Wine Publication Lays Off Editorial Staff, Retains Scores

Restructuring around what it identified as its single most valuable asset, a national wine publication laid off its entire editorial staff Tuesday and retained the scores, sources confirmed.

The 11 positions eliminated include three senior editors and the magazine’s only fact checker. Scoring responsibilities move to the advertising sales department, a change described internally as a workflow efficiency.

“Nobody reads the copy. I have had the analytics in front of me for six years and I can tell you that average time on an 1,800-word feature about Muscadet is nine seconds,” said publisher Grant Hollifield, adding that the publication remains fully committed to editorial independence. “The number is the product. The number was always the product. Everything built around it was a courtesy we extended to the reader, and frankly, to the writers.”

The publication will continue running tasting notes, assembled from a bank of 340 approved descriptors.

At press time, the publication had posted a listing for a director of editorial integrity, reporting to sales.