Wine Enthusiast: The case for an oversaturated market

Who would have thought there was only room for one magazine about wine? Wine Spectator is the wine magazine for the masses, if such a thing exists. The only other one I've come across is this, Wine Enthusiast.

Some background and/or a confession: I like magazines. I subscribe to a few regularly, and have done so for years. I also - here's the confession - tend to choose the ad hoc subscriptions through those horrible annoying Publishers Weekly things. My thought is, if there's a magazine there that makes me want to subscribe, why not do it and buy a lottery ticket in the process? [It's a sad, but not totally indefensible theory.]

Hence, I decided to buy Wine Enthusiast. Whether I thought it was Wine Spectator, I'm not sure. I only know that from the first issue, I wished it had been.

THE FORMAT: Wine Enthusiast's biggest flaw is what sets it apart - it's oversized (much like ESPN: The Magazine, which I similarly had problems with.) Memo to magazine publisher's everywhere: magazines have traditionally been one size for a reason. KEEP IT THAT WAY. Furthermore, WE doesn't really use that extra space. The magazine is short - the March 2000 issue is 80 pages. Granted, there's not much advertising there - a nice touch - so it's probably equivalent to a 125 page magazine or so. It's still short. FORMAT GRADE: C

THE CONTENT: I want to read a wine magazine for a few things. One, teach me about wine - what sets certain vineyards apart from one another, what is the deal with these tannin things, etc. Two, recommend certain wines for me - tell me about bargains, rare wines, and do this across different regions and types of wine. Three, some feature articles -- maybe throw in some recipes or good suggestions for food, or suggest travel tips to wine regions, or restaurants with particularly good wine lists.

From a teaching perspective, Wine Enthusiast is passable, but barely. There are occasional articles about new types of wine (have you heard of the Gruner Veltliner grape?) However, there is a presumed level of wine knowledge (hence, perhaps the name of the magazine), and is not meant to be that instructional.

From a recommendation perspective, WE does a bit better. One nice feature, right off the bat, is that they picture the label next to wines they recommend. That makes it easier, I suppose to recognize the wine when shopping. My memory isn't quite so good, but the labels do help in reading through the sections. The ratings are based on what I assume is the same 100 point scale as Wine Spectator. The reviews themselves are inconsistent: a review of a 1995 Trefethen Cabernet made delicious sense: …Nose of cedar, tobacco, red fruit and a hint of bay leaf…Medium mouthfeel, with a long velvety finish. Classy. YUM. However, the review of the 1996 Duckhorn Estate Grown Merlot was unhelpful and pretentious: …This is top-flight Napa Merlot, amply restrained but forward enough to qualify as a modern California take on the grape. I'm sorry, what was that? Overall, though, good and helpful. They also divide the section into useful categories, and review an occasional single malt scotch, tequila, etc. Nice.

From a feature perspective, Wine Enthusiast seeks to score highly. Articles about trips to the Austrian wine region (who knew?), perspective on wine trends, etc. The articles feel a bit like the equivalent of Cornish hen: tastes good, but you kind of wish you had an actual chicken. There's only 80 pages total, as I've mentioned, so you can imagine the brevity of such articles. Some of these articles are actually interesting, and I feel cheated in how short they are. Overall, the breadth over depth approach fails for me. CONTENT GRADE: C+

Overall, Wine Enthusiast makes no solid case for its existence. I don't' subscribe to Wine Spectator, but I've read it a few times. There's essentially nothing Wine Enthusiast that is superior to the job done at Wine Spectator. Maybe there is a market for more than one wine magazine, but it's not with the Enthusiast.