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13 Great Travel Horror Movies

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Matt Weiland: Through 50 States With 50 Writers

The coeditor of “State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America” talks to Frank Bures about the book, the WPA and how the United States hasn’t been “bulldozed for speed”

Love Herring in Sweden

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The Water Is Wide

Bronwen Dickey considers Tim Butcher’s “Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart,” which takes readers deep into the Congo

Vagrant Ruminations of a Compulsive Traveler

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Notes From an Unofficial Tourist Greeter

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Wine Spectator Gives ‘Award of Excellence’ to Fake Restaurant

For Wine Spectator’s complete response to this wine list scam, read this:

http://forums.winespectator.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6826053161/m/835102245

Yes, we removed the fake restaurant from our restaurant database. It’s fake.

Thomas Matthews
Executive editor
Wine Spectator

I do believe its not the magazine’s fault. They were conned, and expertly, it seems. Does raise valid questions, though, about how reliable these awards are. You can’t grade restaurants based on what you find using Google. That’s pathetic.

While I believe that it was deceitful on the part of the author to submit an entry with fake information to the magazine, I also believe that many times Wine Spectator publishes “awards” and “recommendations” with out fully researching the site and/or product.

As a resident of the Sonoma/Napa area, I can vouch that some of the recommendations for restaurants, hotels, etc. that I’ve seen published by Wine Spectator are places that locals would NEVER recommend, and many times the best places are overlooked and left out. Wine Spectator should be more vigilant in their selections, considering how highly many people value their professional opinion.

This is one big rip off and Wine Spectator should not charge that much for restaurants to be in the magazine.
This shows you that this magazine is all about their bottom line first, then
they take care of the public.
I have lost respect for this bloated
magazine any way.
Jorge Oteyza

Yeah, this is the danger of turning out so many awards. Sure, the writer duped them. But they put themselves in a position where they could be easily duped.

That’s the real problem. It was a question of volume. And that’s why these kinds of awards often become so meaningless.

I agree with Jim whereas the magazine put themselves in a position to be duped.  When reading about awards for restaurants, wine, hotels, etc. I EXPECT that involved with the award has firt hand experience of same.  With all the money the magazine raked in—why couldn’t they send ONE of their staff members to investigate what they advertise.  I know the more enteries - the more investigations, but that only returns to the notion: Why so many enteries?

This falls in line with the theory that if you spend enough money advertising and such with Wine Spectator, the higher your score will be on the wine you submit. Once again showing how the magazine is money driven. If your wine at first earns a 87 rating, a full page ad in the magazine may get you a 90.

This is the same problem of credibility that Wine Spectator has with the wines they review.  Most (all?) of the reviewed wines are sent to the Wine Spectator rather than having the magazine actually buy the product out in the marketplace like the rest of us.  This method of accepting wines for review is rife with the chance of fraud by the wineries.  Several times I’ve tasted a wine that was absolutely NOT the same wine that was reviewed by the Wine Spectator.

What about the $250?  I’m sure Spectator is not burning tracks to get it back to anyone.  And, this is the first time it has happened?  Shocking!  They will allow restaurants with “padded” entries and “shared” or “consigned” labels to count.
But, when a restaurant builds a “Grand Award” worthy list without the help of auctions and consignments, they are given the same title as fake restaurants in another country.
As a sommelier, I spend more time de-sensitizing the public on not making buying and drinking decisions based on Parker and “Spec, I mean, Dictator” than I do pairing, introducing, and building love for wines without full page ads or camelot style tasting rooms on the Silvarado Trail.

The wine business is a cruel and shallow money trench a long corrider where theives and pimps run free and the weak die like dogs.....and there is a bad side as well.
Gig

In my opinion, The Wine Spectator is the least reliable source for wine information and wine reccomendations.  They only give awards to wines that have HUGE full page adds in their magazine, or wines that have to pay to have their wine in the magazine.  I am happy to see someone bringing light to the terrible magazine/wine reviewer.  If you would like to recieve good wine tips and reccomendations, check out Robert Parker.  He buys his own wine, so you know nobody is paying him to review their wine!

William, I beg to differ on your recommendation for Robert Parker.  He also does NOT buy the wine.  Most (all?) of the wine Parker reviews is submitted by the wineries.  As much as he pretends to be unbiased, he most certainly is biased by receiving samples.

This is in response to William Trupp, I am a broker and one of my suppliers sends their wine to Robert Parker as well. I will admit, I do not know how the process works with Parker, but I know that he does not purchase all the wines he taste. Wine Enthusiast will review a wine and if the rating is good, they will at that time contact the winery and tell them that if they want the label in the magazine, they will have to pay for that type of exposure.

In the end, the wine drinking industry is growing and the newbies want a source to buy wine by. Grocery chains actually put wines into their sets based on ratings. It sucks but it is a part of the business that will not go away for awhile.