This paper presents an analysis of reviews written by world-renowned and extremely influential wine critic Robert Parker, an American ex lawyer raised on Coca-Cola in rural Maryland who promotes himself as a naïve country boy with a super nose. Parkerʼs wine assessments have become so influential that even prestigious Bordeaux wines are adapted to his taste to sell well on todayʼs ever more globalized wine market. As a result, his words have come to exercise considerable dominance in the institutional setting where his texts are staged.

To decipher this exceptionally successful instance of contemporary rhetoric, a combination of argumentation theory and the SFL-anchored Appraisal model is used. The presentation also has the methodologically oriented aim of showing how argumentation analysis and Appraisal analysis can be combined as mutually supportive tools in order to arrive at an insightful understanding of the hierarchical organization of persuasive discourse.

In addition, the choice of subject is intended to accentuate the increasing importance that consumption has come to have as a driving force for present-day life, raising awareness of and encouraging reflection on the effects of global consumption patterns on the existence of cultures.