Some call him the most powerful critic in the world, of any kind. Some call him the Dictator of Taste. If there’s one guy who walks around the wine world with a bull’s-eye painted on his ass, it’s Robert Parker. The wine critic that everyone loves to hate. Yesterday, Eric Asimov had a very nice piece about Parker in the New York Times. And by nice I mean, honestly, sincerely nice. Almost charming. The piece is not particularly profound, nor does it offer anything substantially new in the way of insight into his character, but it’s a nice portrait of the guy that is absent all the usual politics and suspicion (on the one hand) or ingratiating flattery (on the other) that infiltrate a lot of the coverage of the guy. It’s worth a read if you have a few minutes.