was published in 1990. Burgundy was also published in both France and England in 1991. In the fall of 1991, a revised and greatly expanded edition of Bordeaux was published. It has appeared in Japanese, German, and French editions. In 1992, it was the winner of the IACP Award (International Association of Cooking Professionals) as the top wine book of the year. Also in 1992, Maryland's Loyola College recognized Mr. Parker as the "Marylander of the Year."
In 1993, the third edition of Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide was published. The German language edition of Bordeaux won that country's top prize for books on wine and gastronomy, the "Goldene Feder." In France, the 1994 French language edition of Bordeaux spent three months on France's "Best Seller" list. In 1997/1998, Le Guide Parker (the French language edition of his buyer's guide) spent 27 weeks on France's top ten list of books.
Robert Parker has been profiled in such major magazines as Time, Newsweek, Atlantic Monthly, People, Money, The Traveler, Changing Times, Esquire, GQ, Business Week, Smart Money, and The Robb Report, and in such notable newspapers as USA Today, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The London Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraphe, The Independent, Le Journal de Dimanche, and L'Express. His writing philosophy has remained simple: to provide meaningful, comprehensive, independent, accurate, critical commentaries and opinions on fine wines and fine wine values.
In 1993, Parker received the Wine and Vine Communication Award from Moet-Hennessey for his French language editions of Bordeaux and Burgundy. In 1995, Parker was made the third honorary citizen of the Rhone Valley's most important wine village, Chateauneuf du Pape, the other two recipients of this honor being Frederic Mistral and Marcel Pagnol.
In 1995, Parker published the fourth edition of Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide, a book that received huge commercial and critical success. It was republished in England and France, where it is called The Guide Parker. In 1997, his ninth book, The Wines of the Rhone Valley, was published in both English and French. In 1998, his tenth book, the 3rd edition of Bordeaux, was published in Germany, England, France, Japan and, of course, the United States. In May, 1998, Robert Parker was awarded top honors by the James Beard Foundation (which awards the highest honors to food and beverage professionals) for the "Wine and Spirits Professional of 1997."
On March 29, 1999, President Jacques Chirac signed a decree authorizing Robert M. Parker, Jr. to be a Chevalier dans l'Ordre de la Légion d'honneur. He was decorated directly by President Jacques Chirac at a ceremony at the Elysee Palace on June 22, 1999. President Chirac, in bestowing France's highest honor, stated that "Robert Parker is the most followed and influential critic of French wines in the world, something I (President Chirac) witnessed recently when choosing wine for President Clinton, who automatically referred to Robert Parker as his reference for making a proper wine buying decision." In 1993, the late President François Mitterrand made Robert Parker a Chevalier dans l'Ordre National du Merite. The Légion d'honneur was created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 to honor the highest level of achievement to France. Robert Parker is one of only a handful of foreigners to have received France's two highest Presidential honors.
Robert M. Parker, Jr, who, in February, 1999, was profiled in a two-part front page article in the Los Angeles Times by their Pulitzer Prize winning media critic, David Shaw, has written eleven books on wine that have been best sellers not only in the United States, but also in their translated versions in France, Japan, Germany, Sweden and Russia. He is also author of the independent consumer's guide to fine wine, The Wine Advocate, which he has written and published for over two decades. In the Los Angeles Times, David Shaw called Parker "a fierce champion of the wine consumer," "the most powerful critic of any kind, any where," and "a sensualist, passionate lover of wine, who is largely responsible for the vastly improved quality of wines made throughout the western world and for the exponential growth in interest, knowledge and sophistication of those who drink wine."
Robert Parker lives in the countryside of northern Maryland, near Monkton with his wife of 30 years, Patricia, his daughter, Maia, and various basset hounds and English bulldogs.
Even the famed "first growths" of Bordeaux are not immune to Parker's scoring. With great reviews for the 2000 vintage, many raised their prices to unheard of levels. When Parker declined to review the 2002 vintage in barrel, they were forced to drop their prices to previous levels.
Perhaps most controversial is Parker's impact on the style of fine wines. Parker argues that he scores wines on how much pleasure they give him. His critics claim that he likes less-acidic, riper wines with huge amounts of oak, alcohol, and extract that are unsubtle. In order to sell their wines for higher prices, wineries may choose to change their vineyard or winery practices to make wines in the style Parker prefers. The use of reverse osmosis to achieve this is hotly contested.Impact of Robert Parker on the wine industry
With a circulation that is roughly one tenth that of Wine Spectator, it seems unlikely that Parker could be such a powerful critic. However, many wine stores rely on him to provide tasting notes and scores for the wines they sell. A Parker score of 90, roughly equivalent to an "A" in the U.S. school system, means that he judges it to be high quality wine. This score is often sufficient to induce customers to buy without having tasted the wine, although Parker himself cautions that they should read the tasting notes to determine the wine is made in a style they will like. A score of 100, a rare perfect rating, is typically enough to make a wine completely unavailable on the retail market within days. An old joke among wine geeks goes something like this: A man walks into a wine store and tastes a new wine being offered for sale. He doesn't like it, and tells the proprietor so. The next day he rushes into the store, begging to buy a case. When the proprietor asks why, the man replies, "Didn't you hear, Parker gave it a 95!" This has led retailers to complain that there is really only a five point scale: below 90 they can't sell it, and above 95 they have none to sell.