Ethics & Disclosure
I review wine, and I also sell it. Those two facts sit uncomfortably together, so this page explains exactly how I keep them apart — and where I cannot.
What I do for a living
My income comes from the wine trade, not from writing. Specifically:
- I import and wholesale German wine.
- I hold an ownership interest in a wine business.
- I teach, consult, and speak for fees.
- I serve as an ambassador for a German producers' association.
Every one of those roles is a potential conflict with a published review. I am not going to pretend otherwise.
The rules I hold myself to
| Reviews are never for sale | No producer, importer, distributor, or association has ever paid me for a review, and none ever will. There is no submission fee, no expedited tier, and no paid placement. A wine cannot buy its way onto this site. |
| Scores are never negotiated | I do not preview scores with producers, and I do not revise a score because someone asked. If I change an assessment it is because I retasted the wine, and I will say so. |
| Commercial interests are disclosed in the review itself | If I sell a wine, represent its producer, or stand to profit in any way from it, the review says so at the top — not in a footnote, and not only here. Assume no relationship where none is declared. |
| Samples are disclosed, and change nothing | I note when a bottle was a trade sample rather than one I bought. A sample earns a wine a tasting, not a favourable one. |
| Reviews stay free | There is no paywall on any review, and there will not be one. What I sell is my time — teaching, consulting, speaking. What I give away is my opinion. |
| Corrections are made in public | If I get a fact wrong — a vineyard, a vintage, a name — I fix it and note that I fixed it. Silent edits are how a record loses its value. |
What this page cannot fix
Disclosure is not the same as independence. I taste a great deal of German wine because I work in German wine, which means my sample is shaped by the trade I move in. My palate was formed inside that world. No policy statement changes that.
So read these reviews for what they are: the assessments of someone who has tasted these wines repeatedly, in the cellars where they are made, and who has to put money behind an opinion. That is a real advantage and a real bias, and you are entitled to weigh both.
How I score
Scores are given in stars rather than points, because a hundred-point scale implies a precision I do not believe a palate has. A + or ++ marks an upward increment within a rating.
Every note records the vintage, the format, and when I tasted it. A wine tasted once, ten years ago, is a weaker piece of evidence than one I have followed across five vintages, and the note should let you tell the difference.
Questions or challenges
If you believe a review is wrong, unfair, or insufficiently disclosed, write to me. Substantive challenges get a substantive answer, and if you are right I will say so on the page.
About Jesse Becker MS · All reviews
Last updated August 2026.