Quotes from Robert M. Parker, Jr.

As I've grown older, I've developed an appreciation for wines that are immediately gratifying but that can also provide great satisfaction over several years.

In the wine world, crusaders would have wine consumers believe that the only wines of merit are something completely indefinable but which they call 'authentic' or 'natural.'

You can't simplify my taste and say, 'Parker likes big wines,' because it's just not true.

Generally speaking, when Australian winemakers try to make delicate, European-styled wines of finesse and lightness, the wines often come across as pale imitations of the originals. One exception is Australian Riesling, delicious, dry wines meant to be consumed in their first two years of life.

What's important in a cellar is having wines that have a broad range of drinkability, which California Cabernet does. Wines with a broad range of drinkability give you a lot of flexibility; they are the sort of wines that make me feel secure. I think of my wine cellar as security - if the apocalypse comes, I can just go down to the cellar.

After years of infertility tests, the best decision we ever made was to adopt, and in 1987, we were bestowed a three-month-old baby girl from an island off the south coast of Korea called Cheju Island.

Trevisan is one of the few Paso Robles producers to recognize the potential of the region's old-vine Zinfandel, which he blends with Syrah and Mourvedre and labels with fanciful names such as Problem Child, the Outsider and Cherry Red.

Tawny ports have already spent 20 or 30 years in wood - it's not likely they're going to improve. On the other hand, they're not going to get any worse.

I've always followed the rule that anything worth doing is worth doing excessively.

Although the French appellation system has its roots in the 1923 system created in Chateauneuf-du-Pape by Baron Le Roy, proprietor of the renowned Chateau Fortia, Chateauneuf-du-Pape never developed a reputation for quality or achieved the prestige enjoyed by such regions as Burgundy and Bordeaux.

There is no question that Australia's most dramatic assault on the world market has been with its value wines. These are generally not from specific appellations but blends made by huge enterprises like Penfolds, Rosemount or Casella Estate - the group behind Yellow Tail.

It's nearly impossible to believe just how provincial the wine world was in 1978, the year I launched my journal, 'The Wine Advocate.' There were no wines exported from New Zealand and virtually none from Australia (including Penfolds Grange, one of the greatest wines in existence).

These are the people who do studies that your carry-out Chinese meals are saturated in fat. I'd just like to meet them! I mean, what do they do for pleasure?

If California ever developed a vineyard rating system, Saxum's James Berry Vineyard would be classified as one of the best.

I believe that the responsibility of the winemaker is to take that fruit and get it into the bottle as the most natural and purest expression of that vineyard, of the grape varietal or blend, and of the vintage.

As far as vintage Champagne goes, I loved 1990; it's a great, great vintage. I bought a lot of 1990 Blanc de Blancs Champagne - my favorite kind - and I plan on drinking it all by 2005.