Information
Links
General &
Personal Wine Sites
This category is particularly dear,
since it would also encompass PfW. We encourage readers to browse
other wine sites and not rely entirely on a single point of view.
Although content may sometimes overlap, style, depth, perspective,
and areas of specialty are usually unique. We only care that readers'
curiosity and interest in wine are stimulated, regardless of who does
the stimulating.
Clear, concise, organized, and well-formatted
content wins our endorsements; pleasing design and navigation are
bonuses. Simplistic answers, mindless dogma, wine rankings without
descriptions, and sites heavy with advertising raise our blood pressure.
As we have a chance to visit and spend time at various sites, we'll
attempt to steer you by annotating the good ones and try to discipline
ourselves into following the Thumper
Rule for the rest.
indicates entry newly
added or revised on
August 11, 2008
| HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED Original
Content Sites |
Connoisseurs’
Guide to California Wines
publishes a newsletter and operates this site that includes
many consumer-oriented, well-written articles discussing wine
types, as well as basic information. The Geography,
Grape & Wine Types and Language sections
are particularly good.
Eric
Anderson's Grape-Nutz is
well-organized and arranged in an attractive design; many
interesting or unique features include: personal tasting notes,
Eric's travelog of visits to California wineries, history
and tribulations of his growing cellar, and detailed instructions
for removing and saving labels.
Cork
Jester Jennifer Rosen writes about
wine in a very clever, funny, and entertaining way that makes
the reader very comfortable and completely at ease. She makes
you want to share a bottle with her, even if the wine isn't
very good. Besides a free weekly wine e-letter, a regular
column in Denver's Rocky Mountain News, occasionally contributions
to the Wine Enthusiast and other print publications, and a couple of entertaining and informative books about wine.
Sample "To Have and to Hoard"
in our Wrath section.
Nat
Decants FREE Wine Newsletter brings
the prolific and award-winning writings of Natalie MacLean.
Each of her more than 75 articles here has complete information
on the topic, as well as her well-though-out perceptions and
advice. She also lists monthly wine recommendations and offers
a free e-letter.
Robin
Garr's Wine Lovers' Page
is one of the oldest and most popular wine sites on the Web.
It includes a "Quick Course," FAQs, a Wine Pronouncing Glossary,
Grape Glossary, Tasting Forms, Wine Bookshelf, Discussion
Group, Vintage Charts, links to retailers, etc. Some features
are authored by Garr and some are postings from discussion
groups, other authors, etc. The "30 Second Wine Advisor" is
a daily e-mail subscription service that includes a wine tip
and recommendation.
Rogov's
Rambling's by Daniel
Rogov chronicles his thoroughly enjoyable and down to earth
wine writing around a variety of topics and restaurant reviews
from around Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Sue
Courtney's Wine of the Week
site is loaded with information with a focus on the New Zealand
wine scene; includes many "... of the Week" features, such
as Publication, Personality, Link, etc., as well as regular
columns by Peter May and Rhys Mathias.
Tom
Cannavan's Wine Pages
include tasting notes, a six-lesson wine course with several
quizzes (challenging & way fun!), travel tips on various
wine destinations, restaurant reviews for England and Scotland,
food & wine matching tips, site visitors' personal wine
recommendations, etc. The author is a wine columnist who also
teaches wine appreciation courses at the University of Glasgow.
Well-organized, feature-packed, browser-friendly site.
Wine
Events Calendar
- (not really "new". but newly added to this category) the
site has expanded to include wine-related news and features
articles in many categories. This particularly attractive,
well-organized and easily-navigated site is the project of
Earl Singer, a founding partner of the Connoisseurs' Guide
to California Wine newsletter and handbooks.
|
| RECOMMENDED
Original Content Sites |
atime4wine.com Winelovers
Nan and Michael Yielding share their tasting notes from
their visits to various West Coast wineries with tips,
links, etc.
Billy's
Best Bottles Canadian
Billy Munnelly's wine information, education and recommendation site.
BK
Wine - Britt Karlsson conducts
wine classes and tastings and offers tours of France in Danish,
Swedish and English; her site offers hundreds of photos of
wineries and wine people, primarily in Europe, along with
a Glossary of Gastronomy and a monthly newsletter by FREE
e-mail subscription.
Brad's
Wine FAQs Once
you click past his plonk-ugly home page, Bradford Brown offers
much well-organized (although sometimes incomplete and increasingly out-dated) wine information and many thoughful observations.
Burghound.com
Allen Meadows, a Burgundy fanatic, shares his obsession.
