California wines of the 70s-80s versus wines of the 90s: Robert Parker in a Foreword of Tor Kenward's Reflections of a Vintner

I recently got my hands on a copy of Tor Kenward's Reflections of a Vintner and was stopped dead in my tracks by its two (count them, two) Forewords by wine and food industry stalwarts Robert M. Parker, Jr., and Thomas Keller. Parker's Foreword, comparing California wines of the 70s and 80s to the wines of the 90s, and identifying the root cause(s) of the departure, was especially intriguing and launched me down an investigatory rabbit hole. 

Parker's basic thesis was that California wines of the 90s were far superior to the wines of the 70s and 80s largely because of the region's response to the phylloxera infestation of the 1980s. Parker's view of the greatness of the wines of the 90s is not universally accepted so, herein, I will explore his thesis and selected competing views.

The chart below illustrates Parker's perspective on the wines of the 70s and 80s.

Parker was not alone in this assessment. According to Greg Byrne (Wine surges in popularity ..., Santa Fe New Mexican, 7/15/09), in the 1970s and 1980s, many Napa wineries picked too early in an attempt to emulate the wines of Bordeaux.  The standard practice was to harvest grapes based on sugar ripeness -- pick at 23.6 degrees Brix in order to yield 12.6% alcohol in the fermented wine.  This path, according to Byrne, was littered with overly tannic, underripe, harsh wines.

The wines of the 90s, according to Parker, were the cat's meow, due, in large part, to producer-responses to the mid-80s Phylloxera epidemic.

Parker's views, as regards the wines of the 90s, were not universally held. According to Byrne, the lack of rain in Napa in September and October allowed for much longer hang time and phenolically ripe fruit. It also brought along, however, higher sugar levels, lower acidity, darker color, and richer flavors.  By marrying this style of wine with young oak, the Napa winemaker was now promoting power and exuberance over elegance and finesse.  Byrne feels that too many winemakers went too far down this path.

While Byrne saw viticultural practices, as it related to phenolic ripeness, as the Napa problem, Gilman (California Classicism, The World of Fine Wine, Issue 35, 2012) saw the problem as the industry's pursuit of cellar-based technology solutions aimed at closing the "Bordeaux gap."  In addition, phylloxera had caused widespread replantings in the 1990s and cellar manipulation was used to paper over resulting problems such as young juice in the mix, improperly sited vines, and the pursuit of high yields by the growers in order to meet high demand.

Adding fire to the flame was Robert Parker himself assigning high scores to these wines and an unquestioning public snapping up the wines at every turn, based exclusively on these scores. This created a vicious cycle with existing wineries adjusting their wines in pursuit of points and new entrants applying the formula from day one.

The industry seemed to be in a "bad place" by the end of the 1990s.  Gilman has characterized that place: high-alcohol wines made from late-picked fruit, vinified with residual sugar, sprinkled with winemaking additives, and matured in expensive new oak. "Phenolic ripeness became the mantra behind which this was all concealed."  Alcohol levels had gotten so high that a number of post-fermentation mechanisms were created for mitigation purposes; likewise, technical solutions were employed to address acid deficiency.

I think Parker would have been better served by focusing on Tor's contribution to the lore and accomplishments of Napa than reminding us of the trauma of the time for balanced-wine adherents.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Parker's "Magical 20": In Search of the Objective Criteria

Robert Parker's announcement of a Bordeaux "Magical 20" chateaux list -- whose wines will be tasted at The Wine Academy of Spain's Wine Future Hong Kong event on November 8 -- is significant in that it has the potential to: (i) cut through the confusion of the existing Bordeaux classification schemes to create a new Bordeaux "super-scheme" which is positioned just after the First Growths;  (ii) creates winners and losers among the chateaux; (iii) exposes a set of wines below the First Growths to the Asian market -- with attendant benefits to the chosen chateaux and price increases to your favorite wines if you are a consumer in other markets; and (iv) kick-start efforts to modernize the outdated 1855 classification scheme.  Given the potential impact, it is important that we understand Parker's criteria for inclusion on this list.  While we await Mr. Parker's revelations, I will attempt to use available data to try to tease out some of these criteria.

