Robin Goldstein, the author of  “The Wine Trials” book, managed to trick the guys at the “Wine Spectator” magazine to hand over their Award of Excellence to an Italian restaurant that doesn't even exist. Robin Goldstein pulled off the trick as a way to show his long time belief that many of the food and wine awards are not based on exact enough researches, and that many of them are just sources of money for the publications that host them.

The author created a website for the fictive Osteria L'Interpido restaurant in Milan. He published there a list of wines that the restaurant was supposed to serve to its customers. Some of the wines on the 256 entry list were among the ones that scored poorly in reviews made by the Wine Spectator magazine itself. He then posted entries on the Chowhound website, set up an automatic answering machine and managed to get Google hits also.

Mr. Goldstein sent the list of wines to the Wine Spectator magazine and also paid the $250 fee for being allowed in the competition. He latter received an email announcing him that the restaurant won the award.

What this trick managed to show is how easily the magazine is to be tricked in awarding restaurants for their wine lists, and that its editors and reviewers don't bother to check the restaurants for themselves.

It looks like the whole Awards of Excellence is only a way for the magazine to make some serious money. In 2008, about 4,500 restaurants have entered the competition, each of them paying the $250 fee. This translated in a $1 million revenue for the magazine, which then awarded about two thirds of the contestants.