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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: How would you handle it?

Post Subject: Parker, Fremer and other evils...Posted by de charlus on: 7/22/2013

Value can exist at pretty much any price, yes. I should certainly have qualified all that with a "before Robert Parker came along", shouldn't I? He of course brings an added absurdity that hasn't (yet) infected audio reviewers, which is that damnable percentage system of his; additionally, wines are now being made wholesale in the "Parker style", winemakers being motivated primarily by getting a Parker 95+ than making the best possible expression of their unique terroir. Vineyards that could produce elegant, graceful, fragrant Pinot Noir in the Chambolle-Musigny style are instead all made in that jammy, intensely extracted, inky-thick reverse-osmosis style just to please the man, the worst thing of all about it being the uniformity that it brings to New World wine, all but annihilating regional distinction. Just like audio reviewers and their adjectives, he flings his 100s around rather too liberally too; there's just no way that a veritable army of identikit Sonoma Cabernets are as good as Cheval-Blanc '82, Petrus '90 or Romanee-Conti '85, a fact that the market recognizes, even if Mr. Parker doesn't. There are misguided fools the world over cellaring Parker 100s with little aging potential in the belief that they'll mature and appreciate like the classics - I suppose that there's a certain grim satisfaction to be derived from that, just as one can snigger into one's sleeve at over-moneyed idiots rushing out to buy the latest monstrosity from Boulder, Spectral, Magico et al. For some reason I find cynical audio makers and the whole review rigmarole that they support/supports them much more annoying than the winemakers whom in many cases have little choice but to Parkerize their wines; after all, if yours is a vineyard new to the market, you're pretty much doomed if you don't, whilst I don't believe the same to be true of audio. After all, when did you last see a truly bad audio review? Everything's just great, right, no matter how crap? Perhaps this is because there's no single figure with the influence of Parker dictating people's taste for them, the influence being spread around a little more, even if they do all agree with each other.

I do hope you get a little more La Tache; life's infinitely better with DRC in it....

de Charlus

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