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C?est possible que le prochain ?Robert Parker? soit Chinois?

Chinese language websites are the ?tendance? for the leading estates in Chateauneuf du Pape, and the Chateau la Nerthe (pictured above) is no exception.

Last May, the Harbour Grill restaurant in Hong Kong hosted a six-course dinner featuring the wines of the Chateau la Nerthe.

Harbour_Grill_interior

Each vintage listed on the Harbour Grill?s menu that evening was accompanied with a ?score? in the 90?s from a scale 50-100 popularized by the world?s most influential wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. whose bi-monthly newsletter ?The Wine Advocate,? published since 1978, has had a ?gigantesque? effect on prices, wine styles and demand for high end wines.

Parker?s tome ?The Wines of the Rhone Valley? established the Southern Rhone as a wine region on par with Bordeaux and Burgundy. Recently, he proclaimed the 2007 vintage in the Southern Rhone as the greatest ever.

And no appellation in the Southern Rhone has profited more from Parker?s pumping up of prices than Chateauneuf du Pape. With the emergence of Hong Kong as a prime market for fine wine, the Chinese are eager to shill out awesome sums for Chateauneuf du Pape tagged with Parker?s hyperbolic prose and high scores.

Alas, at whose expense is the mild irony to read earlier this month a dispatch from Lettie Teague of The Wall Street Journal that Parker is selling a share of The Wine Advocate to Asian investors and leaving the chores of editor in chief to a new Singapore office.

Over time, the Wine Advocate brand will be transformed: no print edition, online only; advertising (eschewed by Parker) for non-wine clients; wine education and training focused on the Chinese market, and Singapore assuming total corporate ownership and control.

For the meantime, Parker continues to write for the WA and covering the Rhone Valley, as well as being faithful to his core as a enthusiastic hedonist of food and drink, a lover of la bonne table in the Rhone.

The brutal truth is that during the past decade the influence of Parker and the WA has waned in the U.S. with emergence of internet-based wine reviewers, wine blogs and sommeliers, as well as diverse wine styles and consumer tastes. In effect, the Wine Advocate brand has more efficacy and potential in Asia than in the U.S.

The Good and the Not So Good: 7 Aftereffects for Southern Rhone

The French Federation of Wine and Spirits Exporters reports that China is today the third-largest importer of French wine and spirits after the United States and Britain. Last year, French wine exports to China increased by 75.5% in value in 2011, and by 36.4% in Hong Kong (much of the Hong Kong exports are distributed to the mainland). In the Chinese wine market, France rules: more than 50% of bottled wine is of French origin.

As the Wine Advocate makes the move to Asia, here are seven possible aftereffects for Southern Rh?ne wines:

1) Elite Chateauneuf du Pape Estates Will Continue to Demand Outrageous Prices

The wines in Chateauneuf du Pape that have achieved legendary heights ? scores of 97-plus ? and cult-like status will demand higher and higher prices in Hong Kong and in the U.S.

Hong Kong will remain a prime market for high end boutique estates in the Rhone such as Chene Bleu.

2) Mid-to-high Rated Chateauneuf du Pape Wine Will Face Price Resistance

When Parker fades away from reporting on Rhone wines, there will be no one with his authority to validate the Chateauneuf du Pape wines that vary in score from vintage to vintage in the high 80?s to mid-90?s. These wineries will feel pressure not to raise their prices in the face of the diversity of quality wines at attractive price points on the market in the U.S., and in China, not to mention a shift in consumer tastes (see 5 below).

3) A C?tes-du-Rh?ne and C?tes-du-Rh?ne Villages Export Explosion

Consider the numbers: China imports 314,000 hectolitres of Bordeaux wine and 253,000 hectolitres of Sud de France-branded wine, yet only 29,800 hectolitres of Rh?ne wines.

C?tes-du-Rh?ne wines are positioned to explode in demand in China as the Chinese consumer, with the help of the Asian-based Wine Advocate, demands a wine superior in quality to Sud de France (Languedoc) and a more attractive quality/price ratio than the Bordeaux estates offer.

Prediction: More than 100,000 hectolitres of Rh?ne wines to China within three years.

4) Consumer Preferences Will Drift Away from Parker Style Wines Found in the Southern Rhone

Robert Parker favors a style of wine marked by hyper-ripeness, dense fruit and high alcohol as vinified at certain estates in the Southern Rhone.

The wine writer Matt Kramer surmised that because this style of wine garnered the highest scores, growers began to produce this very style to receive high scores.

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As the wine world diversifies along with consumer tastes, the demand for styles of wines others than those touted by Parker is expanding worldwide. Other reviewers chime in, such as a panel at the New York Times debunking the jammy high alcohol wines from Gigondas.

With Parker?s influence in decline, will wine consumers grow weary of 16 percent alcohol dense fruit wines from the Southern Rhone, preferring a 14.5 percent bottle? In the na?ve Chinese market, such preferences are yet to be formed.

Perhaps the winning style of the wines in the Southern Rhone will be the elegant Burgundy-like wines of Saint Jean du Barroux.

5) ?Gap? C?tes-du-Rh?ne Wineries Will Find a New Market

So-called ?gap? wineries in the Southern Rhone are those that can not find a U.S. importer because their high-quality wines are either not reviewed by wine critics or if they are they do not receive a high score to guarantee sufficient demand in the U.S. market, and the wines do not sell at low price points of lower quality plunk.

As the Chinese market demand expands with greater consumer awareness of quality wine, these growers will find an export market ? China ? for their wines.

6) Grenache Will Be the Preferred Grape Variety to Pair with Chinese Cuisine

The wine guru Philippe Cambie opines that the Grenache blends of the Southern Rhone will catch fire in the Chinese market for a simple reason: the spicy Chinese food marries perfectly with Grenache.

Grenache pairs well with Chinese dishes as the intensity of its fruit cleanses the mouth of spices after each bite. One could say the same for Syrah and Malbec, but not for Bordeaux or Burgundy.

This perfect pairing could serve as an eye-catching mouth-watering advertising campaign in China, and worldwide. An ad concept that Inter-Rh?ne, the organization which handles promotion worldwide for Rh?ne Valley wines, should consider.

7) The next ?Robert Parker? with powerhouse influence in the wine world will be Chinese.

A Chinese critic will take the Chinese market by storm as Parker did with the U.S. market in the 1980?s, establishing a new rating system (not 100-pts), promoting a non-Parker style of wine and dictating market demand for Southern Rhone wines in China. Pourquoi pas?

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