Wine Advocate

There is quite a cult of personality around Robert Parker, the founder of Wine Advocate. It's hard for an oenophile not to be jealous of Mr. Parker, tasting fine wines from dusk `til dawn, and he's certainly revered. Positive Wine Advocate reviews on relatively low priced wines have caused sellouts at my local wine warehouse mere hours after they'd sent out the email.

Wine Advocate is a serious magazine that looks more like a trade publication or hobbyist's classified page. There are no photographs, illustrations, advertisements, or lifestyle articles. Ever. It suits the magazine well, however, and no one ever levels the same criticisms that are hurled at Wine Spectator (e.g., advertising skews the ratings, numerous vapid articles). The beige pages are filled with enticing reviews and vintage summaries. His coverage of the Rhone region is unmatched and his coverage of the Bordeaux, while controversial, also seems accurate to me.

That said, there are a few myths. Parker himself claims that his 50 point system (which runs from 50-100) is better than the 20 point scale used in other publications (which run from 80-100, but are really more like 70-100). Having said that, no one really pays attention to anything less than an 80 in either system, and those with a good local store using the point system to choose a wine (simplistic and narrow-sighted, but common) won't consider less than an 86. Even so, I conducted a survey on the two web sites and Parker consistently rates more wines 95+, in some vintages up to three times as many (as a percentage of wines tasted), than Wine Spectator. I don't mind this at all, though, and find that my tastes match Parker's fairly consistently and that his descriptions use certain words as a tip off as to what I won't.

A few criticisms that I do care about: Parker's distaste for Burgundies is legendary and in spite of the fact that the region has had mixed results for the past few years, I have tasted some truly amazing wines from the region, but they never seem to make his pages. Of course, for the entire 2000 vintage, Wine Advocate has tasted a whopping 35 wines. Perhaps they don't submit themselves for critique, but no comprehensive wine guide would be without them. (He hired another gentleman, Pierre Rovani, to cover this region for him back in 1996.) There is also a weird neglect of German Riesling. This appears to be dissipating somewhat this year, but it's confusing nonetheless.

Coverage, at least of Italy, looks to be expanded this year with the hiring of a third critic (Daniel Thomases, devoted entirely to Italy says the bio).

It bears mention that the articles from this magazine appear on the web site (which has its own, separate fee) thirty days after the paper issue is mailed to subscribers. The magazine is also more expensive. Thus, the only advantage to the magazine, aside from being able to bring it to the store, is that you get a slight jump on those who only subscribe to the site.

Whatever medium you choose to view it in, this is my preference for wine publications, despite its shortcomings.

After reading a neighbor's Wine Advocate while catsitting, I decided to subscribe (to the electronic version eRobertParker). What I like about the reviews is actually not the numerical ratings, or even Parker's adjectives, but his incredibly detailed notes on the grape blends involved, vineyards, producers and winemaking. For example, here's a review of one of my favorite wines taken from the April 2004 Wine Advocate, which is fairly typical of a Parker review:

2001 Numanthia

Numanthia

Toro, Spain

Tempranillo (a dry red table wine)

The flagship offering, the 2001 Numanthia, is fashioned from a 70-100 year old Tinta de Toro vineyard planted at a 2300 foot elevation. After a 28 day maceration, the wine undergoes malolactic in barrel, is aged 19 months in new French oak, and is bottled without fining or filtration. The spectacular, opaque purple-colored 2001 offers an explosive nose of melted licorice, barbecue smoke, blackberries, creme de cassis, camphor, and graphite. Full-bodied with gorgeously rich, concentrated fruit, a layered texture, and tremendous purity, it can be drunk young, but should hit its prime in 1-2 years, and last for 10-15.

Wine Advocate includes info on U.S. importers, a rating, and an often unreliable estimated cost (especially "bargains" which tend to be affected by Parker's ratings). All in all, a set of information that's not available elsewhere, typically not even from a winemaker's web site, when there is one.