In his announcement, Parker stated, "I have chosen estates that produce wines of first growth quality, although technically not first growths.  Consequently, they are under-valued and very smart acquisitions."  Parker will be accompanied at the tasting by representatives from each estate.  The estates, their current classification, and  their respective AOC are shown in the table below.

My first impression in looking at the list is that there are some names that I would have liked to see on here that are not mentioned.  But then again, I am @wineOrl and he is Robert Parker.  He wins.  The list contains 11 chateaux from the 1855 Classification (5 second growths, 3 third growths, and 3 fifth growths), two from the St Emilion classification, and three from the Graves classification (Pomerol properties have never been classified.).  Every meaningful Bordeaux commune is represented in the list with 70% of the properties being left-bank-based.  Of the individual communes, Pauillac, Marguax, and Pomerol, with four chateaux each, are the most represented.  Nothing in this table appears to be list-composition drivers.

Not finding the criteria above, I turned to the release price of each chateau's primary wine.  In that the 2009 release of the wines will be tasted at Wine Future Hong Kong, I wanted to include that year's price in the analysis but I also wanted to look at least five years back so that meaningful analysis and comparisons could be made.  I was able to obtain time-series data on release prices from  genesiswines.com and those data are presented in Table 2 for the years 2004-2009. 

The series includes two exceptional years (2005 and 2009) and two less-than-stellar years (2004 and 2007).  The prices are stated in British Pounds.  In that 2009 was a stellar year, I wanted to compare it against another stellar year and 2005 fit that bill.  The second comparison was the pricing differential between 2008 and 2004.  In the cases where a price range is given, the low end of the range is used.  The comparisons are shown in the last two columns and indicate no correlation between inclusion on this list and 2004-2008 or 2005-2009 price growth so Mr. Parker could not have used these as criteria for composition of the list.  Onward then.

I looked further into areas such as ownership (a mix of owners to include industrialists, families, insurance companies, etc.), consultants employed (Michel Rolland, Stephen Derenoncourt, among others, but not in a suffocating way), and recent quality-focused investments (Cos, Pontet, and Angelus stand out) but no clear commonalities exist that one could point to and say "these are the objective standards for inclusion in the list."

If we have exhausted the possible objective selection criteria, then inclusion on the list must be subjective.  Could Parker scores have been the basis for inclusion? Let us take a look at that.  Table 3 shows Parker scores for each of the chateaux between the years 2004 and 2009 and a calculated average in the rightmost column. In looking closely at

the list, Pontet-Canet, Pape-Clement, and Smith Haut-Lafite show excellent scores in the down 2007 vintage.  On the other hand, Lynch-Bages and Pichon Lalande scored poorly in 2005, a year when even street-corner vendors were making excellent wines.  This is not the first time that Pichon Lalande has received low scores in a good vintage year.  You might remember a similar occurrence in 1990, another stellar Bordeaux vintage. And this begs the question as to why Ducru-Beaucaillou is not on this list.  It had an average score of 94.8 over the highlighted period; better than some of the wines included herein.

The average scores earned by the chateaux range from the low 90s to 96, a non-uniform distribution.  However, according to The Wine Advocate Rating System, a wine scoring between 90 and 95 is "an outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character"; and all of these wines, save one, fall within that orbit.  But so do a lot of other Bordeaux wines that have more stuffing than Le Gay, for example.  Did they create a list and then stop calling when they got 20 people willing to travel to Hong Kong to participate in the event?  I hope not because this is potentially a guide to the Chinese as to what they should be buying next; and in so doing will create winners and losers among the second-tier Bordeaux players.  It will also have pricing implications for Bordeaux buyers like me.

