Robert Parker's views on bloggers

Hervé Lalau – a 'serious and professional' blogger?

Yesterday Hervé Lalau, one of my fellow bloggers in Les 5 du Vin, posted on his Chroniques Vineuse his thoughts on an interview Robert Parker had given to Suzanne Mustacich in Wine Business International. Published on 17th October this was one of the questions Suzanne asked:

'How do you see the role of the wine critic evolving in the future?
Today there is two schools of wine writing/criticism — 1) The paid professional who is usually independent and well-trained and 2) the bloggers who offer their opinions for free, and for the most part lack seriousness and professionalism.'

Read the whole interview here.

This is not the first time that Robert Parker has criticised wine bloggers for their lack of 'seriousness and professionalism'. This post by Joel Vincent on Joel's blog in April 2009 shows there is a history here:

Robert Parker should be ashamed of himself

http://blog.joelvincent.com/2009/04/robert-parker-should-be-ashamed-of-himself

It is a pity that Robert does not apply the high intellectual standards and rigour he demands of wine tasters and critics ( The Wine Advocate: Writer Standards) to his utterances about blogging.

On the most cursory of examination Parker's claim of two schools of wine writing is laughably inaccurate and ill-informed. I seriously doubt whether trying to distinguish between the paid professional and bloggers makes any sense these days, although it is possible that it did in the past. There are now many hundreds if not thousands of wine blogs. Many established writers now have their own blogs. Blogging has I think become another medium for communicating about wine, which importantly gives a large number of people the opportunity to be heard.

Essentially there are good and poor communicators. Those who have something interesting to say, those who work seriously and check their facts and those who do not. There have always been good, average or poor journalists/writers. I suspect that Parker's views of bloggers has not been improved by the criticism of him and Team Parker that have appeared on various blogs from time to time. It doesn't help that some equally unfounded claims have been made about bloggers and Robert Parker. George Taber's claim made at the EWBC that bloggers were 'more honest' than Parker is I think one such.

With the second 'Wine Future' being held in Hong Kong from November 6th-8th Robert Parker's name will doubtless be be in lights over the next week or ten days. The event is being organised by Dr Pancho Campo MW. (Incidentally, Pancho, I'm still waiting for a response to my question of July 2010 regarding the current status of your conviction and one year prison sentence in Dubai in June 2003. I do realise that you are a busy man but in the absence of a response one has to assume that the sentence still stands.)

Hopefully the Hong Kong event will be largely free of these pesky, unserious and unprofessional bloggers!