Sibaritas, the Spanish consumer wine magazine edited by José Peñin, has suspended publication after 18 years.
In its heyday the monthly magazine attracted contributors such as Jancis Robinson, Michel Bettane and Victor de la Serna, and came to be seen as the key authority on Spanish wine.
The recession and the rise of online wine sites meant reader numbers dropped significantly in 2009.
‘To keep Sibaritas alive we didn’t want to cut the number of issues, or the content or contributions from our acclaimed writers, so we decided to make this painful decision’, Peñin said.
‘Although Spain is the third largest producer of wine, we are also the least interested in reading about wine of any European country.
‘New technology, reader trends and ways of communicating about wine have pushed us to explore the Internet as an option,’ Peñin added.
A letter written by Peñin went out to all subscribers informing them of the closure, entitled ‘hasta pronto, Sibaritas’.
It is unknown if the suspension will be permanent.
Sibaritas is published by Grupo Peñín, which was created in 1983 by José Peñin, president of the group.
‘It’s a huge project’, Maite Corsin, who ran Sibaritas with Peñin, told decanter.com.
‘The site will feature thousands of searchable wines from the Guía Peñin annual guides, tasting notes, tasting reports and a blog.’
Peñin is due to launch guiapeninenruta.com next week, a wine travel blog, with sections on Spanish wine regions, producers and individual wines. It won’t however feature any wine scores.
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Written by Lucy Shaw
