It seems that in the past, they were quite a fixture here, although what they said never seemed to get much respect. Now they are hardly mentioned; are they no longer a major player or we now more than ever not the intended readership?
Nope. I’ll give them credit for an occasional good wine production article. First time I dropped them in the mid 00s they had gotten really bad; seemed like the focus was glowing reviews of restaurants I’d never eat at rather than what I wanted to read about. Then I gave them another whirl a few years ago, mainly for the tasting notes and said occasional article, but I found the tasting notes banal and not helpful to me anyway.
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I still subscribe to the magazine and post some over there online. Some people here get to worked up if you mention WA or WS. I never double post. When I post on a topic over there, I never post on it here.
My Off Line Group is exclusively WS people, and we have great Off Lines in a regular basis. The WB crowd in the area is much smaller and rarely seem to do anything.
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I subscribe, namely because I still like having actual magazines to read, and I find their reviews to be more in line with my tastes than a lot of other reviewers who either are not or who I feel dole out inflated scores too generously.
Well…I was a charter subscriber & still have Vol#1/Issue#1, back when it was a quality publication out of SanDiego
by BobMorrisey. It generally takes me about 20 min to read thru it unless there is an occasional quality article as SteveCostigan mentions.
My subscription expires in late Dec. I start getting renewal notices coming in in June. I generally wait until early Dec to renew when their offers
start to include a postage pre-paid envelop and I figure they’re starting to get serious. But every time I send in my renewal,
all I can think is “unclean/unclean” !!
Many people get a free subscription some how or other & don’t have to pay $$'s.
Tom
I post very infrequently on 4 wine boards (wb,ws, tpf, ftlop) but read threads periodically. I subscribe to WS online content but not print. their tasting note library and some feature articles make me feel as though I am only slightly getting ripped off.
I’ve viewed it as a lifestyle magazine for years. After Matt Kramer left, there was little that interested me about wine,
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Buy it randomly when checking out at Total Wine when visiting for 3 weeks/year to my third home in Florida. It amuses me for 15 Minutes, then I think: “what over-commercial wine planet are these people on?”
I still get the print edition mainly as a casual read and as something to keep on the coffee table.
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Respect that you very rarely see 99 and 100 points from Wine Spectator vs. the amount of times with Dunnuck, Galloni and Suckling.
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I unsubscribed years ago, but I learned a lot about different types of wines, producers, etc when I had the subscription. That is useful for wine newbies, and I still recommend it to those with wine as a new interest.
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they used to give us cases and cases of the magazine to give away at the wine events we put on, we could never give them all away. It was always such a shame to see stacks just go in to the bins at the end of the evening.
I’m a subscriber and have been since the late 90’s. I don’t need everything I read to hew to my point of view and don’t mind disagreeing with writers. I just like reading about wine, wine related topics, and wine industry happenings; even if some of the long-form articles (like the Bon Jovi one) are fluff. I’m happy it still exists.
I was disappointed when WS stopped printing all their tasting notes for region reports and moved to listing only the top 20-30 wines.
Their travel pieces on specific wine regions are worthwhile, imo.
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As long as I can still get it @ $2.00/yr. yes
Like many, I keep it around as a casual read. And since I am ITB it helps to keep up with what is going on. It’s become as much of a lifestyle magazine as a wine magazine.
No pet bird to use the magazine.
Dude, birds can’t read!
Almost never in the last fifteen years or so. It’s a step below Decanter in my view.
And they prefer gravel paper!
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WS paper has higher points.