Wine Spectator

Wine Spectator is a lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine. Founded as a newsprint tabloid by Bob Morrisey in 1976, it was purchased three years later by publisher Marvin R. Shanken. In 2005, paid circulation was over 382,000 and the magazine reached an estimated 2.25 million readers worldwide. That year, its panel of experts blind tasted and reviewed over 12,400 wines. Each of the 16 issues per year contains a large section devoted to wine reviews and wine ratings.

The magazine's consumer orientation is reflected in stories such as family conflicts among producers, the identification of producers whose wines suffered from systematic cork taint, and alerting collectors to the proliferation of counterfeit wines. Among the critics in the magazine's tasting panel are James Suckling, James Molesworth and James Laube.

The magazine organized and sponsored the Wine Spectator Wine Tasting of 1986 on the tenth anniversary of the Judgment of Paris.