Cellar
Notes Dan
Miller's site leans toward Bordeaux.
Gang
of Pour Entertaining
travelog of California winery visits by a group of enthusiastic
friends.
In
Vino Veritas Jonathon
Alsop's syndicated column
Into
Wine Visually appealing, book-like
layout of brief articles with many accompanying images, charts
Kosher
Wine Guy is Tom Kirwan's
great little idea for a specialty wine site.
Les
Kincaid Lifestyles,
an "insider journey through the worlds of food, wine, and
golf," from this Las Vegas chef, educator, columnist, critic
and syndicated radio personality. The editing, design and
feel of the site darts around a bit, but don't let this throw
you: the articles and advice are generally user-friendly.
Leslie
Sbrocco, former
New York Times columnist, now wine personality...
Mark
Squires' E-zine on Wine has
original articles and tasting
notes, generally from a good perspective and offering sound
advice, by a wine-impassioned Philadelphia attorney.
Patty's
Pinot Closet Dedicated
to appreciation of Pinot Noir
Port
Wine Appreciation Pages
Oenologic Thor
Iverson's wine articles
Suite
101: California Wine Editor
Alan Boehmer offers tasting notes, articles, and
links of wine interest.
VineSugar
Ryan O'Donnell has a good design, navigation, and his well-organized
content is very straightforward.
Wine
Anorak Jaime Goode's site
has many excellent articles and photos; although the site's design has become very cluttered.
Wine
Information Site
- Originating from the Netherlands, this site contains much
information about European wines, offered in Dutch, English,
French or German language versions.
Wine
People -
winelover Arthur P. Johnson's site features many interviews
with California winemakers and owners, general articles and
tasting notes (although no apparent updates since June, 2006).
Wine
Reader contains many articles,
a directory of books and links, a forum, tasting notes, etc.
Wine
Squire provides a myriad of
articles, guides and links for consumers and industry in general
and also specific to the Seattle area with brand, store, employment
and distributor directories (although this is one of the most cluttered and disorganized sites anywhere)
WineSurf offers
Italian viewpoints on all things related to wine and food
Yak
Shaya's Wine Pages
- very thorough tasting notes and travel journal of a devoted
Burgundy enthusiast from Israel
|
| JUDGE FOR YOURSELF
Original Content Sites |
The
Compleat Winegeek
Vines.Org
Database-driven site
features 8,000 different producer links, results from thousands
of wine auctions (since 1999), world vintage charts, a "tree
of appellations" and 4,000 wine book links. Although a good idea with clearly a lot of hours invested, the design is clunky and outdated; dBase is sometimes balky.
VinoVixenz - compendium of wine info, shopping cart, links, etc.
Wine
Answers - is rather like the
"Cliff Notes" of wine sites; great if you seek short answers
without much explanation (Produced by the Wine Market Council, the site interface is attractive and slick, but much of the info is noncommittal and seems defensive, as if they don't want to reveal the complete story).
Wine
Country Divas are
a couple of wined-up wild women who share their methods and
venues for enjoying wine, food, lodging and entertainment.
Writing, design, and navigation are above average; content
is 90% party, 10% wine, but potential is promising.
Wine
Education Site -
one of the oldest wine sites on the web (although much content remains outdated and the improved look is still Amish-plain).
wineguy.org
- "specializing in wine
education and promotion" (has gone mobile and no doubt now looks better on the tiny screen)
Winostuff
- enthusiastic but, as the title suggests, not too serious
(and not too respectful of copyrighted material, either)
|
NOTES
THE THUMPER RULE - In Walt Disney's classic 1942 animated
movie "Bambi," there's a scene where the little deer
first meets his rabbit friend, Thumper. As Bambi takes
his first steps, he trips and falls in front of Thumper
and his rabbit family.
Thumper asks, "What's the matter?
Did the young prince fall down? Is he hurt?"
As Bambi rises, wobbling, his mother
answers, "No, he's all right."
Thumper continues, "He
doesn't walk very good, does he?"
"Thumper!," mother
rabbit reprimands.
"Yes, Mama?," says
Thumper.
"What did your father
tell you this morning?," asks his mother.
Thumper sheepishly repeats, "If you
can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all." BACK
ON THE OTHER
HAND
(In searching out the
dialogue above, I found a mind-boggling volume of
psychoanalysis generated by this film; the social
significance of Bambi is apparently on a plane with
Shakespeare and Machiavelli ... Silly me, I thought it
was just a little warm and fuzzy animated encapsulation
of "childhood's too short; life's hard and then you die."
- JL)
|
