An Interview with Jay Miller of Robert Parker

Anyone familiar with Robert M. Parker’s newsletter, The Wine Advocate, is probably also familiar with Dr. Jay Miller. A clinical psychologist by training, Jay Miller assisted Bob Parker with tastings, visits, and editing for the Wine Advocate, on a part-time basis from 1985 to 1998. Bob “discovered” Dr. J., who was working part-time to support his wine habit, at Wells Discount Liquors in the Baltimore area. Over that 13 years, Jay has tasted 65,000 wines.
Dr. J. continued to dabble in the wine trade while working full time as a child psychologist, but eventually decided to plunge full time into the trade. Then, in September of 2006, Robert Parker decided to bring in some talent to help expand his wine coverage, and in the process Jay became the specialist for the Pacific Northwest, South America, and the land down under, Australia, as well as the fortified wines of Portugal.
Bob has the highest admiration for Jay’s palate (and claims he’s one of the two best tasters he’s ever encountered), and the two have continued to taste together for 25 years. Join us as our own Dr. Ted M. Burns (with guest Andrew Greene and Toby Beard ) sits down to taste with Dr. J, and get his impressions of the wide wine of world.
For More Info – eRobertParker.com: www.eRobertParker.com
Sponsor: Champagne USA: www.champagne.us
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(1:21:45 min 56 MB)









Thanks guys! East Coast correspondents? Whodathunkit?
A little long, but worth the the listen!
When are you going to get Robert Parker to sit down for you?
What? And hour and twenty minutes is too long? Just kidding. Yeah, we were originally thinking it could be divided into two shows but ultimately thought it flowed best as one show. And I edited out quite a bit but I admit it’s still lengthy. I do want to apologize for some audio issues. Entirely my fault. I learned from the experience and hopefully we’ll provide better audio quality with our future shows.
It was a coup for you guys to hook up Jay Miller, any chance on interviewing Robert Parker???
Thanks. We’d love to interview Robert Parker. Maybe Jay Miller will put in a good word for us.
Great interview. Can anyone tell me the name of the Spanish wine Jay spoke so highly about. I’ve tried to listen several times and can’t make it out.
Hi to all
I listened to the show of world of Pinot.It is great that you go to festivals about pinot.But something that makes me angry is the fact that Americas always believe what the Television says.Sideways was just a movie and happened to speck great about pinot noir.Yes I love Pinot noir too,but as a sommelier I try to tell people that they must not stop buying Merlot as it is a great grape and some of the world’s most sort after wines and most expensive are Merlot’s from Pomerol and St Emilion.South Africa also has top merlots and Chile and the south of Switzerland.
Both grape types are great and Americans please stop being a nation that just goes with what the TV says.Here in Europe people speck all the time about how Americans can be fooled so easily.Forget Sideways and enjoy all good wine ok.
This was by far my favorite episode based on content. I learned a lot and it was engaging the whole way through. I have to say I came away liking the Robert Parker machine a little bit less but I wouldn’t have learned what I learned without this great interview.
I do have to say that it would have been much easier to listen to if the microphone situation had been better. It sounded like there was only one in use and because Jay Miller has quite a range of dynamics to his voice, this was really hard to hear at times. Maybe having a couple more microphones when such a large group is sitting down together would be nice.
Thanks, Jeff. I agree about the microphone problem. We’ll make it better.
Tim, was it Flor de Pingus? Could that have been it?
Wow, 65000 wines tasted is a lot of wine! I’m sure Dr. Jay Miller knows his stuff when it comes to wine. I love wine to drink wine myself, however, I’ve found the red wine tends to give me bad heartburn. Maybe it’s the muscadine grapes in the type of wine I buy, who knows.
With the interview that was made, many people were happy to find out the important things and issues about him and his contribution. Thanks a lot for sharing this great information to us. I know many people who knows him are also glad that this interview was posted online.
65000 different wines in 13 years makes about 14 per day. Can this really be done? In any case, these guys know about wine and make great ambassadors for the wine. Wine advocates are much needed to inform people about wine. The more educated people are about wine the more they do enjoy it.
Loved every (long, OK..) minute if this! I also am wondering if you will ever “score” a Robert Parker interview? Will send link to my FB buddies. Thanks again!