Why Is James Suckling Famous?

James Suckling is famous for a fairly straightforward reason: for more than four decades, he has been one of the most visible and influential people assigning numbers to wine.

For collectors, retailers and wineries, the initials “JS” followed by a score out of 100 have become almost universally recognizable. A 95, 97 or 100-point James Suckling score can appear on a shelf talker in New York, a wine list in Hong Kong or one of our many online offers without much explanation. That kind of recognition did not happen overnight.

Suckling entered the wine business in 1981, when he answered an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times for an assistant editor at the then-young Wine Spectator. Four years later, he moved to Europe to establish the magazine’s European bureau. He ultimately spent nearly 30 years at Wine Spectator as a senior editor and European bureau chief, developing particular authority in Bordeaux and Italy.

When he left the publication in 2010, he already had an international reputation and an unusually deep history of tasting some of the world’s most important wines. There were certainly rumors of sour grapes, largely because the July 2010 announcement of James Suckling’s departure from Wine Spectator was unusually terse for someone who had spent 29 years there and had become one of the magazine’s best-known critics.

Marvin Shanken said that Suckling had been “a significant contributor” and would be missed, but then immediately emphasized that moving Suckling’s European tastings back to New York would actually strengthen the magazine’s coverage. That wording struck a number of wine writers at the time as harsh. Decanter described the send-off as extraordinarily ungenerous, while other commentators noted how little ceremony accompanied the exit of such a prominent longtime editor.

Still, there is no solid public evidence that Suckling and Shanken had a major personal falling-out. Suckling himself repeatedly pushed back on that interpretation. Shortly after leaving, he described the split as “totally amicable,” and in a later interview explained that after nearly 30 years he wanted the freedom to become an entrepreneur, make films, spend more time in Asia and pursue projects of his own. He also said he remained friends with many people at the magazine.

The timing of his start and departure mattered. Suckling came of age during the period when the 100-point scale was becoming enormously influential in the American wine market. Robert Parker may be the critic most closely associated with turning numerical wine ratings into a commercial force but Suckling became one of the small group of critics whose scores could also materially affect how a wine was perceived, marketed and sold. His long tenure covering Bordeaux also placed him directly in the middle of the en primeur system, where early judgments about young wines can reverberate through the global market.

In 2010, instead of moving to another traditional publication, Suckling launched JamesSuckling.com. That decision is a major part of why his influence has endured. He transformed himself from a magazine critic into a recognizable media brand, combining scores and tasting notes with videos, interviews, social media and large consumer tasting events. Today, JamesSuckling.com says Suckling has tasted and rated close to 350,000 wines during his career, while his team rated roughly 45,000 wines in 2025 alone. The site currently contains more than 300,000 ratings and reports more than one million unique visitors annually. 

That volume is another reason Suckling is famous. His influence is not confined to a handful of trophy wines. His ratings appear across Bordeaux, Burgundy, Tuscany, Napa Valley, Champagne, South America, Australia, New Zealand and numerous other regions. For consumers shopping online, particularly in the United States and Asia, a Suckling rating has become one of the most frequently encountered shorthand indicators of quality.

He has also understood the internationalization of the wine business unusually well. Suckling relocated much of his operation to Hong Kong as Asia became an increasingly important market for fine wine and subsequently built large-scale Great Wines of the World and Great Wines of Italy tastings in cities including New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul and Bangkok. In other words, his career has evolved well beyond simply sitting at a desk writing tasting notes.

And increasingly, Suckling has crossed the line from judging wine to actually making it.

He and his wife Marie own a small vineyard in Martinborough, New Zealand, and Suckling has documented harvesting his own grapes and making wine there. His first harvest from the property came in 2023, with fruit fermented at neighboring Ata Rangi, one of Martinborough's benchmark estates. 

That distinction aside, the broader point stands. Suckling has gone from journalist, to critic, to publisher, entrepreneur, international event organizer and now vineyard owner and wine producer. Few wine critics have managed to remain commercially and culturally relevant through so many changes in how wine is bought and discussed.