Samples, profiles and our rules.

The process in four steps

1. Contact

   Write to us at editorial@homeofriesling.com: tell us who you are and which Rieslings you would like to show us, ideally with vintage and price. We will reply [timeframe for our reply] and tell you frankly whether and when it fits.

2. Sending samples

   If it fits, please send the bottles to the delivery address below. [number of bottles] per wine is enough for us. Please don't include any promotional material; a data sheet with the vineyard site, vinification and analysis figures, on the other hand, is very helpful.

3. Independent tasting

   We taste the wines ourselves, without hurry and with food, and read what the critics have written about them. The verdict is ours alone. We are happy to check facts such as the site, vinification or price with you beforehand.

4. Publication

   The report appears with the wine, in the estate profile or as the Riesling of the Week, labelled as a sample bottle. We will send you the link as soon as it is online.

What happens to samples

• Labelling. Every piece about a wine that an estate has sent us carries this note: Sample bottle from the winery
• No obligation to publish. A sample is not a commitment. If a wine doesn't convince us, or doesn't fit any current topic, we won't write about it. And we will tell you so.
• No influence on the verdict. You don't read the text in advance for approval, and a sample doesn't make a report any kinder.

Rules of independence

• We don't give scores of our own. We quote scores from critics and magazines with source, vintage and link.
• We take no money for mentions, placements or profiles.
• No affiliate links: we earn nothing from any purchase made via a link on our site.
• We mark our own impressions as such, and summarised press reviews likewise.
• Value is part of every recommendation. An expensive wine has to deliver more than an inexpensive one, and we say so.
• We don't review estates we work for professionally – or, if we do, we say so openly in the piece.

What a profile looks like

An estate profile brings together history, vineyard sites and ways of working with the wines we present and with voices from the estate. So far these voices come from interviews and third-party publications, and are linked to their source. In future we would like to put two or three questions of our own to each estate by email.

Reach

Home of Riesling is new and still being built. We don't yet have reliable readership figures, which is why there is no media kit either. As soon as we measure something that can honestly be called a figure, it will appear here.