Monday, February 7, 2011

Parker Speaks, and The World Trembles

Hey all,

Sorry for the hiatus in posting over the last couple of weeks. Personal tragedy has inflicted itself upon my life, and I've been picking up the pieces. However, it's time to begin living life normally again, and that includes regular posting on this blog.

I would be absolutely remiss to not mention the changes occurring at The Wine Advocate. Vinography has the scoop:

In an e-mail to subscribers today, Robert M. Parker, Jr. announced that he was handing over primary responsibility for reviewing California wines to his associate Antonio Galloni. Parker will continue to conduct vertical and other special tastings of California wine, but the regular critical coverage has been ceded to Galloni.


Without going into parsing this to terribly much, let me just begin by saying: Holy crap! I'm led to immediately speculate upon the possible implications of this change on the reviewing standards for the WA in CA. Considering that Cali's bread-and-butter is French grape varieties, turning the territory over to the Italian reviewer could get interesting.

Antonio will continue to focus on the wines of Italy as well as Champagne, but two new areas of responsibility for Antonio will include the red and white Burgundies of the Côte d'Or as well as the crisp white wines of Chablis, and the wines of California. These vast regions will benefit from the increased depth of coverage, as will all the major wine regions of the world.


Taking on both Cali and Burgundy means that Galloni's going to be carrying a much heavier load over at the Wine Advocate. Here's hoping his palate can take the strain...

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