Managing editor | Kim Marcus |
---|---|
Categories | Wine magazine |
Frequency | 15 issues per year |
Total circulation (June 2012) |
397,253 |
First issue | April 1, 1976 |
Company | M. Shanken Communications |
Country | United States |
Based in | New York City |
Language | English |
Website | www |
ISSN | 0193-497X |
Wine Spectator is a lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine and wine culture, and gives out ratings to certain types of wine. It publishes 15 issues per year with content that includes news, articles, profiles, and general entertainment pieces. Each issue also includes from 400 to more than 1,000 wine reviews, which consist of wine ratings and tasting notes.
Wine Spectator, like most other major wine publications, rates wine on a 100-point scale. The magazine's policy also states that editors review wines in blind tasting. Wine Spectator's current critics include executive editor Thomas Mathews, managing editor Kim Marcus, editor-at-large Harvey Steiman, tasting director Bruce Sanderson and senior editors Tim Fish, James Laube, James Molesworth, Alison Napjus and MaryAnn Worobiec. Past critics include former managing editor Jim Gordon, Per-Henrik Mansson, former senior editor and European bureau chief James Suckling, who served at the magazine from 1981 to 2010, and former senior editor Nathan Wesley, who worked in the magazine's tasting department from 2005 to 2013.
Founded as a San Diego-based tabloid newspaper by Bob Morrisey in 1976, Wine Spectator was purchased three years later by current publisher and editor Marvin R. Shanken. That year, its panel of experts blind tasted and reviewed over 12,400 wines.
In 1981 the magazine introduced its Restaurant Awards program, which reviews restaurant wine lists on three levels: the Award of Excellence (basic), Best of Award of Excellence (second-tier), and the Grand Award (highest). As of 2009 over 3,500 restaurants held one of these awards.
The magazine organized and sponsored the Wine Spectator Wine Tasting of 1986 on the tenth anniversary of the "Judgment of Paris".
In 2008 the magazine was ranked by the Luxury Institute as the #1 business and consumer publication among wealthy readers.
Wine Spectator operates the Wine Experience, a yearly event that includes wine tastings and seminars. In 2009 over 1,000 people attended in New York City where 335 different wines were poured.
The magazine also runs the Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation, which has raised more than $10.9 million to support wine and food education and scholarship programs.