 From 1984 to 1988, Wines was a Washington-based correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times".In 2001, Michael Wines was awarded the Worst Journalist Award by The eXiled, an award based on reader voting of the Russian ex-pat satirical newspaper.For winning this honor, Wines received an eXiled T-shirt--along with having a custard pie thrown at his face made from, among more innocuous ingredients, horse semen.