Michelin's Reach for the Wine List Gets a Cool Reception Down Here Too

The same French tire company that decides which Palm Beach dining rooms get a star is now setting its sights on wineries, expanding the guide's ambitions well past the restaurant table. It is a logical next chapter for an outfit that built its name rating tread and pavement before it ever rated a tasting menu. But the reaction from vintners has been notably less warm than the reaction Florida diners gave the guide's arrival in Miami and Palm Beach, with plenty in the wine world questioning whether a restaurant rubric translates to a vineyard. Around here, where an argument about a wine list can outlast the entrée at a Naples supper club, that skepticism will sound familiar. Whether Michelin wins the wine world over the way it won over local dining rooms remains to be seen.

With reporting from Robb Report.