Major changes in personnel have just been announced by Robert Parker as he adds four new writers to his editorial team.
Our old friend David Schildknecht, one of the most active and valued contributors to the your turn forum on purple pages and currently a wine merchant in Ohio, sends the following news:
"Just to let you know hopefully before you hear it elsewhere or read it
online, I am going to start working for The Wine Advocate full time
next year, adding most of France as well New Zealand and South Africa to
my existing "beat".
"Freed from the base line of 80-hour weeks as a merchant, I hope to
surprise even myself as to how quickly an old dog can learn some new
tricks and revive old, once cherished, habits.
"Details of this and other changes at The Wine Advocate are just now
being posted on line at erobertparker.com .
"Best regards from one of the lucky few to another."
This is great news as David is a fine writer, taster and, most unusually, thinker about wine. Advocate owner Robert Parker will not relinquish his hold on his beloved Bordeaux and the Rhone but DS will be taking over Burgundy from Pierre Rovani when he returns to the trade (see Bettane and Bob) and many other French regions as well, including Champagne. He has been reporting on Germany and Austria for Parker's Wine Advocate for more than a year now.
I'm sure David is even more thrilled to be leaving the wine trade for writing than Pierre is to be going in the opposite direction. It always seemed to me unfortunate that someone with DS's brain had to be hauling cases.
I know from personal experience that he is a very diligent, punctilious taster who is also scrupulously fair. I'm sure we all wish him the very, very best. Let's hope he will still have time to bring his own special brand of quizzical intelligence to this site too.
Robert Parker has also replaced Daniel Thomases with Antonio Galloni of the Piedmont Report, has installed his old friend and fellow taster Dr Jay Miller (who once kindly drove me from Ch Parker to Dulles) to report on Australia, Spain, Washington and Oregon, and will even be unleashing Mark Squires, moderator of the erobertparker.com bulletin board, on Advocate readers as he reviews Portuguese table wines.
me:
It’s not me. I really don’t think it would be Hugh after what he wrote about Parker in his recent memoir. I think it’s almost certainly Bettane who ruled himself out only of being a major contributor (see Bettane and Bob). He does have some time on his hands and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him making occasional contributions.
