One of the greatest losses to Australian wine last year was John Parker, the wine businessman and visionary who pioneered a number of Australian wine brands and concepts, including Hungerford Hill and Parker Coonawarra Estate. Although I never spent as much time with John as I would like to have done, I never failed to be impressed by his youthful enthusiasm towards his work and his wine, and his total commitment to quality. Despite a series of illnesses that would have sapped many a spirit, John remained positive, proud and dignified. Sometimes as a wine writer you have little choice but to criticize wines made by people you like and admire, and I will never forget John’s graceful mixture of bewilderment and concern when I rather significantly downgraded my scores for the 1994 Parker Terra Rossa First Growth, having re-tasted it a year or so after first encountering a freshly bottled sample. The first sample appeared to me one of the most outstanding Coonawarra reds I had ever tasted, but it then deteriorated very rapidly after that time. Reports suggest that several issues beyond John’s direct control led to this occurrence. You might then imagine how delighted I was recently to open a bottle of 1996 Parker Terra Rossa First Growth, only to discover that it remains at least as brilliant a red wine as it appeared in its youth, easily living up to my score of 19.0 (drink 2008-2016). John Parker was involved in the production of many great wines, and it’s very fitting indeed that such a sumptuous, firm and concentrated red simply reveling with effortless elegance and style, remains as an appropriate legacy to a man I much admire. If you see this wine, go and buy it. It’s one of the greats.
