An article published in Wands The international Wine & Spirits Magazine for the trade in Japan is bringing new information to the scene.
(Wands website: http://www.wine.or.jp/wands)
Scan is just over here : http://img40.imageshack.us/i/wandsparker.jpg/

Quick and dirty translation comes below :

“Something not brought yet in Dr.Vino’s blog is that Robert Parker himself is not irreproachable.

From 1998 upon the request of a Japanese importer and in exchange of enormous amount of money, Parker participated to seminars, and contributed to the business of that importer. That company is producing in Japan a white wine from Koshu grape, and is the sole distributor of that wine. In May 2008, Robert Parker scored the wine after drinking it in a high class sushi restaurant located in Ginza, and published it on his website”

Due to the fact that the original article is in Japanese, such information might never be revealed to the erobertparker.com’s member…The trade will certainly be aware sooner or later…

The article statements can easily be proved using the following sources :

Website for the wine scored by Parker.
http://koshu.org/en/index.php
“Robert Parker praised each vintage of Shizen wine, including the Shizen
2007 vintage on a trip to Tokyo in May 2008. Shizen Cuvee Denis Dubourdieu
remains the only Asian wine reviewed by Robert Parker.”

Hedonist Gazette
After reading the hedonist gazette, it’s easy to find the wine Koshu
(tasted and scored twice !!! Indeed as the name seems slightly different,
it’s nothing but the same wine)
http://www.erobertparker.com/members/gazette/hg224.asp
http://www.erobertparker.com/members/gazette/hg430.asp

Post from Parker on Mark Squires’ Bulletin Board
Parker states that the “wines are the brain-child of my Japanese publisher”

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=146327&highlight=shizen

The importer producing the wine / Parker’s Japanese publisher is Millesimes. This wine can be found in their PDF catalogue with parker points on page 29.
http://www.millesimes.co.jp/download/wine_list/0904_millesime_wine.pdf

Japanese explanations are saying that this wine is the first Asian wine to be ever tasted by Robert M. Parker Jr.

That’s quite funny to see such publicly available information not mentioned because of the language differences.

Dr. V Coleman has done us all a favor. He has turned a spotlight onto ethics in winewriting. There were rules once. Mr. Parker endorsed those rules. Then he broke them, and now, with new media coming into being, the need for honesty, openness and fairness is accentuated.

It is not old-fashioned or out of place to ask for these things.

So wine consumption has plummetted in Europe over the last 3 months because of Dr. Vino’s blog? Wow, strong analysis, any proof to back this up?

Did you see el mundo vino (newspaper in Spain) cover this story just a few days ago?

I guess while some, like you, want it to go away, it cannot go away, until Parker and friends just come out and tell the truth. Till then, more media coverage should be expected. I recommend you change the channel.

If the thread itself is “boring and useless,” why are *you* adding to the discussion and making this an issue now? This is a 3-month old post from April. I only saw your comment because I saw it on the “Recent Comments” on the front page of the site.

I’ll let Tyler speak for himself, but I would argue that his site offers a range of subjects, which occasionally includes discussion of critics. If that’s too much for you, fine, that’s a matter of taste.

But to go back to your earlier point, I still don’t see how this issue is scaring off European wine consumers.

If you really believe that the big, bad bloggers have killed demand for wine in Europe, then I feel sorry for you and/or the industry you seem to promote.

If young Europeans aren’t drinking as much wine, maybe it’s because they don’t have the time to sit down for meals that their grandparents did. Or maybe it’s because there are stricter drunk driving laws. Or maybe it’s not being marketed in the right channels.

And why is the decline of wine sales to younger consumers seemingly a problem only for Europe? Here in the USA, sales of wine are up in the younger segments of the market. Are Americans just impervious to bloggers and critics?

Get your head out of the sand.

Disclosing conflicts of interest and being honest would be a great start.