Robert M. Parker Jr. Quotes

I've always enjoyed drinking wine, ever since I was in college. My appreciation really took off when I began to visit Napa. I was toying with an idea of making wine in Napa, but it's prohibitively expensive, and the competition is fierce.

Fairly early in my career, I had a passion for wine just as a consumer, and I started to learn about the whole process, starting with a piece of raw ground, and ending up with a work of art in a bottle.

I read about wine every day.

Wine is not just an object of pleasure, but an object of knowledge; and the pleasure depends on the knowledge.

Wine is earth's answer to the sun.

Wine is a civilizing agent.

We started seven years ago and finally released our first vintage in March. It's an '07 vintage from Walla Walla, which is my old hometown. It also happens to be a world-class wine region that's just exploding on the scene right now.

From age 16, I lived and breathed wine. I read every magazine and book about wine.

There are so many impassioned winemakers. I think there are more impassioned winemakers than chefs.

I don't know anything about the wine world at all.

Wine is so much more than a beverage. It's a romance, a story, a drama-all of those things that are basically putting on a show.

Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet's horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted.

Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.

Wine, one of the noblest cordials in nature.

I know that wine is, above all else, a blessing, a gift of nature, a joy as pure and elemental as the soil and vines and sunshine from which it springs.

When [wines] were good they pleased my sense, cheered my spirits, improved my moral and intellectual powers, besides enabling me to confer the same benefits on other people. (Notes on a Cellar Book)

My grandparents in Istria had a frasca, which is about the most basic kind of grocery/restaurant. They sold wine from their own vineyard. I took control of the vineyard, hired a local winemaker, and bought another winery in 1996. We had our first commercial vintage in 1998.

Wine pricing is an art - like painting.

Wine writers have been around for almost as long as there has been wine, but in the past, generally speaking, most wine writing was uncritical and emphasized wine as a romantic, historic beverage. Criticism and comparative tastings were eschewed for fear of offending the trade, which most writers depended upon for survival.

When I started in 1978, the greatest wine in Spain, Vega Sicilia, wasn't even imported to the United States. The alleged greatest Australian wine, Penfolds Grange, wasn't imported to the United States. There were no by-the-glass programs. Sommeliers were intimidating.

I'm a winemaker and a wine collector, so I usually just drink wine.

Burgess Meredith taught me a lot about wine.

After my family, wine is the biggest passion of my life without question.

Australian wine and Australian women - that's my weak point. Ha ha ha ha.

The way people connected with wine intrigued me and I wanted to be a part of it.