Wine-Searcher and DoctorWine

When the first exploratory emails arrived two months ago from Wine-Searcher regarding a possible partnership with DoctorWine, I must confess I broke into a big smile.  As all wine lovers know, Wine-Searcher is the biggest database in the world for those wanting to know the price of a wine. Even we, as explained in the introduction to our Ultimate Guide to Italian Wine, crosscheck the prices we cite with those in Wine-Searcher.

Created in 1999, this site is reliable (it compares prices from 63,793 sales points around the world) and its research engine can single out a wine from the over eight million they have on file. Aside from this enormous possibility to know the retail price of a particular wine around the world (as well as making it possible to contact the seller to negotiate a price), an additional value offered by Wine-Searcher is the possibility of consulting – for each wine – reviews written by the world’s leading critics, be they individuals or staff. Italy is practically the only country, among the big players, to be represented in only a partial way. Although this does include Gambero Rosso, their system of scoring wines from zero to three Glasses does not allow for any comparison with international rating systems, which are done on a scale from one to 100, and is thus considered to be somewhat ‘novel’.

In order to give greater visibility to Italy, in 2016 the top brass at Wine-Searcher decided contact Doctor Wine. We were chosen because DoctorWine is considered to be an authoritative ‘magazine’ thanks to the contributions of its director Daniele Cernilli, one of the most respected Italian critics abroad, and his competent team of tasters. Aside from DoctorWine, the site is also bringing in the up-and-coming Italian critic Luca Gardini.

There is no doubt that imposing an international profile on DoctorWine from the start, by both adopting an international rating system and publishing its reviews in both Italian and English, has been greatly appreciated and paid off.

We are very pleased and excited about this new collaboration which will project us even further among the upper echelons of international critics and allow us to consolidate our position as leading authority on Italian wine abroad.