在葡萄酒品质的激烈较量中，意大利与法国长期以来一直并肩作战，但是在价值体系的构建和市场推广上，法国葡萄酒显得更加佔据高地。法国葡萄酒的辉煌成就，罗伯特·帕克Robert Parker功不可没，他所创立的百分制评价体系，是以法国波尔多为中心的。在他从1978年开始35年的不懈努力下，波尔多地区从30多个知名酒庄增加到了近400家，可以说波尔多乃至法国葡萰酒在全球范围内取得巨大成功，与罗伯特·帕克评分体系紧密相连。
随着罗伯特·帕克对France wine销售价格影响力日益增强，他越来越难以给这些声望卓著的大型酿造商提供低于90分以上的评级，这微小差异对于许多商人而言意味着数十万或数百万欧元损失。身处利益漩涡中的帕克，在2012年将《The Wine Advocate》杂志转让给新加坡一支评酒团队，并于2014年开始放弃亲自打分工作，对波尔多产区。
从另一个角度看，罗伯特·帕克在为France wine站台时，与其风格和体系不同的大量葡萄品种和生产者，其结果是某种程度上的不公正待遇。而拥有众多独具个性的高质量葡萄酒但未被普遍认可的地球另一端——意大利，它虽然同样是世界知名的酿造大国，却被排除在罗伯特·帕克设定的全球公认评价系统之外。
这一切都发生了变化，因为今年，开始反思问题、放慢脚步探索问题本质的是罗伯特·帕克。他决定重新认识并发现意大利葡萄酒所蕴含的价值与魅力。这一年，他与WineNews记者Monica Larner共同举办了一次关于“The Wine Advocate”大师班，以此探索意大利美妙无比的地理优势及文化丰富性。1985年的Sassicaia便是他极为赞赏的一款红色佳酿，用他的话来说，这是一生中最受欢迎的一款产品之一，而这正是将意大利带入了与法兰西齐平的地位。
"Italy and France are both historical countries in the world of wine," Robert Parker said, "both will continue to be industry benchmarks, especially for those 'new world' winemakers." He added, "In Europe as a whole, Italy is the country with the most indigenous grape varieties - it's a treasure trove of wines. Diversity and complexity are the strengths and charm of Italian wines; they deserve respect and protection."
For Parker, red wine brings him greatest joy - diversity. In his career, he has found one of life's greatest pleasures is seeing local grape varieties thrive, especially in Italy - this land where native grape varieties bloom like flowers.
Robert Parker begins to focus on Italian wines as well can be seen as his rebirth from Bordeaux. Discovering the changing landscape of Italian wines and dealing with less business-savvy Italian winemakers may lead an aging Parker more focused on discovering the charm & value of Italian wines and promoting continuous improvement in their quality systems.
As Robert Parker once said: “I built this system for readers to have a reference point. Discussing history or terroir is important but this rating system serves as a constant benchmark giving readers an intuitive understanding — how much does this wine mean to me?” Though he believes that taste buds vary greatly among people so each person has their own unique way of tasting & appreciating fine vino!
