About CWA

The California Wine Advisors tasting panel and editorial team consists of industry experts and private collectors with decades of fine wine experience. Our exclusive goal is to enhance your enjoyment of collector-level wines by providing honest, unbiased opinions about new releases and occasional retrospectives featuring rare library wines.

Send Us Your Wine

If you are a winemaker or proprietor interested in having CWA review your wine, contact us for instructions on how to submit bottles.

Why Trust Us?

The California Wine Advisors is unique compared to traditional wine critics in America, such as Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate or Wine Spectator magazine because CWA samples all featured wines blind* and does not accept any wine industry advertising (to avoid any bias). Avid wine collectors recognize that the wine world is fraught with legends of individual critics exposing personal biases via their published ratings. CWA has avoided this risk for over a decade by publishing ratings and tasting notes reflecting the opinions of a diverse panel of wine lovers experienced in sampling the world’s most renowned wines.

CWA Team

The tasting panel and editorial board is an all-star team of Napa winemakers, winery owners, and retailers. The tasting panel also includes veteran collectors with a wide array of experience sampling the most renowned California ‘Cult’ wines and highly prized European treasures.

Unique Service

We recognize that every collector has a unique palate and that means it’s sometimes difficult to determine how the opinions of a magazine or critic might compare to your personal preferences. A unique benefit that the California Wine Advisors offers loyal collectors is the ability to make personal enquiries and receive a response from one of the wine experts on our tasting panel within 24 hours.* Click here to ask an expert

*What does blind tasting mean?

All wines featured by CWA have been sampled and rated by the tasting panel without knowledge of the wine name, label or winemaker. The wines are poured from beakers or bottles that are covered by sleeves to hide the label. The environment is a standard, corporate office boardroom. The blind tasting formula and environment has been developed to ensure that we sample wines in a sterile environment to focus exclusively on the wine. This is to avoid the primary complaint we hear from collectors that have fallen in love with a wine (and purchased a case) in the romantic setting of a picturesque winery or in the company of a charming winemaker, then later regretted that purchase when sampling back home.