Veteran whodunit writer Robert Parker has created a new detective hero, a booze-loving, small-town police chief who had been dumped by the L.A. Police Department because of his fondness for John Barleycorn.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

Never mind that in some opinions the whole rigmarole was a milling anticlimax to the visit of wine critic Robert Parker, the One Voice That Matters, whose tour through a few days earlier was the subject of its own fervid rumor mill.

FORBES: Dream or bust: the much-hyped 2003s

Megacritic Robert Parker declared the juice "a chronological milestone--something that comes once every thousand years, " an observation that set off a frenzy.

FORBES: Grape Expectations