Wine Spectator award winning wines

The first edition appeared in 1976 - a wine guide from which one could learn. It opened the door to a world that had previously been reserved for only a small elite. Whether Europe, overseas or the New World, the Wine Spectator has dedicated itself to almost every topic in the wine world in almost 45 years, awarded a lot of prizes and rated countless wines according to the common 100-point scheme.

Wine Spectator - the wine viewer

The Wine Spectator is an internationally distributed wine magazine, which deals not only with wine, but also with the pleasurable life of well-to-do people. The heart of the magazine is without question the Top 100 Wines list, on which the best wines with an appealing price-performance ratio are listed.

Wine Spectator is published 15 times a year and tastes and describes about 15,000 wines during the same period. The tastings take place blind and are conducted by a diverse team of sommeliers and experts. Finally, the Wine Spectator rating is created, which consists of 3 elements: the points, the drinking recommendation and the description.

The Wine Spectator points

Similar to other well-known publications, Wine Spectator uses a 100 point scale, with the point key holding 6 different levels of quality.

• 100-95 points: Classic: a great wine
• 94-90 points: Outstanding wine of exceptional character and style
• 89-85 points: Very good wine with special qualities
• 84-80 points: Good, solid and well-made wine 
• 79-75 points: Average and drinkable wine that may have minor flaws
• 74-50 points: Not recommended

The drinking recommendation

Drink: Most wines can be drunk now and will see little improvement with cellaring.

Hold: Most age-worthy wines are not fully mature and will benefit from some time.

Drink or Hold: Wines can be drunk now, but could benefit from some cellaring, provided you enjoy the characteristics of older wines. 

Past Peak: The quality of most wines is declining.

NYR: Most of the wines in this vintage have not yet been released. 

The rating is rounded out by a detailed description, which can be viewed both in the magazine and on Wine Spectator's website, provided you have a subscription.