The year was 1981, wine appreciation in America was on the rise, and Wine Spectator editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken saw an opportunity to move wine into a greater spotlight.
“I had a frustration: I would go to a lot of my favorite restaurants, and they had great food, but they really didn’t pay attention to the wine,” Shanken recounts. As a way of inspiring restaurants to dedicate more resources to their wine offerings, he created the Wine Spectator Restaurant Awards.
The highly selective standards used when the program was founded remain in place today, across three award levels. To earn a Grand Award, the highest honor, a wine list will have at least 1,000 selections, although many have considerably more, but these must be of the highest caliber. There are only 63 Grand Award winners in the U.S. Three of them have maintained the award since the very first year.
Every Grand Award–winning restaurant shows devotion to its cellar, ensuring diversity in regions, styles and vintage depth as well as thoughtfully pairing with their menu. It only stands to reason that such attention to detail and quality applies to every aspect of the experience, especially the cuisine. There is no shortage of delicious food and once-in-a-lifetime meals to be had at these restaurants. In fact, when it comes to food, the U.S. Grand Award winners share a cumulative 42 Michelin stars and include some of today’s most notable chefs: Thomas Keller, Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud and Wolfgang Puck, to name a few.
These wine-loving chefs and their wine directors often pair fine cuisine with a variety of international winemaking regions, but a list can also be intricately niche, offering a breadth of diversity within a region; Press Restaurant in Napa Valley has a list of 2,700 selections made up of Napa Valley wines entirely.
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