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eRobertParker.com Sometime ago, I
wrote a little blurb about the pending arrival of eRobertParker.com, the website
for noted wine critic Robert Parker (for a thorough biography of Robert Parker,
I recommend that you read the bio on eRobertParker.com).
In that review, which I constructed from the marketing material sent to
me, I incorrectly stated that eRobertParker.com was not going to publish
Robert Parker’s wine reviews as distributed in his newsletter, The Wine
Advocate, for six months. Fairly
quickly, I received an email from Parker’s partner correcting my statement and
pointing out that the reviews would be published on the website 60 days after
appearing in The Wine Advocate. By
the time my blurb was published on winostuff.com and I received the email,
eRobertParker.com was up and running. I
promised the folks at eRobertParker.com that my review would be forthcoming.
Alas, I didn’t make it happen. Financial
restructuring consumed my days from January until the end of March.
Since then, I have had to catch up on life by doing things like hosting a
class reunion, visiting the WinoJohn family, taking my daughter to surgery (that
was a toughie!), etc. With only 8
days left until my departure for the WinoWallyWorld of Wonderful Golf trip to
Ireland, I need to keep my promise and write the review.
I want to point out that I purchased a subscription to eRobertParker.com
in order to uphold the Parker tradition of purchasing the wines that he reviews.
Of course, if he likes the review, we could handle an extended
subscription since we can’t possibly hold ourselves out to be as morally sound
(or as financially successful in the wine world) as Mr. Parker. Anyone can take
a sneak peak at eRobertParker.com. That’s
because the site asks you to register and gives you a few limited uses before
your registration expires and you either pay up or sign in under a different
internet user name. I used the
sneak feature for an hour or so, but quickly ran out of room (the last time I
used this, it didn’t grant you access to the entire site) and decided to
subscribe. Since my subscription in
January, the site has improved. The home page
is clean, simple, and effective (take note, WinoJohn!).
Being a native of Baltimore (Robert Parker’s hometown too!), I can
attest that the photo of Mr. Parker is a photo of Mr. Parker and not a stick
figure representation (like the one we have of WinoBob).
The home page has a three column layout with the left hand column
providing links to Parker products and info, the center column links to daily
wine news, and the right hand column providing a wine of the day (gosh, we could
do that too if Wino Bob would sip like a professional taster instead of guzzle.
Even WB’s liver can’t take a bottle of wine every day!) and Mark
Squires’ Wine Bulletin Board. What’s New
sounds like a category belonging to another major wine website.
However, eRobertParker.com chooses to use this descriptor to provide news
about what recently changed on the wine site.
You can also find out about Robert Parker and Pierre Rovani (his wine
tasting sidekick). I will note that
Parker is one of the few foreigners to receive both of France’s highest honors
for civilians, the Legion of Honor and Order of Merit (I believe that comedian
Jerry Lewis may be another and I’ll leave it up to Wino John to figure out a
comment about the connection between the two). There are two
links for The Wine Advocate, Parker’s first publication to which I
subscribe. I found the first link a
little awkward in that there are a number of screens required for navigation in
order to get to the order form. Also,
the “forthcoming” preview for The Wine Advocate provides a review of
what’s already available to subscribers.
I’m not sure what the percentage overlap of Advocate subscribers
and eRobertParker.com subscribers is, but I wouldn’t mind knowing what’s
coming in my next Advocate rather than seeing forthcoming news about the
issue that I have. I would
recommend a clarification of this area. The
second link is fairly direct: Subscribe
to The Wine Advocate. Since
I’m already a subscriber, I didn’t try that one but assume that it works. eRobertParker.com
has an Education Links and Commercial Links section.
The Education Links are non-commercial, educationally focused, and in
alphabetical order. While the alpha
order is fine for now, the number of links could be enhanced just from scouring
a few of the finer links sites (like winostuff.com) and categorization according
to Mr. Parker’s priorities could be employed for quicker reader scanning.
