![wine_spectator_award[1].jpg](http://blog.prospect.org/blog/ezraklein/wine_spectator_award%5B1%5D.jpg)
Big scandal in the foodie world as Wine Spectator's notoriously loose procedure for bestowing "awards of excellence" is exposed as a total fraud. You know the "Award of Excellence," a maroon colored plaque, or maybe a sticker, with Wine Spectator's name on it, that hangs in restaurants that are better than bad and worse than good. In order to qualify for this honor, you send Wine Spectator a print-out of your wine menu, an explanation of your wine program, and $250. In return, you get a sticker, and Wine Spectator skips to the bank. That's exactly what Osteria L’Intrepido, a small restaurant in Milan, did. They sent their menu, their explanation, their entrance fee, and got their sticker. The only problem was that Osteria L’Intrepido is not a real restaurant. It's an invention concocted by the wine writer Robin Goodstein. Wine Spectator doesn't visit these restaurants, or evaluate their wine program, or know if they even have the wines they send on the print out. But this year, the magazine made a million bucks bestowing the award, and it's excellent advertising to have tens of thousands of restaurants proudly displaying your medal, so it's unlikely this little embarrassment will do much to disrupt the scam. CORKED.
Big scandal in the foodie world as Wine Spectator's notoriously loose procedure for bestowing "awards of excellence" is exposed as a total fraud. You know the "Award of Excellence," a maroon colored plaque, or maybe a sticker, with Wine Spectator's name on it, that hangs in restaurants that are better than bad and worse than good. In order to qualify for this honor, you send Wine Spectator a print-out of your wine menu, an explanation of your wine program, and $250. In return, you get a sticker, and Wine Spectator skips to the bank. That's exactly what Osteria L’Intrepido, a small restaurant in Milan, did. They sent their menu, their explanation, their entrance fee, and got their sticker. The only problem was that Osteria L’Intrepido is not a real restaurant. It's an invention concocted by the wine writer Robin Goodstein. Wine Spectator doesn't visit these restaurants, or evaluate their wine program, or know if they even have the wines they send on the print out. But this year, the magazine made a million bucks bestowing the award, and it's excellent advertising to have tens of thousands of restaurants proudly displaying your medal, so it's unlikely this little embarrassment will do much to disrupt the scam. 
