Wine Spectator Award list window dressing?

A nearby restaurant with an interesting wine list runs a 50% off special on bottles of wine Friday nights. I was interested in trying one particular bottle that I saw on their list. I just called to see if the restaurant still had the wine and was told it was not for sale to customers as it is really “Wine Spectator window dressing”.

Is this common? And do the Wine Spectator people audit a restaurant’s cellars to see that they actually carry what they list?

Don’t know if it is common, but no way WS has the bandwidth to audit the thousands of lists.

I personally would not patronize such an establishment.

Wow, they actually confessed that?!?!?!

Sounds like fraud to me

You cant deliberately advertise something knowing you wont sell it, thats bait and switch a well known fraud technique.

Not only would i avoid this place i would out them here, yelp and anywhere else you can to prevent them from suckering other people. What if you see the winelist online then go in specifically, its one thing if the last bottle just happens to be on the table next to you thats just life but if they never have had any intentions of selling the wine and are doing to to make their list more sexy that is absolutely misleading and is a dirty trick that should be exposed and the restaurant should be embaressed for using such low life scum ball tactics

My understanding is that they are not audited. The lower award is essentially purchased for $250. There was a controversy a few years back about a fictitious restaurant receiving an award. They had constructed the phoney wine list to be particularly awful:

With those exact words. And then for more emphasis in case I really wanted the bottle, the restaurant manager told me there was no way he could guarantee the bottle because he bought it some years ago from the basement of a closed restaurant and couldn’t warranty their storage conditions.

Kind of funny!

I love it!

At least they had the bottle. There are lots of stories of restaurants that have very few of the fancy wines on the lists they submitted to WS.

Out em . . . Seriously . . .

I can’t complain too much…

2004 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate Le Coste - Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo (1/30/2015)
Ethereal nose - red cherries and saddle leather. Masculine wine but gracefully lithe and elegant. The body is smooth, refined, powerful, deep. The palate is rich. It has layers of flavor laid one on top of the next, finely textured and pounded thin, creating depth without bulk: earth, red fruit, minerality, soft and fine tannins. Long finish with the tannins lingering pleasantly. $150 off the list at KC. (97 pts.)

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