Word: parkers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...course of an average week, Robert M. Parker Jr., 40, will sniff, sip and spit his way through hundreds of bottles of wine (reds in the morning, whites in the afternoon). The opinions recorded at his daily tastings are written up primarily for the 21,000 subscribers (at $30 a year) to his influential, fact-choked bi-monthly newsletter, The Wine Advocate. Finally, some of the judgments will mature into a book. November marked the publication of his third, The Wines of the Rhone Valley and Provence (Simon & Schuster; $22.95); both sections of France, Parker believes, offer good bargains...
...Parker's influence in the wine trade is fairly awesome itself. In France, some vintners await his thrice-yearly tasting visits with the same trepidation that restaurateurs have for the annual Le Guide Michelin ratings. Craig Goldwyn, editor of the rival International Wine Review, says Parker has "one of the greatest palates ever to walk the earth," although some writers complain that as a taster he favors strength over subtlety. (Parker, of course, denies it.) His critics also carp that his success is based primarily on a 50-to-100-point rating system for wines that is fast becoming...
...Naderite concern for protecting consumers from poor values that first inspired Parker to write about wines. The son of a Baltimore-based oil- company executive, he grew up in a family of moderate drinkers who rarely touched wine. In 1967 Parker briefly dropped out of the University of Maryland to visit his high school sweetheart (now his wife Patricia) while she was spending her college junior year in France. Fascinated by the taste and variety of wines he encountered, Parker back home bought every book he could find on the subject. A hobby inexorably became an obsession; soon...
...Parker soon concluded, "There were a lot of experts, but no one was writing for the consumer." In 1977 he borrowed $2,000 from his mother and the following year published the first issue of The Wine Advocate, which was mailed speculatively to 6,000 wine lovers in the Baltimore-Washington area. About 600 readers wrote in to subscribe -- enough to finance a second issue. By 1984 The Wine Advocate had so outclassed its rivals that Parker quit his job as a lawyer to become a full-time wine critic...
Cincinnati's Dave Parker may be headed to the Yankees, while the Mets are trying to unload Mookie Wilson and Jesse Orosco. Seattle's Phil Bradley and L.A.'s Mike Marshall are also on the trading block, and the Blue Jays may be trying to ditch Dave Stieb. The Blue Jays and the Red Sox seem ready to trade some prospects, while the Yanks may make a deal with the White...