Couldn’t find any posts about this. Old price $99.95/yr. New price $139.95/yr. Way more than inflation. I know he’s added staff and is covering more ground, but it would be nice for explanation that justifies a 40% increase.
If you like the content and teams palate it’s still $11.50 a month to help make more informed buying decisions or try new producers that you haven’t heard of.
Much like the wine industry right now, I think you will see a reset with wine reviewers as there are just too many right now to support a shrinking/declining market and wine drinking demographic. If you have a business with expenses and your subscribership shrinks you only have two choices, reduce coverage and maintain price or maintain coverage and increase price. Either one will draw ire of your historical subscribers.
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I have no opinion concerning Dunnuck’s ability as a critic. You made me curious so I looked at the competition - sorry, slight thread drift:
Vinous: $140
TWA: $129
TWI (Lisa P-B): $140
(Dunnuck: $140)
Jane Anson: 110€/$115
Winedoctor (Chris Kissack): £45/$57
Well, it depends on what one wants.
Vinous: probably the widest coverage, huge content per year, decent writers but dodgy policy regarding early release of scores to commercial subscribers. CT integrated
TWA: Similar coverage, less annual content (well, less about Bordeaux, anyway), high quality writers, no early score releases, but no CT integration
TWI: no idea about the coverage nor content, but nice photos! Probably CT integration
Dunnuck: no idea, but I suspect less coverage and content than the first two. CT integration
JA: supposedly only Bordeaux, but branching out a little. Good writing, but no CT integration
WD: Bordeaux and the Loire, very prolific one-man show with huge annual content, CT integration
Of the five generalist sites, which have the same or close to the same prices, I think it depends on how eclectic one’s taste is. I would choose TWA over Vinous, because I rate WK higher, but his editorial duties seem to have reduced his Bordeaux output, the other drawback being the lack of CT integration, which is really annoying.
I subscribe one year in three to Jane Anson, and every year to Chris Kissack, who provides the best value by a country mile.
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FWIW - Wineberserkers is free, and a reader can upgrade and receive great additional benefits for only $100
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Interesting to see the other critic’s pricing side by side and thanks for posting that.
I am concerned with rising costs and while $140 for a year is not a lot, everything adds up.
While every subscriber will make their own value judgment, with zero increases since inception (2017) and the expanded coverage, I think it’s a reasonable increase.
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View from Cellar (John Gilman) - $120
Drink Rhône (JLL) - GB£25 per year *starting in Jan 2025 he’s doing less new vintage stuff
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Thanks - I forgot John Gilman - what’s his site/coverage like?
Very traditional palate. You might very much like his coverage of Loire wines, but he does not do that much Bordeaux and you would have to wade through a ton of reviews on Burgundy and German wines (great for me, not sure if you would like it so much).
I subscribe to two wine newsletters - The Wine Advocate (because I really like William’s writing and his palate) and A View From The Cellar (same, plus I used to buy some wine from him when he was at Bentley before he began his newsletter).
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At the risk of being a pedant, it works out to a 4.3% increase year over year, and because it didn’t increase every year you saved $130 along the way (i.e., if you had paid a 4.3% increase each year, you’d have spent an additional $130 over what you actually spent).
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Thanks Howard - that’s what I had gathered about his palate - for reasons unknown, I see his scores on CT now when I look at my cellar and they do seem to coincide with my own impressions of Loire wines.
Yeah, I was surprised by that as well.
I think Wine Advocate is the only one left that offers monthly, so I will likely just continue with them after my subscription to Jeb Dunnuck ends.
It would be nice if there was some incentive to be continued customer with all these critics, because otherwise, for those of us with limited resources, it makes more sense to just rotate through them one or two at a time each year. I would think one would rather have a continued subscriber annually at a lower price than once every 3-5 years at a higher price, but then again I am not an accountant. 
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According to what measure? If he hasn’t raised prices in 5 years or more, it would actually be less than total inflation.
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Not sure how I stumbled across this, but if interested, what should be all (and if not, drop a line) the wine publications these days were compiled here in this list which is updated annually: The list of wine publications · Hudin.com
And if curious, there was this piece about what it takes to start up a new wine publication which, ain’t easy. The rise of the wine experts’ subscription sites · Hudin.com
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Still a bargain. Great writing and fun reviews, he and Antonio are my go to critics since Parker retired.
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