I saw a review from International Wine Report used in a retail release email and, while this name seems vaguely familiar (probably due to proximity to Tanzers International Wine Cellar), I couldn’t recall much about IWR. I went to their website and there is no information on who they are? Does anyone know who is behind this and/or who writes the reviews? http://www.internationalwinereport.com/
From Business Report for State of NJ:
“INTERNATIONAL WINE REPORT LLC (INACTIVE)
44 Brookside Rd, Edison, NJ 08817
Industry:
Nonclassifiable Establishments, Ret Alcoholic Beverages”
Dunno what happened to the company. Moved?
Its clearly a residence…maybe some wine writer does this out of his/her living room?
Heck, I’m going to start the Empiric Wine Assessment Institute.
Now accepting samples 
I just did a search on the token “international wine report” in my email inbox
Pretty much the only place that “reviewer” ever pops up in is WTSO emails; hardly any other retailer seems to ever cite them. The ratio was about 80:1 in terms of WTSO citations versus anyone else. Perhaps this is related to WTSO/Newman in some way. Would be interesting to see who is behind it.
PS: There is a lawsuit pending against WTSO where the plaintiffs claim that independent reviews and suggested retail prices are fiction. The complaint is a good read, and even if one doesn’t agree/believe with the premise, I found cause for concern. They are claiming violations of NJ fair trade / consumer fraud practices I think.
Somebody needs to start something like this that has an acronym spelling FREE WINE. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Instagram page says that Joe D’Angelo is the Executive Editor
I was curious also, and noticed that almost every mention of the IWR was with WTSO offers. I just assumed it was someone either working for WTSO or a close relationship. I’d like to see other references to their reviews to feel like they are more independent.
Only a lawsuit? I thought there was legislation against this, which made fake reviews (positive or negative) illegal. The laws were written to stop false bad reviews by competitors and bogus hype by employees. Have they passed yet?
I did see the review on WTSO but honestly never thought of it as affiliated with them in any way. The website seems very professionally done and the impression is the reviewer has access and gets to taste a lot of wines from around the world. That said, when I couldn’t find anything about the reviewer on the site it struck me as strange. Even more so now.
Google search says that there are a bunch of wineries that use the IWR reviews FWIW. Willakenzie, Banshjee, Ojai, and even IPOBer Sandhi and Chanin wines. The wineries seem to be receiving this guy and using his scores as legit…but then again, us wine hustlers will use just about any old score…
Wine Berserkers Community,
Please allow me to introduce myself; my name is Joe D’Angelo and I am the Founder/Editor of International Wine Report. This is my first post here in your community forum, and I love the great, knowledgeable community you guys have built here. This recent thread has been brought to my attention by a friend and I just wanted to comment in and shed some light to everyone about who we are.
Let me begin by answering the question most seem to have, are we connected to WTSO? The answer to that is Absolutely Not. We are a completely 100% independent source, with no affiliation to WTSO whatsoever. Yes, WTSO does use our content more than anyone else, but our reviews are 100% free to everyone out there. So anyone, weather it be WTSO or any other retailer who wishes to use our content can do so freely. We have thousands of reviews on our site and WTSO only uses a small fraction of our total content. Although there are some larger retailers who are currently using our content, we only hope that more continue to catch on, and use it as much as WTSO does.
To give you a little background on IWR; We are a very small company, composed of journalists and sommeliers. I officially started IWR in early 2010 and although it has been 6 years to get where we are now, I still consider us as new to the industry. With our limited staff we can’t compete the major large-scale publications as far as quantity, but we know that, and we are not trying to. Our main focus is quality, and that being said, we certainly think the quality of our content is as good or better than most of the big name publications out there. I encourage all of you to check out our site when you get a chance and I hope you enjoy what you find.
I hope I was able to provide a little more information about us and clear up some of the questions that some of you were wondering.
Cheers,
Joe D’Angelo
International Wine Report
Thanks for the information, Joe!
I would see a couple guys at tastings a few years ago who identified themselves as being with IWR. I don’t know them but I read a few articles and they were as good as most of the articles written elsewhere. I don’t know if it was you Joe, but congrats for still being around.
As far as the lawsuit - Arv is that true? It’s ridiculous if it is. What are the people going to say - they bought a 90 point wine but it was only worth 89 points so there must have been some undue influence?
Thanks Greg, and thanks for checking out our site. If those tasting were in the NY/NJ area then that may very well have been us you spotted few years back.
They were in NYC probably 4-5 years ago. If I remember correctly, they probably included Ribera del Duero, Navarra, some Italians. But I read a few of the reviews and they were thoughtful and researched.
Thanks for the color, Joe. I retract the suggestion that IWR could have been an affiliate of WTSO.
I still don’t understand how the reviews can be independent yet free, unless this venture is a hobby or something. (Or a strategy to get free DRC / Le Pin samples, which if it is, I’m jealous and applaud the endeavour) Someone has to pay for websites, staff, newsletters, wine etc.
Are the producers/distributors paying a fee to submit samples? Are there any negative reviews published? Is advertising accepted and if so, is it from producers reviewed?
GregT: I don’t know what the merits of the lawsuit are, and exactly how the fraud statutes work in NJ. The complaint is a bit more than mere points puffery though – e.g. one of the articles in the complaint states that the same wine is put in differently labeled bottles and then gets different reviews. We’ll see how it all shakes out but I do think its is worth a read. Somewhere in the long running WTSO thread I posted all the docket info for those who want to review it, rather than a perhaps incorrect summary.
Thanks Arv R, and Great Questions.
Technically speaking, IWR did start out as a “Hobby” but has certainly evolved into something so much more, as many businesses do. I couldn’t even begin to tell you the hours we all have invested thus far, but as I mentioned in my previous post, even after 6+ years I still consider us a “Start-up”. Trust me when I say this, a business like this is anything but quick, easy to get started.
All of our staff, including myself all have other jobs. I personally invest countless hours as well as money to pay for the websites, technology, marketing, etc. and even the wine (there were no samples in the beginning). Today, we do rely heavily on samples, and although we would totally love some DRC or Le Pin to show up at our doorstep, we unfortunately haven’t been so lucky, yet 
Trust me, if the ultimate plan was to get a couple bottles of DRC, I would have just bought them, it would have been a lot cheaper and much less time consuming.
Samples: Anyone can submit them and there is absolutely no charge at all.
Advertising: This is an option we are seriously looking into right now. We believe this is a possible path to continue to be able to increase our coverage and continue to provide free content to our readers.
Negative reviews: We do receive many wines which we taste and do not publish for 2 reasons. #1. We are not in the business to hurt someone else’s profession, whether it be the importer, winery or even down to the winemaker themselves by negative press. We will omit any wine from publication if we feel our review can only be harmful. #2. With a limited staff/budget/time we think its most beneficial to focus on the wines which we think will bring the highest quality information to our readers.
I hope I was able to answer all your question, Arv R.
Cheers,
Joe
Hey Joe - website looks great and I don’t see anything wrong with working with wines you’d recommend vs being all things to all people. I do think you’ll have to write more about yourself and your team of tasters at some point down the road. Just seems to me readers want to know who their taking rec’s from. But, then again, maybe not…I guess most folks don’t care who wrote the review when they see a Spectator or Parker score. Those guys have been around long time though…
Best of luck to you in your venture!
CH