Wine Spectator

Wine Spectator has also been criticized for the way it uses hyperbole to the extent that no one believes them when they're right anymore. Oenophiles now wait for Robert Parker (Wine Advocate) to back them up before believing it. "Best Vintage since 1961" and "Vintage of the Century" and "Vintage of the Decade" are far too common copy, coming once a year or so.

The vintner profiles hold some interest, but don't fool yourself, you read this magazine for the scoring. Wine Spectator has the resources to taste more wines than any other English language publication (that I know of) and despite some strange results, are generally good at evaluating the bottles in question. As I've noted elsewhere, in spite of the hyperbolic headlines, the Spectator is stingier than Robert Parker for rating wines "Outstanding." The caveat is that a lot of wines get bunched up in the 84-86 point range, although I suppose that matches my experience.

By comparison to the Wine Advocate, I find Wine Spectator scores much more inconsistent. This makes sense because the Spectator has a larger staff and it's difficult to establish a common benchmark across all of the offices and tasting panels. In their favor, they do review a fair number of lower priced wines, more than their aforementioned colleague, and their reactions are more or less in the ballpark as to where I'd put them if I were doing the reviews. But know when using the Spectator to allow some give on either side, a confidence interval, if you will.

It might be terrible that a magazine wastes its first three quarters of every issue on mindless fodder for social climbers. It might be tasteless that they spend so much time promoting the notion that wine is an investment, instead of an immensely enjoyable consumable commodity. But those of us with big brains and modest credit ratings know that there is much to be salvaged from the back of each issue. We also know that Parker is the first point of reference.


The Magazine That Created The Modern Wine Snob   July 15, 2003
Michael J Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA)
44 out of 86 found this review helpful

Used to be on the most pretentious types walked around talking about vintages and vinyards and things like nose and legs and such. Thanks to Robert Parker and The Wine Spectator, now every pretentious yuppie with a few bucks can be heard to go on and on about "roasted plum scent" and "tobacco undertones" and other such pretentious rot. Stores have contributed to this mess, too; go into any wine shop or grocery and you'll see bottles with tags saying "Wine Spectator 87! Rasberries and Citrus!" and other nonsense.

Truth of the matter is 90% of the wines found in The Wine Spectator will never be found in your local wine shop, so all these reviews are just fodder for pretentious yuppies. And in any case, wine is a personal and subjective matter that cannot be reduced to a simple number. Save the money you'd spend on this, and instead make friends with your loal wine merchant. He or seh will give you far better advice. Unless, that it, he or she is a fan of Parker....


a LIFESTYLE magazine   October 13, 2002
D. Rothman
28 out of 32 found this review helpful

The fact is that Wine Spectator is about the most inconsistant, beholden to special interest, pseudo-wine magazine ever! Their reviews are indeed gushing...I challange anyone to find a single negative comment. They say tastings are blind and comments are registered before the bottles are revealed so I would like to know how they consistantly come up with bottle-specific comments like, "this is a good Grange, but not quite up to the standards of previous vintages." ...Tasting is also done by panal highlighting another weakness: Usually, you can learn the palate and preferences of a particular reviewer, compare them to your own, and weight that person's ratings accordingly...here you have no idea which so-called 'experts' have reviewed a particular wine, so this tool is lost. Additionally, none of the WS reciewers, to my knowledge, posesses either a 'Master of Wines' or a 'Master Sommielier' certification. While extremely difficult to earn (Robert Parker has failed the MoW test twice), either should be a prerequisite for a professed expert (or at least one of them). For real wine enthusiasts, subscribe to decanter; for the more casual drinker, food&wine presents a much better value.


Improved   November 10, 2006
T. Burger (Chicago)
19 out of 20 found this review helpful

There's certainly a lot to hate about Wine Spectator - and, for that matter, Wine Advocate. Many winemakers decry the existence of both magazines, and usually lay the blame entirely at Robert Parker's doorstep for making the 100-point rating system an industry standard.

Wine Spectator's scores have gotten better with time, as have their articles. They've shied away from California "glitz" and have looked more into food. Also, the education classes that they list on their website are becoming increasingly more helpful.

Apparently they listened to much of the criticism and worked toward creating a more respected magazine. I think they've done well.



Excellent source of information   September 5, 2002
M. Ragen (Seattle, WA USA)
18 out of 25 found this review helpful

Whether you're a wine geek or just someone who is looking for good, reliable information on wine, restaurants, and other gustatory delights, then this is a magazine for you. Throughout the year, their special features on regional releases -- such as Napa, Washington, Oregon, Bordeaux, Italy, Burgundy, Rhone, Germany, Austria, and others -- help provide an overview of typical wine styles that one can expect. The reviews of the wines themselves (several hundred per issue) offer guidance to those making purchases. I find the profiles of the up and coming wineries and winemakers to be interesting as it sometimes provides more of an indication on the direction of wines from certain regions than the reviews themselves.

The downside is that unlike some of the other wine review-oriented publications that do not take advertising (Parker's Wine Advocate, Steve Tanzer), the reviews and articles sometimes appear to be a bit gushing. But, then, this is a magazine for enthusiasts and some industry boosterism is to be expected.

Regardsless, this is still highly recommended.