Robert McDowell Parker, Jr. (born July 23, 1947 in Baltimore, Maryland) is considered one of the most influential wine critics in the world, both when it comes to the price of wines based on how you value them, as regarding the influence it has on wine production. He graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, in History and Art History. He continued to study at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, graduating in 1973 with a Juris Doctor degree. For more than ten years he worked as a lawyer for the Farm Credit Banks of Baltimore. In 1975, he began writing a wine guide, claiming to be a "consumer advocate," free from conflicts of interest that could affect the opinions of wine critics who made a living selling wine. Three years later, in 1978, he began publishing The Baltimore-Washington Wine Advocate, which, in 1979, would become The Wine Advocate.

'My objective was to approach and discover the quality of the best wines, from a simple and understandable point of view' — Robert M. Parker

The first copy was sent free of charge to mailing lists Parker acquired from various wine vendors. For the second issue of it, in August 1978, the magazine had 600 subscribers. Parker became known internationally when he considered the 1982 Bordeaux vintage to be superb, unlike the rest of the critics. He left his job as a lawyer in 1984 to dedicate himself exclusively to writing about wine.

The tasters of his prestigious publication use a scale that goes from 50 to 100 Parker points that, in a very simplified way, could be read as:

96-100: wines that turn out to be extraordinary, some even hard to find.
90-95: great wines, with complexity and character.
80-89: good wines with characteristics that can place them above the average.
70-79: correct, simple wines, with little distinction and perhaps with some defect.
60-69: wines below average, showing deficiencies.
50-59: wines considered unacceptable, defective