FAQ
General Information
Is AmericanWineryGuide.com free?
Yes, all of AmericanWineryGuide.com's features are free. AmericanWineryGuide.com pays for the site through advertising and a commission on wine and accessory purchases.
Winery/Event/Business Listings
My winery, or one of my favorite wineries, is not listed on your site. How do I get the winery added to the site?
Please complete our "New Winery Form". We will verify the information and add the winery to AmericanWineryGuide.com as soon as possible.
I've noticed that some of the winery information is incorrect. What should I do to have it corrected?
If you are the winery's owner or employee, please register for a free account that allows you to edit the winery's profile. If you are a winery visitor, please notify us of the inaccurate or incomplete information via e-mail or this form.
AmericanWineryGuide.com spends significant resources trying to maintain the accuracy of its winery profiles and greatly appreciates your efforts to make this site better for all of its users.
How do I add photos to a winery's profile page?
Access the winery's profile page and select "Add Photo", and complete the the associated form. All photos must comply with AmericanWineryGuide.com's photo guidelines. Only registered users can add photos, but photos do not have to associated with a winery review. You will be asked whether you want to make the photo public, private or shared.
Reviews
Can I provide a review of businesses other than wineries?
Yes, absolutely. Because U.S. wineries are at the heart of AmericanWineryGuide.com, we maintain the list of wineries and have created profile pages for each winery. We do not currently maintain profile pages for other wine tourism-related businesses such as wine bars, restaurants, B&Bs, etc. but encourage you to provide reviews of any such businesses that you have visited. To submit a review of a wine tourism-related business, please click here.
How do I submit a review?
From the winery or wine-related business profile page click the review button. If you are not already registered and logged on, you will be prompted to do so. Complete the review form by providing a 1 to 5 star rating for each category and provide a written review if you desire. You can also add photos to your review by clicking the "Add Photos" button. For details on adding photos, please see AmericanWineryGuide.com's photo guidelines. All review must comply with AmericanWineryGuide.com's review guidelines.
Who Can See My Reviews?
All winery reviews are public and associated with your username.
What Happens When I Recommend a Review?
When you click on the "Recommend This Review" link next to a review, you are congratulating the reviewer for writing a great review and recommending the review to other users. The number or recommended reviews is recorded for each review and reviewer making it easier to find high quality reviews. Recommending a review provides no information about you to the reviewer and your recommended reviews are listed on your personal "My AmericanWineryGuide.com" page.
Friends
What are Friends?
When you include someone as a friend, they are listed as a friend on your profile page and their reviews can be displayed prior to other reviews. To invite someone to be a friend, click the "Add as Friend" link from the user's public profile page.
Favorites
What are Friends?
Adding a winery or other business or event to your favorites makes it easy for you to find the winery or business on future site visits and provides you the ability to add that winery, business or event to an itinerary.
Itineraries
What are Itineraries?
Itineraries are used to plan a visit to your favorite wineries, wine-related businesses and events. Itineraries can be private, shared or public and can be printed and e-mailed. Public itineraries can be copied, edited and saved as your own itinerary and are a great way to list and display groups of favorites or related wineries.
Winery & Event Ratings
How are AmericanWineryGuide.com Wine Ratings calculated?
The AmericanWineryGuide.com Wine Rating is calculated using scores from several leading wine reviewers and publications, and gold medals awarded at major international wine competitions. Unlike other sites, the AmericanWineryGuide.com Rating is associated with the winery and each of its varieties, vice individual wines, and includes the five most recent vintages. In addition, a multiplier is applied to account for the differing number of wines reviewed for each winery. Instead of providing an average 100 point rating for each winery, AmericanWineryGuide.com converts the average score (to include the "number of reviews" multiplier) into 5-star rating scale developed by Tim Elliot at Winecast.com and used on popular sites such as snooth. Approximate 100-point to 5-point score mappings used at AmericanWineryGuide.com is provided below.
| AWG Rating | Description | Winery Consistent & Frequent Avg. Score Min | Winery Infrequently Avg. Score Max |
| 5-Stars | Outstanding | 90 | 96+ |
| 4.5-Stars | Delicious to Outstanding | 87 | 94 |
| 4-Stars | Delicious | 86 | 93 |
| 3.5-Stars | Very Good to Delicious | 84 | 91 |
| 3-Stars | Very Good- Recommended | 81 | 87 |
| 2.5-Stars | Average to Very Good | 74 | 81 |
| 5-Stars | Outstanding | 72 | 74 |
| 5-Stars | Outstanding | 68 | 70 |
| 5-Stars | Outstanding | 65 | 67 |
I've noticed that some wineries advertise on your site. Do these wineries get a little boost in their wine or winery scores for their sponsorship?
Absolutely not. AmericanWineryGuide.com was created as a system to objectively find America's best wineries based on user's priorities. Altering the results based on winery sponsorship would completely undermine the site's reason for existence and credibility. Those winery's that place a priority on meeting or exceeding customer expectation and have chosen to sponsor this site receive a number of benefits, but higher wine and winery ratings is not one of them.