Wine Spectator Tasting Procedures and Taster Profiles

Posted: June 17, 2004

Wine Spectator editors review more than 12,000 wines each year in blind tastings. Every issue of Wine Spectator magazine contains from 400 to more than 1,000 wine reviews with detailed tasting notes and analysis. We set stringent standards for ourselves and rely on the proven ability and experience of our editors as tasters and critics. The following information outlines the guidelines we follow in order to maintain the integrity of our tastings.

Tasting Philosophy

What do we review each year?

• Each year, more than 12,000 wines from around the world are blind-tasted by our editors.
• The majority of these reviews are published in issues throughout the year, in the Buying Guide section of the magazine.
• Additional reviews are posted exclusively on our website.
• Wine Spectator primarily serves a national audience, and we therefore prefer to review wines that are widely available.

Where do the wines we review come from?

• The majority of the wines we taste are submitted to us by the wineries or their U.S. importers.
• Additionally, we spend thousands of dollars each year to buy wines that are not submitted, at all price levels.

Where do we review the wines?

• Tastings take place in our four offices, in San Francisco, Napa, New York and Tuscany, and in the vineyard regions of Europe. Each office has dedicated tasting rooms and staff to coordinate the tastings.
• The European tastings are organized and conducted at independent sites by Wine Spectator staff.

Who reviews wines for the magazine?

• Each editor generally covers the same wine regions from year to year. These "beats," as listed below, remain constant, allowing each lead taster to develop expertise in the region's wines.
• Other tasters may sit in on blind tastings in order to help confirm impressions. However, the lead taster always has the final say on the wine's rating and description.
• A taster's initials at the end of the tasting note indicate that the rating and review were created by that taster in one of our blind tastings.
• Wines that do not include initials at the end of the tasting note are wines that were reviewed by two or more tasters. These tastings are conducted in the same blind setting and are monitored and guided by the lead taster for that region.

Wine Spectator Taster Profiles

James Laube, Senior Editor, Napa
Tasting beat: California

Kim Marcus, Managing Editor, New York
Tasting beat: Austria, southern France, Portugal (table wines)

Thomas Matthews, Executive Editor, New York
Tasting beat: Spain

James Molesworth, Senior Editor & Tasting Coordinator, New York
Tasting beat: Loire Valley, Rhône Valley, South Africa, South America

Bruce Sanderson, Senior Editor & Tasting Director, New York
Tasting beat: Alsace, Burgundy, Champagne, Germany

Harvey Steiman, Editor at Large, San Francisco
Tasting beat: Australia, Oregon, Washington

James Suckling, Senior Editor & European Bureau Chief, Tuscany
Tasting beat: Bordeaux, Italy, Port

Tasting staff: Jo Cooke (Veneto), Daniel Sogg (New Zealand)

Tasting coordinators: MaryAnn Worobiec Bovio (Napa), Jo Cooke (Tuscany), Alison Napjus, John Siudut (New York), Connie Shih (San Francisco)

Tasting Format

How are the tastings set up?

• All official Wine Spectator tastings are held in private rooms, under optimum conditions.
• Our tasting coordinators organize the wines into flights by varietal, appellation or region.
• Each flight may consist of 20 to 30 wines, and no more than two flights are tasted by a taster each day.
• Bottles are coded and bagged, and all capsules and corks are removed. Other necessary efforts are made to conceal the wines' identity from the tasters.
• The tasters are told only the general type of wine (varietal and/or region) and the vintage. No information about the winery or the price of the wine is available to the tasters while they are tasting.

How are the wines tasted?

• Each tasting begins with a previously rated wine, which is tasted non-blind as a reference point.
• Other previously rated wines are included in the blind wines to ensure consistency.
• The tasters enter notes and ratings directly into our database prior to removal of the bags.
• The tasters only see the code that matches that of the bag covering the wine they are tasting, and blank spaces for their note, score and drink recommendation.
• Ratings are based on potential quality: how good the wines will be when they are at their peak. For ageable wines, we suggest a year or range of years to start drinking the wine.
• Additional comments may be added to a tasting note after the identity of the wine has been revealed, but the score is never changed.
• Price is not taken into account in scoring, although the notes are often edited after the scores are determined to include comments about price and value.

How many times is a wine tasted?

• All wines that taste corky or show other major flaws are blind-tasted again from new bottles.
• Wines that score highly are also frequently tasted again from new bottles, in order to confirm our impressions.

What are the scoring guidelines?

• Tasters for Wine Spectator score wines using our 100-point scale, which is explained below.
• Ratings reflect how highly our tasting panel regards each wine relative to other wines.

Other Aspects of Our Tastings

Barrel tastings

• We also conduct both blind and non-blind tastings of barrel samples from certain wine regions, including Bordeaux, California Cabernet and vintage Port.
• Each wine is rated using a range of scores, and we clearly identify that these ratings and reviews apply to barrel samples. The filtering, fining and blending that may occur from barrel to bottle can alter the wine, and we feel this range of scores represents the wine's potential in the barrel.

Non-blind tastings

• Occasionally we report on vertical or horizontal tastings that are not blind, organized by wineries or wine collectors.
• We always disclose this in the article, and these notes and scores are separate from the new releases section of our Buying Guides.

Wine Spectator's 100-Point Scale

• 95-100 Classic: a great wine
• 90-94 Outstanding: a wine of superior character and style
• 85-89 Very good: a wine with special qualities
• 80-84 Good: a solid, well-made wine
• 75-79 Mediocre: a drinkable wine that may have minor flaws
• 50-74 Not recommended

A score given as a range (e.g., 90-94) indicates a preliminary score, usually based on a barrel tasting.

Special Designations

Up to and including the Sept. 15, 2002, issue, the Special Designations were as follows:

• Spectator Selections: Our highest recommendations in each issue. Although they are not necessarily the highest-scoring wines, they are the wines we think would make the most outstanding purchases. More expensive wines must be especially good to earn this recommendation.
• Cellar Selections: The wines we believe will improve most from additional bottle age and show the greatest potential as collectibles.
• Best Buys: Outstanding values at modest prices.
• Highly Recommended: Noteworthy wines selected from among the highest-scoring wines in the issue.

As of the Sept. 30, 2002, issue, the Special Designations refer to categories of wine deserving special mention:

• Highly Recommended: The issue's most impressive wines. Includes top-scorers and wines that represent optimal purchases based on their combination of score, price and availability.
• Collectibles: Wines that will improve most from additional bottle age and that show the greatest potential to gain in value.
• Smart Buys: Wines that deliver fine character at affordable prices and that are broadly available.
• Best Values: Wines with solid scores, modest prices and wide distribution.