Just How Helpful is Michelin’s New Wine Guide?

The Michelin Guide is one of the most famous and renowned resources when it comes to rating restaurants. First established in 1926, its restaurant star rating system and Bib Gourmand designations help people around the world decide where to eat. Over time, the ratings have expanded to highlight great restaurant wine lists and sommeliers. 

So it was no surprise when the company announced in December 2025 that it would be moving further into the world of wine by evaluating wineries, beginning with the French wine regions of Burgundy and Bordeaux. Touted as a “New Way to Showcase Winemaking Talent,” Michelin’s Wine “Grape Selections” will, similar to its restaurant star ratings, reward lucky wine producers with either one, two, or three grapes. There will also be some producers who don’t earn a grape but are still “selected.”

Michelin is using five criteria to assess vineyards and those who run them: farming quality; technical mastery of the winemaking process; identity, such as sense of place and culture; balance of the wine itself; and consistency of quality.

Michelin has just announced its first set of rankings, for Burgundy, awarding nine estates three Michelin grapes, 20 estates two grapes, and 33 estates one grape. Another 32 estates received "selected" status.

According to Michelin, the winning wineries are a diverse group, some generations old, others relatively new, and some quite small.   

We have a new trusted resource for wine. Pretty cool!

But just how helpful is Michelin’s new wine guide? What can we regular folks get from it? Let’s take a look.

1.      It’s Not That Consumer-Friendly  

At the heart of Michelin’s wine guide is the quality and consistency of the wines produced. That’s very helpful when determining what wines to buy.

However, the wine guide is considerably less consumer-oriented than Michelin’s restaurant and hotel guides. For instance, with Michelin’s food and hotel guides, one can view the ratings and go book a reservation. It’s just two steps.

But Michelin’s wine guides focus on wine production. It’s great to have Michelin’s curated list of the best wine producers in a region, but it doesn’t say where or how we can buy the wine. For that kind of information, one has to dig further, which is cumbersome.

There are other gaps, as well. For example, Michelin’s food guides spur our interest in going to the restaurants listed, which creates a big boost in visitors to the restaurants and the surrounding area.  

Michelin’s wine guides aren’t judging the wineries based on whether they’re open to the public or what, if any, wine experiences they offer. Michelin doesn’t even require the wineries in its wine guides to be open to the public. Indeed, I did a quick search of five random wine producers in the new Burgundy guide, and none of them appeared to welcome visitors.

So while the wineries may be exceptional, we consumers won’t have the same opportunities as the Michelin inspectors to see the vineyards and taste the wine there. The Michelin wine guides can help us generally determine whether we want to travel to that wine region, but they won’t help much with logistics. We’ll have to do our own footwork there.

2.      We Don’t Know How a Wine Region Makes the Cut

While many people rely on the Michelin food guides to decide where to eat, they may not realize that Michelin’s business model has evolved into more of a “pay to play” system.

Yes, the inspectors are still anonymous and pay their own way at restaurants.

But for its newer guides, Michelin often chooses a region to assess based on whether the local tourism board has agreed to pay Michelin “partnership money.” Tourism bureaus are willing to pay because it brings attention to the area and increases tourism. In some cases, they’ve paid millions of dollars. And that’s just to bring Michelin in; it doesn’t guarantee that restaurants will earn Michelin recognition. Note that this is taxpayer dollars we’re talking about.

So while the individual restaurant evaluations themselves maintain their integrity, this business model has created disparities and unintended consequences.

For example, not all of the tourism bureaus in Colorado and Florida were willing to pay Michelin, so while Michelin issued “state” guides, the only restaurants included are those located in the areas where the tourism board paid up. A restaurant just outside the boundary won’t even get considered. There are no Virginia restaurants in Michelin’s new Southern restaurant guide because the state wouldn’t use taxpayer money to pay Michelin for the privilege. So the guides may be incomplete and exclude some of the best restaurants through no fault of their own.

Is the same “partnership money” business model being used for the wine guides? We don’t know. These are clearly in-depth assessments. How are the wineries being chosen for the assessment? And who is paying for the work? Yes, the guides are meant to be curated, not exhaustive, but how wide is the pool?

As of press time, Michelin had not returned Wine With Our Family’s request for comment and clarification.

3.      Personal Preference is Not Taken into Account

Michelin clearly puts a lot of work into its evaluations and ratings, so you know you can rely on the results.

But while a wine may be exceptional in its view, that doesn’t mean that you’ll be familiar with the varietals it assessed or the wine’s production style. As a result, it’s harder to predict whether you’ll like the wine, and there's a higher risk that you’ll be disappointed. At least with the restaurant guides, if Michelin awards three stars to an establishment but you’re not fond of that kind of cuisine, you know that in advance.

The bottom line? It’s always great to have additional resources when deciding what wine to drink or where to visit, but the Michelin guides won’t replace your existing resources. They will simply augment and/or confirm.

We hope this information about just how helpful Michelin’s new wine guide is helps you determine when and how to use it.  

What do you think of Michelin’s foray into wine ratings? How do you decide what wine to buy or which wineries to visit?  Please let us know! We’re at info@winewithourfamily.com.

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Michelin Man photo courtesy of Michelin