Wine Spectator and champagne

The influential American wine magazine
Wine Spectator is the veritable bible of wines and spirits in the United States. 15 magazines appear every year, and each issue contains an impressive number of wines (between 400 and 1000) tasted and scored on a scale of 50 to 100. This is a much richer analysis than any wine or champagne guide, and is accompanied by winemaker portraits and interviews, articles about wine regions and news concerning the world of wine.
Founded in 1976 in San Diego by Bob Morrisey, it was purchased three years later by the editor Marvin R. Shanken (who is still its Editor in Chief), and took on a new dimension; the number of wines reviewed increased exponentially and in the first year under Shanken no less than 12400 wines were blind tasted
Incredible expansion
In 1981 the magazine launched a competition for restaurant wine lists, with a note given according to their quality: Prix d'Excellence, Best of Award of Excellence and the Grand Prix (the highest level) and in 2009 over 3500 restaurants had received an award. Marvin R. Shanken quickly recognised the market value of Wine Spectator and the impact of its scores and its guide, and decided to build on the concept. He created the Wine Experience, an annual event combining tastings and conferences, which in 2009 gathered over 1000 personalities from the world of wine as speakers.
A criticised critic...
The independence of Wine Spectator and the integrity of its criticism took a serious blow in 2008 when Robin Goldstein, founder of Fearless Critic, a fiercely independent collection of gastronomic guides, submitted the wine list from a fictitious restaurant called l’Osteria. Wine Spectator gave the prix d’Excellence to this non-existent establishment whose wine list was composed of mediocre Italian wines. With 4500 requests submitted by restaurant owners each year Wine Spectator make around 1 million dollars from submission fees. The scores attributed to certain great names in the world of wine and champagne are sometimes laughable, and some think that the Wine Spectator critics pay more attention to the label than the bottle’s contents.
The favourite champagne of Wine Spectator :
- Belle Epoque Blanc de Blancs - Perrier-Jouët
- William Deutz 1999 – Deutz
- Vintage 2003 – Dom Pérignon
- La Grande Année 2004 – Bollinger
- Nicolas-François Billecart 2000 – Billecart-Salmon
- Salon 1997 - Salon