Robert Parker Tastes Blind (for once)

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

There was a really interesting post on Dr. Vino's wine blog last week about blind tasting 2005 Bordeaux with Robert Parker. The piece is generating quite a buzz (coming up on 100 comments) because Parker normally does his tasting privately and therefore nobody really knows whether he tastes blind or not. Click through and read the piece to see how Parker fared in this tasting.

I left a comment mentioning that the thing my mind wandered to while reading was the matter of whether The Wine Advocate's stated blind tasting policy aligns with how they taste in practice. I blogged on this subject earlier this year at length. Since then, The Wine Advocate restructured their tasting methodology statement (probably because of pressure generated from Dr. Vino as described in this piece) to have different standards for Robert Parker vs. other people who write for him. Though they now reveal that others who taste for the magazine do so both blind and non-blind, Parker still maintains that he tastes blind "when possible" which technically could mean "never". I'm still not satisfied with this disclosure and that's why I don't subscribe to the Wine Advocate. I do subscribe to Wine Spectator because they're more forthcoming in describing how they taste and I believe they actually taste the way they say they do.

At any rate, I thought to mention this piece in case Dr. Vino's blog isn't yet on your radar screen. It's a good example of why he's one of the best.

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