The (Australian) Wine Emperor Is Dead - Long Live the Doctor (6 September)

The Proclamation

A few weeks ago, Robert Parker announced his two trusted sidekicks, Daniel Thomases, and Pierre Rovani will be leaving the staff of the Wine Advocate. As prodigious a taster that Parker is, it would be impossible for him to produce current sized Wine Advocate by himself, so the recent announcement of the appointment of new staff to assist in the production of the Wine Advocate was not unexpected.

According to the announcement, “Antonio Galloni, who has made a name for himself reviewing the wines of Piedmont in his newsletter, the Piedmont Report, will be coming on board to review not only Piedmont, but all the major wine producing areas of Italy.

David Schildknecht has been writing for The Wine Advocate on a part-time basis since 2005. In addition to his continued championing of the wines of Germany and Austria as well as Central Europe and America’s Eastern and Midwestern wineries, David will be giving his laser-like attention and endless energy to the wines of Alsace, Burgundy, the Loire Valley, and the Languedoc-Roussillon. He will also be responsible for Champagne. It makes sense, given his strengths, that he also cover New Zealand and South Africa. At present, David is still working as a distributor-importer, but he will terminate that position early next year, at the time that his reports on French wine begin appearing in The Wine Advocate.

The third new hire is also a well-known name from the past. Dr. J. Miller, with whom I have tasted on a weekly basis for nearly twenty-five years, will be coming on board full-time. Dr. J. is in my wine-tasting group, Les Oenarchs, and is regarded as the finest taster in Baltimore. Dr. J. brings enormous experience, a hard work ethic, and a brilliant palate to The Wine Advocate. He will be providing extensive, detailed coverage of areas he loves, and already knows exceptionally well, the Pacific Northwest, Spain, Australia, and South America, another region that has not been covered in as much detail as required by the remarkable number of high quality wines emerging from Argentina and Chile. Dr. J. will also be responsible for the fortified wines from Portugal.

Lastly, I have always wanted him to do more than monitor and control the enormous volume of traffic on the Bulletin Board, and our fearless host, Mark Squires, has agreed to cover an area that has received little attention, but is beginning to make a lot of noise about quality wine ... the dry wines of Portugal.

And, don’t forget ... I’ll still be working full time, immersing myself in the Rhône Valley (and Provence), Bordeaux, and California as well as backing up my staff in other areas.”

Impact and Implication

The implications of this announcement for Australian wine are immense.

Firstly, let’s examine the impact that wine critics and wine publications have on the sale of wine. Basically they can be classified into two groups. The first would be publications like Winestate, Gourmet Traveller Wine, and the Wine Spectator. In these publications, in theory, in most cases, the wines are tasted blind and usually by a panel of tasters. Whilst many of these publications sell huge quantities, they are aimed at the wine enthusiast and whilst the coverage might be very broad in any given area, the greatest impact on sales tends to be at the less costly end of the market. The reasons shall become apparent shortly.

The second group would comprise publications like the Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, James Halliday’s Wine Companion, and Jeremy Oliver's OnWine, to name just three examples. In these instances, most of the wines are tasted openly, but more importantly the reader knows exactly who has written the tasting note. While James Halliday is immensely popular with the masses because he is so well-known in Australia, and was one of the first serious wine writers, writers like Parker and Oliver generally appeal more to the premium end of the wine buying market. This is for three reasons. Firstly their publications (usually) require a subscription to an Internet service, the purchase of an annual publication subscription, or forking out for a book. Whichever way you look at it, you are normally up for anything between $35 and $100, whilst with publications such as Winestate or the Wine Spectator, it easy to go into a newsagent and just buy a single, inexpensive copy as the mood dictates.

The second reason is that the glossy publications are frequently “lifestyle magazines” that contain lots of advertising, and review a significant number of lower cost wines, whilst the Parker/Halliday/Oliver works contained no advertising and basically contain nothing but tasting notes and wine related commentary. They are significantly more serious pieces of work.

The third and most important reason the Parker/Halliday/Oliver works appeal to premium wine buyers is palate calibration. Over time, the serious wine lover will read numerous tasting notes made by their chosen writer or writers, and will compare those wines to the written word. The smart ones will quickly understand the terminology used by the writer; will understand that when certain descriptors are used they are likely or unlikely to find a wine enjoyable as the case may be; and the really smart ones will learn to read between the lines, which will allow them an even greater understanding of the writer’s palate. In circumstances where tasting wine before purchase is extremely difficult, or very expensive, the better the understanding you have of the authors work, the greater the chance of having a cellar full of wine that will suit your palate.

No one in their right mind would argue that Parker has had an enormous impact on the sale of premium Australian wine in the US, and it happened almost overnight. This was no accident! By the time Parker started reviewing the now famous 1998 Australian wines in the Wine Advocate he had an incredibly strong following, a following that fell into three camps. Those that had taken the time to align their palate to Parker's, those who were inexperienced but were prepared to pay for expert opinion, and finally those chasing points.

Australian wine suddenly became the “in thing” in the US market. Parker had raved about these big Australian Shiraz wines and many new cults were born. The impact of the points chases, and those that must have the latest “fashion” caused the price of many of these wines to rocket into the stratosphere. This happened for one reason and one reason only. Parker had enormous credibility amongst his readers and they trusted him.

