Editorial policy
What we stand behind.
This page sets out what Feeling Vine promises readers: how editorial judgement is made, what counts as evidence, how mistakes are corrected and how commercial relationships are kept away from recommendations. How Find a Bottle works in practice is set out in the methodology.
Independence
Feeling Vine decides what it publishes and what it declines to publish. Nothing is written, ranked or removed to suit an advertiser, producer, importer or retailer.
No advertiser, producer, importer or retailer has any say over our coverage, our judgements or the order in which anything appears.
Evidence and sources
Writing about grapes, places and styles is grounded in credible published, professional and technical sources, and is presented as research rather than a verdict on a particular bottle.
Research about a grape, region or style is not evidence about every bottle made from it. Claims about a specific wine have to rest on evidence about that release.
Tasting and research
Researching a bottle and tasting it are different things, and we say which one we have done.
A bottle can appear in Find a Bottle without having been tasted by Feeling Vine, and when that is the case the result says so.
When a specific release has been tasted, that is recorded as additional evidence about that release. It does not make it a recommendation.
What we never do
We never describe a tasting that did not happen, invent a tasting note, or attribute words or claims to anyone we did not speak to.
Where a piece rests on first-party reporting, such as an interview or a visit, we say so in the piece.
We do not present a supplier's description, a retailer's copy or another publication's review as our own experience.
Authorship and responsibility
Some pieces carry an individual byline. Others are published under Feeling Vine, where the work belongs to the publication rather than one writer.
Publishing under the publication is a statement of responsibility, not anonymity. Feeling Vine is founder-led, and I am responsible for the editorial standards, the catalogue rules and the recommendation methodology.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, we correct it. Substantive corrections are made in the piece rather than quietly removed.
If you believe something we have published is inaccurate, tell us and we will look at it.
Commercial relationships and disclosure
Nobody can pay Feeling Vine to be recommended or to rank higher. Retailer price, availability and links do not decide which bottles appear or in what order.
Feeling Vine may in future earn money through retailer links, partnerships or clearly labelled sponsored work. Those relationships will be disclosed and kept separate from the recommendation rules and editorial judgement.
Feeling Vine may accept samples or invitations when they are useful for editorial work. They never guarantee coverage or favourable judgement, and any material hospitality or relationship relevant to a piece will be disclosed.
Automation and AI
Feeling Vine uses software, automation and AI-assisted tools where they are useful: gathering and organising research, processing data, checking retailer price and availability, testing systems and applying the recommendation rules consistently.
Retailer price and availability are checked automatically and time-stamped, and their age is disclosed rather than presented as fresh.
These tools cannot create a tasting that did not happen or turn research into personal experience, and they do not set the standards. Human judgement defines what the system is allowed to do.