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8 2 V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T | S e p t - O c t 2 016 w w w. v w m m e d i a . c o m attendees, and the consumer events were often packed even at $125 per ticket. Although the list of participat- ing wineries seemed "clubby," the group had a panel blind taste the wines before granting admission. The group grew to about 35 partici- pating wineries, representing many of the "cool kids" in California wine. IPOB gained momentum, and Parr left his sommelier duties behind to become a co-owner at Sandhi and Domaine de la Cote in Santa Barbara. A few years after it had formed, Parker yet again dis- missed the group, saying, "no seri- ous person pays any attention to Raj Parr and his zealots, as it is so obvi- ous they are only trying to sell their own wines…aren't there enough sommeliers to support them?... turds that actually or [sic] so full of hot air and float to the surface will end up where they belong." Parker's distasteful comments were clearly wrong, since the group was just hitting its stride with tastings around the coun- try and the globe, as well as generating signifi- cant media attention. But then, sudden- ly, Parr and Hirsch announced this past May that they were winding down IPOB after a final tasting in San Francisco this November. In the press release announcing the end of IPOB, Parr said it was found- ed to bolster producers who weren't "chasing after ratings from wine crit- ics" and that it "wasn't supposed to be an ideological war." It's true that the wine DEFCON rating has gone down a few notch- es. But that's not because IPOB is winding down: It's because Parker has packed it up. After an influential END POST TYLER COLMAN n 2010, Rajat Parr drew a line in the grape must: The then-wine director at San Francisco's R N 7 4 ( a n d M i c h a e l Mina's restaurants) banned from his list all Pinot Noir and Chardon- nay wines that contained more than 14% alcohol. The ground of the wine world shook so much that it almost reg- istered on the Richter scale. Parr's move championed nuanced, subtle, chiseled wines over the plush, high- alcohol, fruit-forward wines that were California's dominant option in the marketplace. The main propo- nent of that latter style of wine, critic Robert Parker, reacted by hurling back invective: Parr and his fellow sommeliers were part of the "anti- flavor wine elite." To provide a counterweight to Parker's influence and preferred style, Parr and Jasmine Hirsch (whose family owns Hirsch Vineyards) formed a group named In Pursuit of Bal- ance, known more by the clunky acronym I P O B . T h e g r o u p staged its first panel discussion and tast- ing in 2011 in San Francisco. From there, it hosted tastings around the country, with regular events in Los Angeles and New York. IPOB even went to London, Düsseldorf and Tokyo. Most of the wineries involved have been small, with production mostly in the 3,000- to 5,000-case range. They haven't had much of a budget for marketing, so the $900 annual fee to IPOB seemed like good exposure: The tastings got an A-list of media as well as trade career, he's largely retired (though Northern California is one of the two areas he still covers). Hirsch said they achieved what they intended to do by starting a dis- cussion about winemaking styles. And it will continue. But it's lamen- table that IPOB is closing down. Cer- tainly, the exigencies of running their own wineries weighed on the sched- ules of Parr and Hirsch, but they might have been able to outsource it to keep the discussions going. The tastings were fun, and even if the panels were one-sided, they were always informative. After pursuing balance for six years, did they find it in the market? While the higher-alcohol style of Pinot Noir is still popular, the work of IPOB did carve out a bigger and more recognizable niche for wines of a more restrained style. So much so that Jackson Family Wines just bought Copain, a participating IPOB winery since the first event. Media coverage of the purchase stated that Jackson Family, owner of Kendall- Jackson among many other brands, was specifically trying to access the hipster crowd of IPOB. I guess, in this case, that purchase is the ulti- mate form of flattery. So, yes, they found balance. And the wines from the IPOB side have enough of a following from somme- liers and consumers to sustain it. Tyler Colman, author of the wine blog Dr. Vino, teaches wine class- es at New York University and the University of Chicago, and wrote t h e b o o k " W i n e P o l i t i c s : H o w Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink." Comments? Please e-mail us at feedback@vwmmedia.com. (Opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of Vineyard & Winery Management.) Did IPOB Ultimately Find Balance?