Bottom Of The Barrel

Spectator's Award of Excellence, Not

Author Robin Goldstein got curious about Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence while researching his book entitled The Wine Trials [blind wine tasting book which boasts 100 wines under $15 that outscored $50-$150 wines]. So using Microsoft Word, he cooked up a fictional restaurant, a menu and a good sized wine list. The "restaurant" is called Osteria L’Intrepido and is "located" in Milan Italy. Goldstein's menu included, what he terms, a fun amalgamation of somewhat bumbling nouvelle-Italian recipes. And the piece de resistance is his wine list which included more than 250 wines including whites, reds, and sparkling wines–some of which scored well in the magazine. However the "reserve" list he included for Wine Spectator's review was largely chosen from among some of the lowest-scoring Italian wines in Wine Spectator over the past few decades.

In order to make the application appear genuine, Goldstein also obtained a Milan phone/fax number, as required by the application, and established a small online presence. With all this completed, he submitted a cover letter, the $250 fee and his menus" for Wine Spectator's inspection. Wouldn't you know it, they gave him the Award of Excellence even though he didn't exist and was never contacted for verification.

With an estimated income of over 600k from the award each year and apparently very little effort, Wine Spectator appears to making quite a profit from this "award" system. I'm kind of waiting for Wine Enthusiast to create a contest to see how many people can get this award just to shine a very bright light on what appears to be more of a sham than the rest of domestic awards combined.

Labels: Going out of business, Wine

posted by TheWino @ 9:08 AM