The commercial links page is a listing of commercial food and wine sites
with links to eRobertParker.com. I
was particularly disappointed to not see winostuff.com listed here since I
believe our site attempts to provide continuous journalistic repartee and is not
“primarily a links site” which is a commercial site that eRobertParker will
not link to (of course, a totally unbiased reviewer would not let this cloud
their review and, neither will I). I
did find an interesting link to vineswinger.com and all that I’ll say about
that is that Wino Bob needs to borrow a photo to submit and he’ll be the talk
of the town (note to WinoJohn: we
need to bribe these guys with a link and get a picture of WinoBob in the
swingers section). The Bookstore
links provides you with a way to buy the Robert Parker books that are currently
in print through Amazon.com. Bravo!
Rather than Mr. Parker having to deal with shipping, etc., this site has
Amazon handle it. At the same time,
I suspect that many of the subscribers have these books.
If you’re a subscriber to The Wine Advocate, you can get
autographed copies from Mr. Parker whenever he publishes a new book.
I wonder how many books are actually sold through this link. Other products
and services currently features The Wine Advocate, Robert Parker’s Wine
Advisor and Cellar Manager, The Wine Price File, and winealert.com.
We’ve already discussed the Advocate.
The Wine Advisor and Cellar Manager software is excellent software for
managing a cellar. I think it’s
much easier to use if you have a laptop that you can take into your cellar for
inventory purposes. A future feature that may be available as soon as June 2002 is
that owners of the Wine Advisor software may be able to download updates from
eRobertParker.com once they’re available.
It only makes sense and I’ll cherish that feature as soon as it’s
available. The Wine Price File is a
book with prices on wines going back to the 1600’s. If you’re a serious buyer who attends auctions, this may be
handy. For the rest of us, we’ll
just wonder who uses this. WineAlert.com
is another tool for the serious buyer. This
is a site that tracks the prices on over 25,000 wines worldwide.
However, only if you are a paid member will you have that type of access.
The free access is only for 2,000 wines.
I’m not sure that Parker is an owner of this site, but the link is
there. The wine news
column has wine news provided by winebusiness.com.
It’s nice, but really filler given that most of the stuff can be found
elsewhere on the net. If you’ve
read this far, you may say, “Wino Wally, why did you subscribe to
eRobertParker.com?” I’m about
to tell you. While all of the above
features are nice and round out the site’s offering, what this site really
offers are four sophisticated searches for any wine that Parker has ever
reviewed. You can do a Text Search,
Category Search, Vintage Search, and Advanced Search.
The different searches are handy for whatever wino level you aspire to.
I blew through about 20 searches when I used the trial version of
eRobertParker.com and after seeing the results, I said this is much quicker and
easier than looking it up in old issues of The Wine Advocate.
The wines reviewed have links to the producers.
eRobertParker.com claims that its 1,500 producer links are more extensive
than anywhere else on the web. I
can’t verify that claim yet, but believe that there is at least one wine
website which claims links to 3,000 producers.
The links are a nice touch, particularly for more information about the
producer. I also found The
Hedonists’ Gazette extremely enjoyable.
These are tasting notes from Robert and Pierre and have not been
published. Quite frankly, it shows
that a guy who tastes almost 40,000 wines per year can be normal like the rest
of us. Reading these is also worth
the subscription price. If you are a
serious wine connoisseur, you should give eRobertParker.com a try.
For those of you who are already Wine Advocate subscribers, you won’t
regret it. If you’re a
not-so-serious connoisseur, you may enjoy the site as well.
While it won’t provide all of the humor that a site like winostuff.com
may provide, you’ll find the wine database something that you continue to come
back and review. Once in a while,
you’ll even find that you have a few bottles of some of the wines reviewed by
Parker in your cellar. If you find
that most of your wines have been reviewed by Parker, please contact the
winostuff staff so that we can check your claim and test, er taste, your wines. Wino Wally |