Michelin buys stake in Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 06 July, 2017

Gourmet food guide owner Michelin has bought a 40% share in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, with the aim of combining the two companies’ expertise in food and wine.

The leading critics in the world of upmarket restaurants and the publication which launched Robert Parker as the top wine critic of his generation will become closer entwined following the deal which was made for an undisclosed sum.

This follows on from a working relationship which began last year in Asia, where the majority of Wine Advocate’s capital currently sits in the hands of investors.

Since 2016, Michelin and Wine Advocate have been collaborating on high-end wine and dining events in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau.

The partnership is set to bringing the companies’ expertise in the area of gourmet food and wine closer together, focusing on Asia with roll out expected to reach the US and Europe by 2019.

In a statement, Wine Advocate’s editor in chief, Lisa Perrotti-Brown, said that the collaboration demonstrated “the similarities between our core values, integrity and rigour as critics within the worlds of wine and food”.

Both companies have long roots in the business of influencing where consumers choose to eat and buy wine.

Parker set the zeitgeist for a generation of wine drinkers with his 100-point wine system which he began in 1978.

At the time, he was a Chicago-based lawyer who decided to start writing up his own wine notes and publishing them to an audience using his points-based scoring system in his own publication, the Wine Advocate.

Michelin began to expand from its tyre-making roots over a century ago by producing restaurant guidebooks to help motorists find places to stay and eat on their travels.

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