Culinary and Wine Trends

By Robert M. Parker, Jr.

" The revolution in wine quality has coincided with an extraordinary revolution in the restaurants of the world. Although France and Italy clearly dominated culinary circles 30 years ago, today the finest restaurants are often found in such unlikely places as Las Vegas, Tokyo and San Sebastián, Spain.

When I first began writing about wine 30 years ago, there may have been five or six great restaurants in Washington, DC, and virtually none in my hometown of Baltimore. Today, there are 30 or 40 top restaurants in DC, and even Baltimore now has at least a dozen top restaurants.

Meanwhile, New York City is arguably one of the greatest dining destinations in the world, equaled only, and somewhat surreally, by Las Vegas. (Who in the world could have predicted that?)

One of the biggest myths in wine today, constructed on half-truths, inaccurate observations and journalistic manipulation, is that the wine market has become so globalized that international companies are producing oceans of monochromatic wines from a limited number of grapes that all taste the same. This radical and profoundly false point of view holds that individuality and artisanal winemaking have been replaced by oceans of vapid wines made with little taste or character. This is appallingly untrue. "

Hmmm.
Discuss?