Jonathan Nossiter helps me in my reflections on Parker. His approach to wine, however, seems to me too poetic, too high a rock in the clouds, because things are, in my opinion, much more straightforward. After all, everything can (and must be) reduced to the simplest elements. Culture too often hides behind juggling words of shamans, which make simple people feel disgusted by reading texts coming from another planet.
So I go back to greed. Rooted deep in each of us like original sin, it constantly spits into the best of our intentions, and that was the case with Parker. It is clear that with such a career, many tried to do their own business. I probably mentioned Jay Miller, and there were also a few other people. I’ve remembered Jay Miller because of his undoubtful personality. All this, however, should be seen from the development of a market. Then it turns out that similar phenomena are entirely natural and it would be strange if they were not like this.
I’m not trying to write another memoir on Parker, in any way. Shall I say more? I’m finishing with Robert Parker Jr. I have no intention of finishing with greed and globalisation. In the world of wine, there have been, next to or against Parker, completely new phenomena, resulting from greed, and it just so happens that I see a threat in them, maybe not for me, but rather for those who come after.
To be honest, I like this Parker’s super taste, with firm fruit and a clear smartness, as it is difficult for me to stay convinced because of the sophisticated eruptions of tradition and terroir. More is in me in common with Jesse Pinkman than with Jancis Robinson. Nevertheless, I believe that, in a sense, such a super taste stems from a simpleton attempt to even the objectivity and the diversity, and I have no intention of doing another ideology out of my schmuckness. American globalisation implies, among other things, a pattern of taste. The reluctance seen in the modern winey world towards Parker is a manifestation of a revolt against globalisation seen as colonising more markets.
Terroir, as Nossiter understands it, can be a rescue, here. The bigger problem, however, is, in my opinion, the industrialisation of wine and the marketing of wine as of any article of mass consumption. In the future bottles, we will find some liquid made in laboratories. Who will remember real wine, then?