Editor’s Note: Robert Parker unquestionably enjoys an honorable place in the historic pantheon of "wine educators"...like Thomas Jefferson, Andre Simon and his contemporary, Hugh Johnson, Robert Parker was a bold innovator in shaping opinion about wine... boy, did/does Parker shape opinion! In the era when consumers lacked confidence to decide for themselves, the wine-scoring and newsletter-as-advisor formula, perfected by Parker, pushed the wine culture and wine market forward. He who has demonstrable success as a "pusher" is deemed to have POWER. But the wine culture is shifting rapidly now... free spirited wine curiosity now rivals personal wine insecurity on the psychological map of the wine culture. Power that once pushed forward is under fire as Power that limits and dictates taste. There's definitely a whiff of regime change out there!