Parker is not the only taster. There's also Pierre Rovani and Daniel Thomases, who carve up the world by region. Parker seems to have dibs on my favorite regions: Chateauneuf and Hermitage in the Rhone, Toro and Ribera del Duero in Spain, and California Zinfandel. On the downside, the coverage of regions is uneven, which is forgivable given the size of the winemaking world. I, for one, would like to see more Alsatian whites reviewed.

The Wine Advocate reviews not only wines, but whole regions. They note not only who's doing what in a region, but what the weather was like for a given year and what the growers and winemakers did given the conditions. The overall ratings for regions and vintages have proven very reliable in my experience.

I prefer the web site to the magazine, because it has all the back issues, and allows you to search. It also includes wine news, amateurish (though funny) cartoons, and lifestyle pieces filed under "Hedonist's Gazette", where you can read about dinners and tastings that would cost us punters thousands of dollars if they could be bought at all.

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Of the two major wine magazines, Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate, I have to say that Wine Advocate is my preferred source for finding a truly exceptional wine to enjoy. Wine Advocate is primarily the work of the noted wine critic Robert Parker, who is sometimes accused of being one of the leading "wine snobs" in the industry. Although Parker does use some pretentious lingo and some obscure references in his tasting notes, I find his tasting descriptions generally more accurate than those of the critics of Wine Spectator. Sure, he dislikes Burgundy, but at least now he has hired a more than competent fellow critic (Pierre Rovani) to cover that region for him.

Both Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate have been criticized for writing too many superlative reviews of less than exceptional wines, but I feel that Parker and Wine Advocate are less guilty in that respect, even though, as a previous reviewer noted, he does put more wines in the coveted 95+ point range. Still, Wine Advocate does a far better job than Wine Spectator of placing wines and their ratings in perspective, and avoiding clichés such as "vintage of a lifetime" that the Spectator frequently falls prey to. I have found Parker and Wine Advocate to be superior to Wine Spectator in their coverage of Bordeaux, especially in my favorite sub-regions, Sauternes and Barsac.

My only major complaints about Wine Advocate is that Parker generally assumes that all of his readers can afford to pay the relatively high price for his publication (currently more than $12/issue on Amazon). There are many 90+ point wines available for the difference between the yearly costs of Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator. Additionally, Parker and Wine Advocate really do not focus as much on wine values as they could, and I have found Parker's coverage of Australia somewhat disappointing. Generally speaking, however, I find Wine Advocate to be the best major Wine Publication available in English and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys wine with a passion.

Read Best Reviews of Wine Advocate Here

Parker is the leading consumer analyst for the wine industry. Anyone serious about wine should subscribe to the Wine Advocate. However, I'd be doing an injustice as a reviewer if I didn't mention that you can purchase it online via Parker's eRobertParker website for only $60/year.

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I've subscribed to "The Wine Advocate", "Wine Spectator" and "Wine Enthusiast" concurrently for several years now. I enjoy the "Wine Spectator" and "Wine Enthusiast" magazines for their articles and features, but I tend to be skeptical of both publications' wine reviews due to their reliance on advertising revenues from the wine industry. In contrast, Robert Parker's "Wine Advocate", newsletter doesn't rely on ad revenue and this presumably allows him to be more candid in his ratings. I also prefer Mr. Parker's (and Pierre Rovani's) evaluation and commentary in "The Wine Advocate", over the various other wine magazine critics.

Does this mean that I enjoy every wine rated highly by "The Wine Advocate"? Of course not. In fact, my wife and I recently drank a 2000 vintage Barbaresco that Mr. Parker rated 90 points (and "ready to drink"), yet we felt the wine was still overly tannic and tight. In truth, there's no substitute for popping corks and tasting wines for yourself, regardless of what the critics pronounce. That said, I believe the Wine Advocate is consistently better at rating wines more accurately than other wine publications... Like subjective wine ratings, this is merely my opinion.