Michelin Now Rates Wineries. The Wine World Isn’t Very Impressed.

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Like many a modern-day struggle, the battle over the Michelin Guide’s recent foray into rating wineries and their vineyards is being fought over social media rather than in the street—or even the tasting room. “Honestly, people are not saying anything at all,” says international Bordeaux wine educator and global wine specialist Robin Kelley O’Connor of New York City when asked about the ratings. “You know I’m knee-deep in the wine trade, at this time of year I’m at least one if not two, three, or four importer or distributor tastings every day. I have not heard one comment.” The same is certainly not true of the major social-media networks. On a post in which we asked our wine-focused friends their thoughts on the ratings, Adam Lee, owner and winemaker at California’s Clarice Wine Company, who also writes about wine for North Bay Business Journal, ended his screed with the line, “It’s laughable and should be mocked and denigrated.”

Michelin has spent more than a century rating restaurants with one, two, or three stars, but the last decade has seen the French tire company go into aggressive expansion mode. The guide’s inspectors have swarmed new regions from South Korea to South Carolina to find the greatest dining destinations. Now with more of the globe covered, it has been moving beyond just rating restaurants. In 2024 the company unveiled Michelin keys to hand out to hotels using the same three-point scale as its restaurant guides. And now come the grapes. Michelin has introduced a rating of wineries where one grape denotes a very good producer; two an excellent producer, and three an exceptional producer. While most have not dismissed Michelin quite like Lee above, there is quite a bit of head scratching over who was included, who was omitted, and how the ratings were awarded.

That conversation has heated up the past week. After an initial incursion into Burgundy in July, the guide tackled Bordeaux on September 7, bestowing recognition upon 84 wineries at a ceremony at the Cité du Vin in Bordeaux. Out of the more than 7,000 wine-producing châteaus in the region, 21 were highlighted by Michelin despite not earning a grape; then 38 received one, 16 were awarded two, and nine achieved the highest distinction of three. On its website, the guide itself says it “covers the majority of the region’s most iconic appellations,” which automatically weeds out many of the châteaus making solid bottles in less-celebrated areas or classifications such as Bordeaux AOC, Bordeaux Supérieur, Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, or Entre-Deux-Mers. Included are Left Bank communes like Saint-Estèphe, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Margaux, and Pessac-Léognan, Right Bank stalwarts Pomerol and Saint-Émilion, and sweet-wine appellations Sauternes and Barsac.

It was the individual omissions or lower-than-expected rankings that got people talking, or rather riled up, in the comments. While houses like Château d’Yquem, Château Cheval Blanc, and Petrus are no doubt delighted by the three-grape designation, commenters across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and X have noted the slap in the face of a two-grape rating for the likes of Château Margaux, Château Angelus, and Château Haut-Brion, as well as one grape awarded to Château Cos-d’Estournel and Château Lynch-Bages. “What about one grape for Château Le Pin on the Right Bank?” O’Connor asks. “Le Pin is approximately $4,100 upon release at retail and is one of the most sought-after wines in the world, constantly rated 97 to 100 points. What amateur did they have rating the wines?”

Using five criteria, quality of agronomy, technical mastery, identity, balance, and consistency, Michelin worked with a team of inspectors drawn from the ranks of the wine world such as former sommeliers, critics, and winemakers. Unlike its restaurant reviewers, who are anonymous and work undercover, Michelin’s winery experts had to make appointments at each winery to evaluate several vintages of the wine as well as the vineyards and winemaking facilities. There has been a lot of criticism leveled here as well. Lee brings up Château Margaux’s two grapes as an example when he asks, “Are we meant to believe that Michelin’s inspectors have examined that acreage extensively and repeatedly, across different seasons and vintages, with enough expertise to assess soil vitality and vineyard balance?” Pointing out the complex nature of vineyard evaluation and the amount of time it takes to understand the differences among blocks, he adds, “Meaningfully evaluating those factors across the enormous vineyard area of Bordeaux would require tremendous access, time, and specialized knowledge. Michelin has not adequately explained how its inspectors accomplish that.”

“The lack of transparency is going to become a bigger issue with time, and it’s already a major problem,” says Jeff Leve, publisher and editor of The Wine Cellar Insider, who polled his followers and friends across multiple platforms where he reports “the results were extremely negative.” Leve also takes issue with the guide only rating the estates rather than individual vintages or cuvées: “Every wine comes from a specific place or terroir that cannot be reproduced in another location. That, the climatic condition of the year, choices in the vineyard and in the cellar will never be the same from vintage to vintage,” he says. “Wines change every year. While it’s interesting to some wine consumers to learn about a property, it’s not exactly relevant to what’s in the bottle and the glass.”

While many have said they should stick with restaurants—or worse yet, tires—the chatter around Michelin has not been entirely negative. Although many of the wineries, even those awarded three grapes, declined to comment for this article, citing reasons such as the sensitivity of their relationship with Michelin or, in the case of an obvious slight, to politely “let the recognition speak for itself,” some rejoiced in the distinction. For example, Saint-Émilion’s Château Troplong Mondot, classified Premier Grand Cru Classé B, sent out a press release celebrating its two-grape designation. And considering the state of the wine industry in general, any attention brought to it is seen as a good thing by some.

“It’s a great opportunity, in a time as challenging as the one we’re currently facing in the wine world, to have a name as prestigious as Michelin take an interest in wine,” says Guillaume Jourdan, managing director of VitaBella, a Paris-based brand strategy consultancy. “It was the same thing in the mid-1980s when [Robert] Parker turned the 1855 classification upside down. And we saw how that turned out.” So, while one grape is hardly a 100-point score, if the focus on some of Bordeaux’s best vineyards prompts people to buy more bottles, all the online squabbling won’t take the shine off Michelin’s latest round of awards.

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