The Seven Heady Sins
Already somewhat scratched in Jonathan Nossiter's film "Mondivino", Parker gets another dressing down in this album produced by Benoist Simmat and Philippe Bercovici intended to be a long pamphlet: the trial on prosecution against M. Robert Parker,"the Pope of all Winery Preachers"
Robert Parker, creator of Guide Parker, has for the past 30 years, been the most influential man of the wine-producing world. By his vision of things, this famous american critic has gradually helped to establish a real systematization of production methods (use of new barrels, micro-oxygenation…) and marketing of great vintage wines.
Casually invited to a cellar at St Emilion, Robert is compelled as an involuntary volunteer to stand at his own trial, conducted by a court of hooded men straight out of Hergé's "Cigars of the Pharaoh". He is blamed successively for each of the Seven Heady Sins and every one of his former "alcoolytes" (sorry!) file in to the witness box (oenologist Michel Rolland… winemerchant Archibald Johnson, etc…)
Casually invited to a cellar at St Emilion, Robert is compelled as an involuntary volunteer to stand at his own trial, conducted by a court of hooded men straight out of Hergé's "Cigars of the Pharaoh". He is blamed successively for each of the Seven Heady Sins and every one of his former "alcoolytes" (sorry!) file in to the witness box (oenologist Michel Rolland… winemerchant Archibald Johnson, etc…)
By staging the "trial of Parker", Benoist Simmat, expert journalist of the field, manages to disassemble, through this enquiry pictured by Bercovici's light touch, the infernal spiral that could change a gifted wine-taster into someone responsible for the standardization of taste and the delirious inflation in the prices of our better vintage bottles. Prefaced by Denis Saverot, managing editor of the magazine "Revue du Vin de France", this album comes out as a public health undertaking towards the preservation of the vineyards of France!
The drawing is nice, with text and dialogues showing a slight tendancy to caricature, all this making the reader acquainted with habits and customs of the trade, the life history of Robert Parker is also fairly accurately rendered.
As for he preface written by a gentleman belonging to "Revue du Vin de France", no wonder it looks a bit like "the pot calling the kettle black"
