In the mid-1990s, a few Japanese winemakers began trying to make better wine with koshu.
"He persuaded the winemakers to make better wine and taught them how to do it.
"I wouldn't dry-farm unless it was worth it, if I didn't think it made better wine," Bucklin says.
Leeds says he primarily dry farms to make better wine.
Make better wines, Matt Kramer asserts, with reason.
"Now that it's warmer, we are making better wines".
On the other hand, if the merlot retreat causes growers and producers to reassess what they were doing and to start making better wines at all levels, I call that an excellent thing.
They are absolutely making better wines than they used to -- it isn't a mere paint-by-numbers game -- but they wouldn't be able to sell these wines with the same ease, or the same price tag, if Parker didn't like them.
He knew that the only way to make any sort of living was to make better wines, so he invested in his estate replanting his vineyard and focusing on quality.
