The wine world has had a chance to digest and reply to Robert Parker's railing against obscure, faddish wine champions and sommeliers who turn up their nose at the classic grapes and wines. His missive in the Wine Advocate caused waves of responses. The crux of Parker's ire can be summed up in this excerpt: "What we also have from this group of absolutists is a near-complete rejection of some of the finest grapes and the wines they produce. Instead they espouse, with enormous gusto and noise, grapes and wines that are virtually unknown. That’s their number one criteria – not how good it is, but how obscure it is."
Here are five opinions on Parker's rant:
Bottle fight: Novelty v classic wines: Jancis Robinson, Financial Times
Novelty at the expense of quality?: Jamie Goode, Wine Anorak
Should Robert Parker Have Listened to Disraeli?: Rebecca Gibb, Wine Searcher
Debating Robert Parker at His Invitation: Alder Yarrow, Vinography
Greek to Me: Jason Wilson, Table Matters
And James Molesworth from the Wine Spectator and Eric Asimov of The New York Times got into it on Twitter.
What's your take? Do you seek out the unsual and unknown or stick with the classics?
