Toward the end of the first full day of seminars at the 2025 New York Wine Experience, the audience of more than 1,000 guests tasted a classic example of wine’s beauty—the 2009 vintage of Château Cheval Blanc. Rated 98 points on release, it has only grown more remarkable with more than a decade of age. Cheval Blanc general director Pierre-Olivier Clouet brought close to 10 cases of the wine for the audience to enjoy. But rather than accept their gratitude, he chose to thank them.
“You can produce the best wine in the world,” said Clouet. “But if there is nobody to open the bottle to enjoy the wine and to share it with passionate people, we would not exist anymore.”
The 44th annual Wine Experience was a celebration of wine and how it brings people from all walks of life together. Held this year at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square from Oct. 16–18, the event remains the world’s premier wine event, gathering wine consumers, winemakers, sommeliers, restaurateurs, chefs and retailers together to raise a glass (or 62,232 glasses over the course of 3 days) to wine and friendship.
The weekend featured two evening Grand Tastings of 265 wines, two packed days of tasting seminars and presentations from wine stars, lunches hosted by Napa Valley and Chilean vintners, and a sparkling wine and whisky reception catered by some of New York’s greatest restaurants. Over the course of the weekend, more than 4,000 attendees got to sample some of the world’s best wines: A total of 353 wines were poured from 21,588 bottles.
While there was plenty of magic in each glass of wine, the biggest emotion in the air was appreciation of how wine can unite us.
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Two Nights of Pure Wine Exploration
The weekend began Thursday with the first of two nights of Critics’ Choice Grand Tastings. Once the ballroom doors opened, wine drinkers had the chance to taste and learn about more than 265 wines, all rated 90 points or higher by Wine Spectator editors. More than 90 of those wines had received 95 points or higher, making this an epic adventure of wine.
Some guests showed up with detailed, notated floorplan maps, with the wineries color coded and scores marked next to each location. Others chose to focus on specific regions, opting for a tour de Bordeaux or giro di Barolo. And some decided to wing it, looking for new discoveries and old friends as they moved from row to row.
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Some even made it a family affair. Jennifer Milheim of Newtown, Pa., brought her 21-year-old daughter, Emily, and her daughter’s friend to their first Grand Tasting, after Jennifer’s sister told them how amazing the experience was. “We really wanted to be able to enjoy all these amazing wines as a family,” said Milheim.
Part of the value of the Grand Tasting is that every winery is represented by a winemaker or an owner. In the Gaja booth, you could take your pick. Angelo Gaja and all three of his children—Gaia, Rosanna and Giovanni—were on hand to talk about the wines and their home in Barbaresco.
“It’s all about the people,” said veteran consulting winemaker Bob Betz. “As good as the wines are, it’s about the people and talking to them and learning so much from them. I love coming here.”
Learning and Sharing
The next two days brought 18 different tastings seminars and presentations, as vintners took the stage to introduce their wines and explain what makes them special. For the packed crowd, it was the chance to learn and to appreciate the work that goes into every bottle. For those on stage, it was a chance to share their passion with a room of 1,000 strangers who felt like new friends.
[article-img-container][src=2025-10/nywe25-overview-jeffery-lindenmuth-102725_1080.jpg] [credit= (Daphne Youree) ] [alt= Wine Spectator executive editor Jeffery Lindenmuth speaks at the 2025 New York Wine Experience at the New York Marriott Marquis.][end: article-img-container]
And with friends, you’re not afraid to share. “When you get into the wine business, you’re crazy,” said Johann Rupert, the South African chairman of luxury goods firm Richemont and the head of his family’s Anthonij Rupert Wines. “My father explained to me: Wine is a lifestyle, it’s not a business.”
Part of what ignites that insane passion is wine’s unique ability to channel the places where grapes are grown. Burgundy-born winemaker Véronique Drouhin cited that as she explained how her father decided to build an outpost in Oregon after visiting the state with her. “We fell in love with the place.”
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Famed Rhône vintner Michel Chapoutier held a tasty experiment to prove wine’s dependence on place. He presented to the crowd two whites and two reds. The whites were both made from Marsanne, the reds from Syrah, grown on the hill of Hermitage in the same vintage and all made by Chapoutier. The one difference between the wines was which parcel on the hillside they came from. And yet, each wine was gorgeously different from its counterpart. Four winemakers from Burgundy and three from Montalcino conducted similar explorations of terroir, showcasing how soils and altitudes and histories shape what’s in the glass.
Several wine stars talked about their own wine journeys. NBA great Carmelo Anthony took the stage to discuss how he made the leap from wine drinker to vintner, showcasing his VII(N) The Seventh Estate Oath of Fidelity Châteauneuf-du-Pape from his multi-nation wine project with Asani Swann. Renzo Cottarella, longtime winemaker and now president and CEO of Marchesi Antinori, talked about the magic of making wine at Umbria’s Castello della Sala, the winery he grew up near.
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The weekend was also a chance to recognize greatness in wine, including tastings of the 2024 Wine Spectator Top 10—including the 2024 Wine of the Year, Viña Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto Vineyard 2021—and of the 2024 Wine Value of the Year, Seghesio Zinfandel Sonoma County 2022. As Enrique Tirado, winemaker at Don Melchor, exclaimed, “This is a great celebration of wine and the people who dedicate their lives to it.”
