StExtra, extra, read all about it! Robert Parker rules Bordeaux! Michel Rolland is his shill! There's pesticide in the wine! Big money controls Bordeaux! The INAO is a sham! And those rich Chinese!
Wow. This is the snarkiest tabloid gossip fest I've read in a good long while, and if you've been paying attention to the wine trade, you've probably heard it all before. Some may be true, some may be exaggerated, some may just be plain old sniping among competitors and enemies.
But whatever. At some point, it just plain wears you out, because Ms. Saporta never lightens up, never concedes that some of the folks (except the whistleblowers) might just be acting in good faith, never lets up on the torrent of snark.
A cottage industry has grown up around the bashing of Parker, the en primeur Bordeaux circus, flying winemakers like Michel Rolland, the flow of luxury marketing, insurance and banking money into Bordeaux estates (and now into Burgundy) and all the rest. It's no longer news. It no longer shocks. And by now Parker is headed off into the sunset, hundreds of blogs and thousands of cellartracker amateur 'critics' purport to review and 'score' wine, Bordeaux prices have been plummeting, biodynamic wine is all the rage, top Burgundy domaines are buying property in the Jura, and old bottles of Cornas sell for more at auction than Haut Brion. Imagine that.
The train Ms. Saporta tried to hop aboard left the station some time ago. And this book, particularly in translation, is a tedious read.
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