Editorial Policies and Ethics
This website is independently owned and operated by Headwaters Content LLC. All editorial decisions are finalized by its owner and the Editor-in-Chief of Opening a Bottle, Kevin Day.
This publication, like many on the internet, started off as a personal blog (in 2014). Since we have only minimally removed old content from the site, you may encounter articles and stories that did not fully conform to the outline policies below. But throughout this time, one policy has been the same: we do not sell any advertisements or placements within articles.
Opening a Bottle continues to be 100% funded by our subscribers. That means our reader-supported revenue funds (a) our travels, (b) purchasing many of the wines we review, (c) paying our contributors at or near the industry-standard rates, (d) all of the photography and illustrations we use to jazz up the site, and (e) web hosting and web maintenance costs.
Our Supporters
A majority of our supports are individual consumers and "wine obsessives" who want to help ensure our independence and curation of what matters most in European wine.
But we also have professional subscribers who often have a commercial interest in selling specific wines (think: wineries, importers, distributors, press agencies, etc.). In exchange for their support, they get (a) five accounts to log-in, (b) the ability to republish our work to promote their wines, and (c) a custom landing page for their business (or a client) that aggregates relevant content supporting their wines.
It is important to note that all editorial is still at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. See the samples policy below.
How We Select Wines for This Publication
Our primary goal is to make wine a little less opaque for our readers and subscribers, but also to spotlight specific wines of unique character that exhibit a distinct sense of origin. In other words: wines that clearly convey a sense of place.
This has led us to cover mostly appellation-based European wines — especially from Italy, France, Austria and Spain — but our curiosity will lead us anywhere. In truth, European wines need the most explaining, especially to our primary audience: American wine drinkers. We prefer a depth over breadth approach, and given our small staff and resources, that means we have prioritized these places. Do not take that in any way as a slight against the many wines produced outside these countries. We are niche and we embrace it.
We have a soft spot for traditionally made wines; for multigenerational family winegrowers and the risks they have to take; for improbable vineyards on steep slopes or active volcanos or isolated islands; for old vines that look like trees; for innovative new techniques in the winery as well as rediscovered ancient ones; for biodiversity and the use of organic and biodynamic practices to foster healthy vines; for wines that can live a long life in a cellar (or, most relevantly, can still be telling stories days after they've been opened).
These traits, and why they matter, are celebrated through the use of icons across the site. If a wine doesn't fit at least one of these attributes, we are likely not interested in seeking out the wine for coverage.
Samples Policy
Like many wine publications, we frequently accept samples from distributors, importers, consortia and other folks in the wine industry. Increasingly, samples are sent after we have proactively approached an importer with interest in a specific winery and their wines for a specific article we have chosen to write. We also reject a ton of offers because they don't fit the ethos of the wines we feature here.
Interested in Submitting Samples?
Please contact our Editor-in-Chief if you have wines that you would like to present and we can discuss whether they might fit with the site's editorial focus.
As noted, we have specific attributes that we prize most in a wine, so if you are looking to send samples of your wine to us, please note what our editorial focus is by reviewing this page. If your wine meets any of these criteria for a story, contact us.
Here is what you should know:
Coverage is Never Guaranteed ...
... Even if we consider a story angle in advance. The wine still needs to deliver in the glass to justify the time we take to write about these wines.
If the Wine Misses the Mark ...
... We will communicate those to the provider upon request. We respect winemakers for the risks they take to make their product, and also the importers who take risks to bring these wines to America. But we also don't bullshit them — if their wines miss the mark, we owe it to them to offer a sound and reasoned explanation why. They are often grateful for the feedback.
We Do Not Accept Unsolicited Samples
Look, if a package was being sent to your porch, you'd want to know about it, too. Save your effort and money and contact us first if you want us to review something. We will let you know if we are interested.
Lastly, Why Do We Even Bother With Samples?
Truth be told, this endeavor does not make nearly enough money to cover the costs of travel, contributors, photography, artwork, web hosting, web development, software and time spent producing it, let alone buying at retail all of the wines we would want to explore for editorial. It is not even close.
Welcome to the world of online publishing. We all make this bargain.
Note: Readers are informed at the bottom of all relevant feature stories if any of the featured wines were provided as samples, and by whom. If such a note does not exist, the wine was purchased for editorial purposes.
