WineAlign's Tasting Service

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Our Tasting service allows agencies and wineries to have wines reviewed in a professional, objective and timely manner. Our service gets a wine reviewed by up to five LCBO accredited wine writers and published on WineAlign at the cost of only one sample, one delivery fee and a small administration fee.

To cover our costs associated with these tastings (receiving, storing, handling and removal of bottles and boxes, writer fees, adding wines to our database, admin, etc.), we charge a small administration fee for each wine received, added and reviewed via this service. These paid tastings will take priority over unsolicited samples dropped off at the office.

Since you are paying and this is a service, you can be assured that your wines will be reviewed in a timely manner.

We only publish the reviews and ratings of wines that the critics deem recommended to buy. We will no longer publish reviews and ratings for wines we do not recommend. We will still taste all wines sent to us as samples and provide notes on unpublished wines (via agency/winery admin) to those who submit the wines for sampling. 

We feel this will help readers find the wines that matter to them more easily/readily/quickly, a philosophy that aligns with most of the world’s best wine publications and matches our founding mission of helping people find great wine. 

Recommendations will, as always, be based on quality, value, and education for our enthusiastic and knowledgeable readers, and not only on scores. Also following WineAlign’s core philosophy, each critic will make their own, independent recommendations.

To create economies of scale for agencies and wineries, we’re offering a pre-purchased, bundled approach.

We will track and record every wine that comes into our office. We’ll also track the number of pre-purchased Tasting credits you have with us and inform you when your current Tasting credits are used up.

Because our writers attend many events and travel extensively to keep their palates and perspectives sharp, there is no guarantee that all writers will be at every tasting. However, wines will always be scored by more than one writer.

FAQ

How do I submit wines?

Submitting wines is as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1) Purchase your tasting credits here. You will receive an invoice via email within a day or two after purchasing your credits.

2) Tell us what wines you are submitting by downloading and filling out this spreadsheet and emailing it to us at [email protected]. Click to download the spreadsheet here. Please include a printed version of the spreadsheet with the wines.

3) Send the wines to our world headquarters in Etobicoke. If you are a producer outside of Canada, please send the sample directly to your Ontario agent who can then deliver the sample to us. We do handle the importation of wines for the Tasting Service.

Tastings
c/o WineAlign
217 – 4195 Dundas St. West
Toronto, ON, M8X 1Y4

When will the wine be reviewed?

Our goal is within two to three weeks.

How will I know when a wine is reviewed?

Each time a review is added at WineAlign the admin contact for your agency/winery gets an email with a link to the wine and review(s). To update your admin contact for reviews or sample requests send an email to [email protected] .

How can I get a review deleted?

We are no longer publicly publishing scores or reviews for wines we do not recommend. Those scores and reviews will only be visible to the submitting entities WineAlign admin account. However, if an agency or winery finds a review to be poorly written (no one is perfect) or suspects a faulty bottle, we will remove the published review(s) temporarily, provided another sample is sent promptly. We will sample the wine again and the new review(s) will stand. Please email us at [email protected] .

Note: There’s been some confusion and mischaracterization about this service in the marketplace. Here is a statement from our writers to our readers regarding our new Tastings service.

If you have further questions, please contact [email protected] .