Our Wine Review Newsletter

Over two thousand wine reviews! While most of our reviews focus on great wines under $20, we also offer reviews of luxury and collectible wines. As we are located in Philadelphia, most wines reviewed here are available via wine shops in Pennsylvania. Our primary reviewer is Keith Wallace, the executive director and founder of the Wine School of Philadelphia. Want to locate a specific wine? Use our PLCB Wine Finder.

Our Wine Newsletter

Our monthly wine newsletter first looks at our internationally recognized wine reviews and ratings. Plus, get the scoop on happenings at the Wine School along with the occasional sale or celebrity appearance.

Drink wine, get smart!

Our newsletter readership has grown exponentially. In 2001, we started with 100 people on our list. After five years, it reached over 10,000 wine lovers in and around Philadelphia. Now, we touch over 70,000 people worldwide.

You get a monthly wine newsletter with the first look at our wine reviews and ratings, as well as coupons and discounts for upcoming classes and programs. The newsletter will also feature the best wine buys available at the moment. We never spam you or sell your information.

Executive Access to Reviews

We also publish our wine reviews here on our website. However, we give our newsletter readers a first look at our ratings and reviews. Most reviews on the website are published weeks after our wine newsletter readership had access to them.

Our newsletter readers always get the first crack at picking up wines. So for really great wine deals, it’s essential to subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

The Wine Report by Keith Wallace

Keith Wallace writes all reviews. Named one of the top 5 sommeliers in Philadelphia by CBS News, he is a trained winemaker with a bestselling wine & food book under his belt. In addition, the Wine Blog Awards named his work the “Best Wine Reviews” online.

He is an editorial reader for the University of California at Davis. He has contributed to the Windows on the World Complete Wine Course and  The New Wine Lover’s Companion (2nd to 4th Editions). He has also written for Philly Style, Food & Wine, the Daily Beast, and many other publications.

Samples from our Wine Newsletter

The Essentials of a Wine Newsletter

We think a wine newsletter should be fun, intelligent, and to the point. Here are the basics of writing an excellent wine newsletter.

• zero tolerance for pay-to-play wine reviews
• no reviews in exchange for free samples
• written by a respected wine authority
• no outside advertising
• no generic national brands

We only review locally available wines in Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware. We purchase all the wines we review and never accept free wine samples.

Our Wine Review Standards

We taste hundreds of wines every month. This is a wine school, after all. However, we only publish the best of the best. We have tried a dozen other wines that were not up to our standards for every wine we recommend.

Every wine we publish must conform to our two primary criteria for all wines. First, the wine must be an exemplary example of its type of wine. In other words, it must rate 90 points or above. Second, the local pricing (typically in the PA Wine & Spirits Stores) must be below the market average. We usually only list wines that are at or below wholesale pricing.

Our Wine Buying Guides

Along with wine reviews, we also publish buying guides to help our readers become stone-cold sommeliers in their own right. Our Chairman’s Selection Buying Guide is one of the most important to read. This is essential reading, especially if you pay for wine in Pennsylvania. We also keep a list of the top wine shops in the Philly region.

Keith is the founder of the Wine School of Philadelphia. A professional winemaker by trade, he became one of the highest-rated sommeliers in Philadelphia (CBS News).

For the past twenty years, he has earned a reputation as one of the brightest lights in wine education. Along with his tenured professorship at the Wine School, he has taught at multiple universities, Including Drexel and UPenn. He is also the chairman of the National Wine School in Los Angeles.

Along with writing the bestselling book, Corked & Forked,  Keith has written for Philadelphia Style Magazine, Food & Wine, the Daily Beast, and many other publications. In addition, he is an editorial reader for the University of California at Davis Press. He has also contributed to Kevin Zraly’s Windows on the World Complete Wine Course and  The New Wine Lover’s Companion (2nd to 4th Editions). 

Wine Blog Awards

Cellarer.com

Local Wine Events