I get it for free whenever I have the opportunity to trade in miles I have on a junk airline I never fly anymore. It gives me something to do in the bathroom. But any wine review I see there I always double check through reviews on CT before pulling the trigger. Their wine reviews really aren’t to be trusted.
I think wine media has democratized because of technology, blogs, discussion boards etc. and so many people who may have felt like WS and/or WA were the only places to turn to learn about new wines, now find many other sources for their information, and ones that may be better attuned to their interests and preferences.
I think I fall into that group. I still get WS because my MIL buys an inexpensive sub for me every year, and sometimes I glance through it for pictures and the like, but I probably invest 5-10% as much time and interest in it as compared to, say, 20 years ago.
This gets my vote. It’s for the casual-but-well-heeled wine consumer, not the wine-geek.
The average cost for a bottle of wine in the U.S. is about $11 - $15.50 This Is How Much a Bottle of Wine Costs in Your State (2024) | Today's Homeowner . Wine Spectator clearly isn’t aimed at the “average” wine consumer; the magazine will, in its own ways, highlight cheap wines of good quality, but – in general – it’s audience has deeper pocketbooks; just look at who pays to advertise.
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I get it for free (paper version) and feel like I get good value for the money. Actually enjoy reading it since it has so many pictures. Unless people have been intimately involved in dead tree media over the last decade or so, they can’t really grasp the devastation - so just the fact that WS has survived in some form is itself no a small achievement.
And unlike some posters upthread, I like their reviews, since they are the rare ones conducted under single blind conditions. It doesn’t really influence my (limited!) buying though since I’m almost never going out and chasing a wine that is mentioned by a critic, or fellow poster here. That being said, much of the magazine seems targeted more toward selling condos, watches, or cruises than wine. And the wine advertisements they have are strangely incongruous with the other ads - those ads are for billion case production bottlings like Santa Margerhita, Villa Antinori etc. The spirits ads - also mass market - are as plentiful as the wine ones, which doesn’t make sense to me in a wine oriented magazine.
PS: when people ask how to pronounce my name, I like to suggest: just like Marvin Shanken (but without the M)
Wow, I’ve known you 20 years and never knew Rao was pronounced Shanken!
It’s been longer than I knew Arv since I paid for a subscription, A few times I’ve gotten the WS for miles on an airline I’d never get enough for a seat (or even an upgrade), but it’s been a while. I’ve always thought the target demo was the guy (yes, mostly guys), who made some money and decided now’s the time to be a wine guy. Which is actually fine, and apparently a pretty big demographic. Someone ITB can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think still the biggest one day rush in demand for a single wine is when the WS WOTY is announced. But look at any issue, the ads make clear target audience is not wine geeks.
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Pretty pictures ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I subscribe because I like reading about wine — even if it’s mostly fluff. IMHO they publish too frequently. I can never read them fast enough.
I am getting it for free so worth thumbing through.
I read an article in WSJ awhile back that WS is the most conservative of all the ratings.
They did a comparison of the %wines rated that received 95+
Suckling: 10% (of 17,000 wines tasted)
Wine Advocate: ~7% (of 28,000 wines tasted)
Vinous: 5% (of 23,000 wines)
Wine Spectator: 3% (of 16,000 wines)
From my own shopping experience, I tend to agree. I can often find a high score from Vinous, WA, and always Suckling, but much less commonly from WS.
Well it’s difficult for them to make an effort unless it comes to them.
I subscribe. not terribly expensive and get some value
Its size makes a great placemat while watching a game and having a snack and cocktail. Got my picture in it once when I was an up-and-comer. Haven’t bought one in 20 years.
I said it many years ago, but Wine Spectator is the People magazine of wine.
I read and enjoy it. The last of the true magazines. The ratings improved once suckling and the guy who covered Napa left.
I canceled, but still get it for free. My wife, who worked briefly for a magazine publisher in her younger days, says free subscriptions for certain publications are not uncommon, because the the fees the magazine change charge for ads based on circulation may exceed what they bring in in subscriptions. In other words, having free subscribers increases circulation and may actually earn WS more money in ads.
If I got it for free I would browse/read it but I’m not paying for it.
On the plus side:
the opinion writers are mostly new faces in the past 12 to 18 months.
the size of the magazine and the pictures make it appealing
some features highlight people who otherwise are outside of my awareness,
taken with a grain of salt, the scores can help distinguish better from plonk,
non-geeks relate to it more easily than berserk websites…
On the minus side:
Marvin Shanken rubs me the wrong way,
feature articles follow a formula: name of wine, ranking within the WS scores, etc…
Some could be written in excel, just change the names in the referenced cell,
topics of the non-wine related articles go well beyond my interest,
Top 100 list sometimes causes more problems than it solves,
Back in the day, the industry coverage was unique. Not so much anymore.
My subscription ends this year, I think.
Have not had a subscription in years. Last month one arrived in the Mail and received another today. No idea why
Wine Access sent out free subscriptions to (I assume) a bunch of people recently, including me. First issue arrived a week or so ago and the cover story is about a luxury hotel chain. Not a good start (and it harkens back to why I dropped them a decade or two ago), though there was some wine content inside.
We’ll see what next issue brings.
Must be it. Last issue I spent 5 minutes flipping pages, then to recycle