Press Trips
Occasionally, our writers are invited on press trips, in which an importer, PR agency or regional organization will host a group of wine writers and beverage professionals to explore an area’s wineries and vineyards.
To some, this is a poison pill. For us, press trips (a) make travel to Europe and many wine regions economically attainable, (b) provide a thoroughly educational experience and (c) allow us to expand our photo asset library for future coverage. We join trips that make sense for Opening a Bottle's editorial mission of discovering compelling, family-run winemakers from intriguing regions. We can only attend 3 to 4 trips a year. This gives us the luxury of being very choosy about where we go, which benefits the editorial and photography focus of this site. We don't go on every trip that's offered to us, but we do try our best to help connect PR people with other wine writers who are a better fit.
Attendance on a press trip does not guarantee coverage on Opening a Bottle. Our priority — and the priority of our contributors — is to Opening a Bottle's readers and subscribers, not to promoting anyone or any place, no matter how generous they are. We maintain all editorial authority regardless, and the full rights to imagery reside with the individual who took them.
If you are interested in inviting our Editor-in-Chief on a press trip, contact us.
Contributors
At this time, we are not accepting pitches from new contributors. Given our size and resources, writing for Opening a Bottle is currently by invite only based on wine knowledge and writing skill. However, we want to get to know as many writers as possible, particularly those with different experiences, background and perspective than us. The world of wine is vast and beautiful, and we eventually want to publish as many perspectives as possible.
We require that writers have no current financial entanglements with any of the brands and regions that they write about, including "brand ambassador" positions.
Advertising Policy
None of the posts on this site are paid for or fashioned as advertorial. Subscriptions make up 100% of the revenue to fund this publication. We used to have an affiliate partner relationship with Wine.com, and we are retroactively removing these links. It was never very fruitful for us, so it is being phased out. You may see a few of these links as stragglers from this process. They are clearly marked with Wine.com's logo.
Ethical Expectations of Wineries and Consortia
Environmental Impact
We favor wines made without, or with minimal, use of chemicals in the vineyard and winery. We are not absolutists (e.g. sulphur is not "poison"), but given the wine industry's impact on the environment and the labor force who makes these wines happen, every effort should be made to minimize harm.
We do not consider this a "natural wine" publication, because that phrase often encompasses fault-riddled wines that hold no interest for us. But we do embrace the predominant ethos of the movement that the grapes should come from a vital vineyard that prioritizes biodiversity, that working conditions should be safe for laborers, that the staff is justly treated and compensated, and that, yes, wine production and consumption should have a minimized carbon footprint.
This last point is problematic for all of us: we love wines from halfway around the world. There is no carbon-neutral way to enjoy them without moving there, walking to the winery, and drinking the wine straight from the cask. But there are ways for us — the consumer — to minimize the harm of this process, and it starts with the wines we select. We are increasingly making this a priority of our selection process, and it includes everything from vineyard practices to the weight of the final bottle.
Social Justice
We are also aware that — as Americans covering a product made in other nations — it is all too easy for us to carry our cultural expectations and biases to the tasting table. That said, basic norms of decency, empathy and fairness are universal. We do not have the means (just yet) for "reporters on the ground" to conduct investigative journalism and chase leads on how wineries operate. We are a small wine education and review website.
But that said, we are listening, and we have blacklisted numerous wineries (particularly in Italy) for practices we find abhorrent. Examples: a Friulian winery whose owner likened a black Italian politician to a monkey; a Franciacorta producer whose marketing mocked the BLM protests; and a producer in Puglia who is under investigation for worker exploitation. We are working on a page for subscribers that outlines who these wineries are, why we won't cover them, and links to resources where you can learn more and make your own judgment.
The tendency to name and shame is ugly, and we don't make this move lightly. We want to know about these instances, so we do our best to stay on top of the news from other sources. There is zero reason to support such people and their business.
We Accept Input, Feedback and Tips
All of these principles are difficult to verify with our tiny team (one U.S.-based Editor-in-Chief, a small team of freelance contributors), but we will do our best. And know this: our door is open to input and feedback. If you have an anonymous tip about shady environmental or social practices from any winery or consortium, please contact us and we will look into it.