With recent events involving Jay Miller, it appears that you were ahead of your time when you raised questions about Wine Advocate’s code of ethics a few months ago.

I hope Dave Kesmodel writes up a follow up article on the WSJ to vindicate him from the attacks Parker wrote about him on his bulletin board.

Joey

Can I contact you directly? Or please contact me at victorhonore@yahoo.com

Tks. Victor

Let’s be clear. “Someone” did not say it. I said it.

And let’s be further clear. I also said at least five times now that I don’t care and that I also went to Argentina on a sponsored trip.

Steve, with whom I share an internet platform at WineAccess, by the way, took a trip to Argentina. I have no axe to grind on that score. The comment was not untrue.

I do not know, nor care, whether Steve or anyone else goes on trips so long as that person does not review wines tasted with labels open and the winemaker present. I have no idea if he did that or not in Argentina. I have been told point blank that he does it here in California and that I could do the same thing.

I declined because I do not think it is the way to produce independent, unbiased reviews. You can differ with me on methodology–and you won’t be the first, but let’s be clear about this. I support the usefulness of visits to other places for learning purposes. Full stop.

The name of my rag is Connoisseurs’ Guide To California Wine. You could learn from my late hero, Tip O”Neill who once said, “I don’t care what you say about me so long as you spell me name right”. Could you not have at least done that?

And if I am ever on a yacht steered by Dick Cheney, I am likely not to get back to shore in one piece. Please don’t send me there.

Maybe on some other day, we can debate the merits of blind tasting and whether any critic worth his salt should not have to see the label to tell the difference between a Raveneau and a cheap Chablis.

Charlie

My e-mail is captaintumorman@gmail.com

Parker wrote in his letter to the WSJ:

“As for Mark Squires, I gave him pre-approval to take government (not industry) sponsored tips to Israel, Greece, and Portugal, all wine regions I call “emerging” and that are not covered in depth in my publications. He has been allowed three trips to visit these viticultural regions. However, I have decided that this has to be discontinued as well even if it means sacrificing coverage in these areas. All of this was a useful review of my ethics and standards, but all of it was resolved a month ago when Jay’s conduct came to my attention. ”

That seems pretty clear.

Parker/Squires/Miller have done everything they can to avoid accountability and have acted in a heavy-handed manner that borders on the comical. They’re awfully think skinned for wine critics.

So, Parker now has a stronger ethics policy than Jay. Does Jay find that policy too strong?

I don’t see being a wine critic as a monastic or scientific calling. I don’t care who their friends are, who they eat with, etc. I only care that they pay their bills.

The question of blind tasting is ridiculous to me. I am actually against blind tastings, but that’s another discussion. As academic exercises and parlour games they can be interesting, but a good taster, let alone, critic, is only helped by informational background. Its an academic argument quite separate from all the other discussions.

How do our wines get to the critics? They ask for them. We don’t send wines to anyone, critics have to request them. If they do, we decide if it is interesting for us to get involved. Samples cost us money.

Additionally, several critics visit our growers abroad and taste at our growers or at grouped tastings. They make these arrangements through us or on their own.

I’ve never vacationed with anyone or bribed anyone or bought them dinner. Furthermore, I have a rather unappealing character and no one really wants to spend time with me. Understandably.

So, how come we have access to critics and Joe Blow Imports does not. There’s a real world out there and we have been doing this for 20 years. It is only recently we have received a great deal of press and we would think it has something to do with our reputation and the quality of our vignerons. We worked hard.

Furthermore, we rejected the Bernie Madoff scheming of many of our colleagues who went off to foreign lands looking for gobly extracted wines to score points and put them in the big money.

Even when we get good reviews we make no effort to publicize the reviews. We want our customers to buy and sell our wines because they like the wines, not because they have a Madoffesque scheme to get rich off points.

We have great professional respect for some of the people we give samples too and think little of others. We do make the samples available to a wide enough range of writers to appear cooperative. It is a compromise.

Selling and marketing wine is rather distasteful and invariably involves us in something resembling commodity trading. My only regret is that we have too much wine to sell and cannot just drink it on our own and sell to one or two retailers. This way we could avoid all this mess and lots of expenses. But we are in business to work with our vignerons and to make sure a way of life in the European vineyards can continue. We have to sell.

I have not seen Mr. Olken’s journal for several years. Frankly, the name itself is an oxymoron for me. The last time I looked at your journal, you liked a large range of wines I find undrinkable. I don’t care if you tasted them blind, on a trade junket, at home, on a luxury yacht steered by a ex-Vice President Chaney, or on a bribe. We don’t have the same taste and the process by which you come to your conclusions has no real interest to me.

Joe Dressner

A couple of points. He has not ruled out junkets paid for by others. He won’t let a producer pay for it but he will let a non-aligned organization pay for it. You have strongly come out against all such trips. Do you now find them acceptable?

Parker has seemingly ruled out most meals with producers. Yet, we know from his past stories and from Kermit Lynch’s accounts that these guys are friends, fellow musicians and have stayed up late with good wine made by good producers in the Rhone eating, drinking, hanging out and having great fun with one another. Are we now to believe that Parker and his posse will no longer hang out with their friends.

The other day you left a message here for me to contact you by email since you had ostensibly been banned from this board. You left no email address so I went to your blog site and tried to register. I have yet to hear from you in two days. Care to try again?

Finally, I asked you a direct question about how your wines received favorable reviews in print (from whom and how the wines were acquired). I am asking you those questions again as a way of shedding further light on the whole issue of how the wine review community should act.

Respectfully submitted,
Charlie Olken

Now that Parker has revised his ethical standards, will you now criticize him for being too extreme? He has ruled out all paid junkets, something you have no problem accepting.

Certainly, Parker/Squires/Miller have handled this with horrible arrogance. Tyler, I suppose should be credited with this “exposé” although I think you threw in the kitchen sink and went too far and were too short of facts at first. Be that as it may, you certainly started this whole affair and got public exposure. Given Parker’s initial refusal to be accountable, I suppose throwing out a lot of charges was the only way this could possibly have played out.

So, please let us know your final thoughts. Are the final Parker standards to strict for wine journalists?