Editorial Standards

Wine & Vintage is an editorial publication, not a marketing channel. These standards bind every article we publish: no article appears without a named masthead byline and real photography.

Written by editors, signed by name

Every article carries the byline of one of our eighteen editors and correspondents. We do not publish anonymous articles and we do not grant anonymity to sources; if a claim cannot be attributed, it does not appear. Our masthead is published on the contributors page.

No invented material

We never invent facts, quotations, interviews, tastings, scores, auction results, provenance, prices, production details, people or events. If a fact cannot be verified, we leave it out or say plainly that it is unknown. Producer and critic descriptions are attributed to their source; our own tasting notes appear only when someone at the publication genuinely tasted the wine.

Verification

Factual claims are checked against named, checkable sources before publication. Figures about markets, production and finance come from the underlying filings, reports or reputable reporting, and we say which. When two credible sources disagree, we say so and explain the figure we report.

No scores

We assign no numerical scores to wines or vintages. A vintage is never reduced to a number; it differs by region, subregion, variety, producer, vineyard and harvest date, and our job is to explain the nuance rather than flatten it.

Prices, stated precisely

Every price we publish is identified by type: producer release price, merchant asking price, auction estimate or auction result. A price without its type is not a fact we will print.

Real photography

Photographs of real wines, wineries, vineyards, estates, objects and people are real photographs, credited to their makers and licensed for our use. A photograph never depicts a place, bottle or person it does not actually show, and captions say what the image shows. We do not present generated imagery as photography of a real place.

Independence

Editorial and advertising are separate. Samples, visits and technical information do not purchase coverage, and any material commercial relationship is disclosed in the article. Paid content, when it exists, is labeled as such and never appears as editorial.

Wine, written responsibly

We treat wine as agriculture, craft, history and culture. We do not publish content that encourages excessive consumption, and we do not address alcohol marketing to minors.

Corrections

When we err, we correct openly. See our corrections policy.