With all of the foregoing, my biggest concern is the potential for creation of a new "super-second" classification scheme which is both subjective and single-sourced.  All previous Bordeaux classification schemes have come about as a result of group action.  In the case of the 1855 classification of the Medoc, Napolean requested a classification schema and it was developed by the brokers based on chateaux reputation and prices.  In the case of the St. Emilion classification, the Syndicat Viticole had begun considering the idea in the 1930s but held off until 1954 when the Institute Nacional des Appellations d'Origine (INAO) agreed to manage the process.  The Graves classification was implemented in 1953 by a jury appointed by INAO and was approved by the Ministry of Agriculture.  The scheme was updated in 1959 and has survived in that state to the current day.  All of these systems need updating to account for the passage of time (the St. Emilion classification is supposed to be updated every 10 years but the 2006 update had been mired in legal wrangling which has finally been resolved) but, given the implications, I would expect a studied, broad-based effort(s) to be the vehicle for such change given the number of stakeholders.  I fervently hope that Parker's "Magical 20" does not become a de facto Bordeaux classification scheme.

Sampling of Napalaise sentiments on Parker withdrawal from Napa Reviews

During my recent trip to Napa for Premiere Napa Valley, I took the opportunity to query a number of industry insiders as to the impact of Antonio Galloni replacing Robert Parker as the Wine Advocate’s reviewer of Napa Valley wines.  There was a lack of unanimity as to the impact but it became very clear that Galloni was not well known among this group.

At one end of the spectrum was Petra Martin of Martin Estates.  In her view, wine drinkers are no longer dependent on the views of one or two individuals to help them with their buying decisions.  Rather, she sees the buyers as becoming more sophisticated, and their sources of information much more varied, and these trends are signaling the death knell of Parker and his ilk.  Parker, in her view, knew “that the game was up” and got out before it all came crashing down around his ears.  I should note that Parker does not review the Martin Estate wines.

At the other end of the spectrum we find Claude Blankiet, proprietor of Blankiet Estate.  Claude describes himself as an advocate for Robert Parker and as being extremely disappointed when he got the letter from Parker stating that he was withdrawing from reviewing Napa wines.  Claude has tasted wines with Parker for over 12 years and has grown to admire him.  He sees Parker as “a great human being” who is “humble” and kind and maintains a low profile.  In his view, Parker stepped back for health reasons; he had been having a hard time with his knee after his surgery.  In fact, he struggled up the stairs to the Blankiet residence for the last tasting and they spent most of the session talking about his health.  Blankiet hopes that the fact that Parker retained his responsibilities for Bordeaux and the Rhone is not perceived by others as a statement by Parker that Napa is less important than those regions.  Claude is sure that Galloni will do a great job.

Jack Bittner, VP and General Manager at Cliff Lede, feels that it is unsustainable to keep up with tasting the volumes that Parker did on a regular basis.  He was, however, surprised that Parker had given up Napa.  Jack sees independent voices as important but, as does Martin Estate, he feels that today’s buyers are looking at many more sources of information including wine shops.  With the widespread use of the internet, we now have a culture that is accustomed to incorporating more data into the decisionmaking process.  As for most of his peers, Galloni is an unknown quantity to Jack.

There are three potential layers of impact associated with the Parker withdrawal: winery impact; retailer impact; and consumer impact.  At the winery level, the impact can be further divided into (i) the impact of Parker leaving and (ii) the impact of Galloni arriving.  In terms of Parker leaving, those wineries that have built up long working relationships with him will see a slight devaluing of that investment.  For those wineries who felt that Parker had given them short shrift, Galloni’s arrival may open a new window.  The retailer will be driven by the consumer and the sense in the valley is (i) consumers are coming into their own in decisionmaking and (ii) for those who still require handholding, it will be eight years before they figure out that Napa Wine Advocate scores are from someone other than Robert Parker; and they won’t care.

Everyone says that Galloni has his work cut out for him, especially given his new workload, but they all wish him the best of luck.

Parker Changes Scores For 2009

According to the AntiqueWine Company, Robert Parker has changed his scoring system for the 2009 vintage. According to the company, "... the vintage is so good, and the quality so high that Parker has needed to go beyond 100 points."  For chateaux providing exceptional quality, Parker has awarded them an asterisk over and above the 100-point score.  We will flesh this out as more information becomes available.