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Robert Parker Jr. who is probably the wine world's most influential critic, invented the 100-point rating system that can make or break a new wine. Any score below 80, published in his 65,000-circulation newsletter, The Wine Advocate, can make a vintage unsellable. Anything above 95 can make the wine a collectible. With his $6.2 million (annual revenue) empire, Parker, 61, has lots of power, and he's proud of it. "I believe in wine diversity," he says. "And I'm here to protect it."
Now comes Alice Feiring, a 52-year-old former wine columnist for Time and current blogger (www.alicefeiring.com ), who does not care much for Robert Parker's tastes or his power in the marketplace. In a new book, The Battle for Wine and Love: Or How I Saved the World from Parkerization ($23, Harcourt), Feiring sharply skewers Parker's love for big, fruity blockbusters like a 2003 Côte Rôtie les Grandes Places or a 2001 Bodegas Fernando Remírez de Ganuza Riojas Reserva, wines she thinks taste like the "rough vinous equivalent of Hawaiian punch." That's one of her milder digs, which, taken together, imply that whatever Parker recommends ought to be sold in a box and not a bottle.
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This is a very quirky book, reflecting as much Feiring's personality as it does her tastes. Which the reader may nervously begin to doubt upon learning Feiring's an unlucky-in-love eccentric who proudly installed an antique pull-chain toilet in her Greenwich Village apartment and refuses to eat red meat. Her apartment is stuffed to the gills with bottles of wine she describes in phrases like "puppy's breath," "rusty nail" and "cat's pee."
But no matter. This is a fun, intellectually robust read, and Feiring clearly knows her grapes. Her main gripe: Winemakers are so focused on pleasing Parker they speed up the fermentation process and flood the grapes with sulphur to fend off natural airborne yeasts, which traditionalists use. Then they throw in their own designer yeasts to create the "fruit bombs" Feiring calls "Frankenwines."
Like the ubiquitous Yellowtail shiraz from Australia to which Parker once gave an 84. Or California pinot noirs like Brewer-Clifton or Sea Smoke celebrated in the movie Sideways. "Winemakers wanted Parker's attention--and there went the neighborhood," she writes.
Feiring believes chemicals take the terroir out of grapes--the taste of the land they were picked from, a bit of history and place in every sip.
So what's Feiring's ideal wine? One made only of grapes, stems, natural airborne yeasts and time. No additives.
What does Parker think of Feiring's book? "It's disgraceful. I'm not going to comment on the book or read it," he says in an interview with FORBES. "She's going to have her 15 minutes and then fall into obscurity." Parker adds he's given several high ratings to wines Feiring likes.
Whether you agree with Feiring or not, try some of her recommended wines. They are what she says they are: complicated, delicate and unique.
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