As we are all now aware, fashions change and Australia is no longer flavour of the month. Those Australian wineries that based their marketing strategy and pricing structure on achieving high Parker points may find themselves in the same boat as many of these struggling Australian wineries who are finding it extremely difficult to gain solid traction in the US. In addition, those wineries that were hoping for a high Parker score to crack the US market, now have no chance of achieving that objective.

Whilst this will hurt in the short term, in the long run it may be a blessing in disguise for the Australian industry as a whole. Those wineries that were hooked on the “Parker Point Drug Fix” will now have to learn how to go cold turkey. The Australian industry, and especially the small premium producers, are realising a serious change in the approach to the marketing of premium wines is needed in the US, and the adversity caused by the removal of the Parker factor, will be a good thing in the long run, as out of adversity comes opportunity and Australians are a pretty resource full lot.

The Future

I know nothing about Dr J. Miller's abilities as a wine taster, but he has been tasting wines with Parker for almost 25 years. Whilst Parker has credibility, and the Wine Advocate has credibility, and no doubt readers will give him the benefit of the doubt during the honeymoon period, in the longer time he will have to prove himself and earn his own stripes. It will take time for readers to calibrate their palate to his tastes and during that time, his impact on wine sales will not be as great as Parker’s, and it's quite possible, indeed probable, that his impact will never be as great as Parker’s on the wine world.

As far as J Miller’s impact on the local market is concerned, it is important to remember that when domestic Australian wine retailers started quoting Parker points to push wine sales, Parker already had an enormous worldwide reputation, and although the title “Emperor of Wine” had not officially been bestowed on him at that point, he was regarded as one of the world's great experts. If local wine retailers start saying, "Miller has given this 95 points” most Australian wine drinkers will say, “who the hell is Miller.”

A few days ago, on Parker's website (the Mark Squires bulletin board) the subject “Why have (Australian) Shiraz sales declined?” came up, a subject which has been well covered on TORBWine in recent times. (As an aside, In the thread Jay Miller said, “Over the past 4-6 weeks (before I knew that I would be reviewing Australia for The Wine Advocate) I sat in on Bob's tasting with Dan Philips (Grateful Palate), Ben Hammerschlag (Epicurean), John Gorman & Ken Onish (Southern Starz) and Sarah & Sparky Marquis (Mollydooker). The quality of the wines, it seems to me, has never been higher. It appears, based on this relatively small but choice sampling, that 2005 in South Australia is the finest vintage since 1998.”

The claim that 2005 is the finest vintage since 1998 is an interesting one, and I decided to look into it a little further. Firstly, whilst 1998 was highly lauded at the time and was the subject of an incredible amount of hype, many Australian experts and serious wine lovers now believe that 1996 was probably a superior vintage, which produced wines that will have better longevity, but that is beside the point.

Rather than impose my own opinion initially, let's compare Halliday and Oliver's opinions to those of Millers.

Firstly, let's examine Halliday's ratings for South Australia over the last few vintages in the major South Australian regions. (Unfortunately I was unable to find his numbers for 1996 and 1998.) (Post story edit: Thanks to Stuart Hutson for proving the providing the 1998 numbers, which by coincidence adds up to 66, the exact same number as 2002!) 

 

Region	2002	2004	2005
Barossa	10	9	7
Clare	10	9	9
Coonawarra	9	7	8
Eden Valley	9	8	8
McLaren Vale	9	9	8
Langhorne Creek	9	8	9
Riverland	10	8	8
Total	66	58	57

This chart shows that Halliday found the SA 2002 vintage to be significantly better than 2005, and 2004 was line ball with 2005.

Oliver doesn't use numbers to rate vintages, but he does make comments. In his introduction to 2005 Oliver states, “Talk to 10 different people and you'll hear 10 different views on the Australian 2005 vintage. While the truth will only ever fully emerge once the wines meet the market, perhaps a more honest assessment of 2005 would be rather less self-congratulatory than what most of the large companies are offering.” And later under the South Australian section Oliver goes into detail comparing the quality of different varieties within the same region and finishes up by saying, “So much for the validity of vintage charts!”

On 2004 Oliver states, “It was nearly Australia's first top-class National vintage since 1998, and it may yet assume the title of the best vintage since 1998….”

On 2002 Oliver states, “A warm Indian summer not only got warmer regions like the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale out of jail after a wet, cold start to the season, but may actually have produced some special wines, albeit finer and more elegant than is typical for these regions. Barossa shiraz is the pick of the reds. Yields are close to normal. Expect similar trends in McLaren Vale, with herbal, berry-like reds of fine tannins and restraint. Langhorne Creek looks especially promising, while Clare had an exceptional vintage for reds. The Riverlands enjoyed a 'once in a lifetime' season.

So, it looks like 2002 in SA was regarded as a pretty fine vintage, I certainly thought so as did many respected winemakers I discuss vintage conditions with during my tours.

In some ways this is history repeating itself. Parker made his name by originally going against the tide and predicting the 82 vintage in Bordeaux would be a standout, despite howls of opposition from other critics. Will 05 in Australia be a standout? Whilst there was a lot of good wine produced, only time will tell, just as and only time will tell how much impact Jay Miller will have on the sale of Australian wine both domestically and in the US. 

After a short reign, the Australian King of wine is dead. Long live the new King, or Prince who ever they may turn out to be, and you never know, they may even be Australian!

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Copyright © Ric Einstein 2006