The Wine Experience has its roots in the Wine Spectator Restaurant Awards program. The three new winners of the program’s Grand Award in 2025 were all recognized—Le Bon Georges of Paris, Selby’s of Atherton, Calif., and Soby’s of Greenville, S.C. Le Bon Georges owner Benoit Duval-Arnould explained that their effort was about offering something special to their clientele, but that wasn’t all. “Most of all, it is a demonstration of how much we love wine.”
[article-img-container][src=2025-10/nywe25-overview-ga-le-bon-georges-group-102725_1080.jpg] [credit= (Daphne Youree) ] [alt= The team from Paris Grand Award winner Le Bon Georges at the 2025 New York Wine Experience at the New York Marriott Marquis.][end: article-img-container]
[article-img-container][src=2025-10/nywe25-champagne-reception-tirado-group-102825-1600.jpg] [credit= (Daphne Youree) ] [alt= Don Melchor winemaker Enrique Tirado with friends at the 2025 New York Wine Experience at the New York Marriott Marquis.][end: article-img-container]
Giving Back
That love of wine can inspire people to do more, too. The Wine Experience is itself a charitable endeavor. The event would not be possible without the incredible generosity of vintners who donate all the wines of the weekend. All net proceeds from the event go to the Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation, which has raised more than $40 million for scholarships and grants to benefit those aspiring to careers in the hospitality and wine industries.
Foundation beneficiaries have included students at Napa Valley College (where the Wine Spectator Wine Education Center just opened in September), The Roots Foundation, Sonoma State University’s Wine Business Institute, Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, World Central Kitchen and the Culinary Institute of America, among others.
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This year there was a special focus on the University of California at Davis’ School of Viticulture & Enology, which the foundation has supported for decades, funding scholarships for winemaking students. In a sign of how crucial that support is, multiple scholarship winners were on stage during the weekend to present their wines, including Quintessa’s Rebekah Wineburg, Opus One’s Michael Silacci, Chimney Rock’s Elizabeth Vianna and Williams Selyem’s Jeff Mangahas.
Cooking Up Connections
Another endeavor the foundation has supported is the incredible World Central Kitchen, and founder José Andrés was on stage again this year for the annual Chefs’ Challenge, in which he, Eric Ripert, Emeril Lagasse and Danny Meyer matched wine-pairing wits with Wine Spectator’s Bruce Sanderson. Each chef brought a dish, and Sanderson and a different chef each picked a wine to go with that dish. The crowd voted—after extensive raucous debate on stage—on which pairing worked best.
While the seminar tends to be the liveliest and most joke-filled event of the weekend, it’s also a beautiful reminder that wine shows its qualities best when paired with good food—especially when that food is paired with the company of loved ones.
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Anthropologists have debated why human beings evolved to metabolize alcohol, and why they continue to drink it, considering the risks of addiction and excessive consumption. One theory is that, because humans are the most sociable creatures on earth, having grown in 10,000 years from families to tribes to nations of millions, alcohol facilitated social interaction, allowing us to build connections. Wine has been the punch bowl at the party we call society.
The Wine Experience continues to add new weight to that hypothesis every year. Even in our current lives, where being social can mean scrolling through videos on your phone or discussing your bets on the World Series over Discord with people you will never meet in person, wine still has the power to bring us face-to-face, talking about shared joys and sorrows, over a glass of something special.
As Giovanni Gaja put it during the seminar on Brunello di Montalcino, “Wine educates us to beauty and, most importantly, wine unites … When you open a beautiful bottle of wine, you open it surrounded by the people that you love, that you care about—you create memories together.”
The Wine Experience will return to New York City Oct. 22–24, 2026.
—With reporting by Robert Taylor, Julia Larson, Rachel Shanker, Kenny Martin and Olivia Nolan.
[article-img-container][src=2025-10/nywe25-grand-tasting-angela-rossana-gaja-102825-1600.jpg] [credit= (Daphne Youree) ] [alt= Angelo Gaja and his daughter Rossana at the Critics’ Choice Grand Tastings at the 2025 New York Wine Experience at the New York Marriott Marquis.][end: article-img-container]
[article-img-container][src=2025-10/nywe25-grand-tasting-silacci-opus-booth-102825-1600.jpg] [credit= (Daphne Youree) ] [alt= Opus One’s Alaina Velasquez, Michael Silacci and Meghan Zobeck at the Critics’ Choice Grand Tastings at the 2025 New York Wine Experience at the New York Marriott Marquis.][end: article-img-container]
[article-img-container][src=2025-10/nywe25-grand-tasting-jose-andres-guests-102825-1600.jpg] [credit= (Daphne Youree) ] [alt= Chef José Andrés and guests at the Critics’ Choice Grand Tastings at the 2025 New York Wine Experience at the New York Marriott Marquis.][end: article-img-container]
[article-img-container][src=2025-10/nywe25-grand-tasting-catena-murrietta-102825-1600.jpg] [credit= (Daphne Youree) ] [alt= Argentina’s Laura Catena and Spain’s Vicente Dalmau Cebrián-Sagarriga at the Critics’ Choice Grand Tastings at the 2025 New York Wine Experience at the New York Marriott Marquis.][end: article-img-container]
[article-img-container][src=2025-10/nywe25-champagne-reception-roederer-102825-1600.jpg] [credit= (Daphne Youree) ] [alt= Roederer Estate being poured at the 2025 New York Wine Experience at the New York Marriott Marquis.][end: article-img-container]
