Embracing Your Inner Wine Geek

So you’ve been bitten by the wine bug. You’ve started reading Wine Spectator, gone to some tastings and begun to learn what appeals to you and what doesn’t.

Be warned. You are treading on dangerous ground. If you are not careful you can go down the rabbit hole. And if Alice thought her world was strange, well…the world of wine is truly its own Wonderland, too.

Don’t get me wrong. It is a wonderful world to which you could devote an entire lifetime and not plumb all of its mysteries. For a Johnny Come Lately such as myself, I will be barely able to scratch the surface.

So here are a few suggestions in case you do want to go down that rabbit hole.

The Windows on the World Wine Course, Great Wine Made Simple and The Wine Bible are great starting places to get the big picture. The Wine Spectator is very informative and beautifully produced but recognize that market place economics require chasing the newest and the hottest to keep selling magazines. And their Top 100 Lists? Clearly, there are a diversity of other opinions about the top wines each year.

The Wine Advocate is the second major publication, at least in terms of influence. Robert Parker has been the most influential wine writer for the last twenty years. He has provided a remarkable service to wine consumers but recognize that his palate preference is the really big, bold, rich, dense, unctuous, style of wine. So, if that is your preference, Parker will be a great guide. If you prefer a more reserved and balanced style of wine, look for other guidance. For such Pinot fans, you may want to look to the Burghound, who clearly favors the more reserved Burgundian style over Parker’s bigger more extracted wine preference.

A few website resources: The Prince of Pinot, The Pinot Report, Burghound, erobertparker.

There are now over 800 wine blogs (this being one of those blogs). You may want to look at Dr Vino, Fermentation and Vinography. AficioNada has an interesting Southern perspective although the writer is now based in Napa. Many of the blogs have listings for other wine blogs.

Erobertparker has a free bulletin board maintained by Mark Squires called Wine Talk. It is an incredible market place of ideas and opinions about all things wine. Many of the participants have deep knowledge and passion for wine, including heavy hitter growers, winemakers and retailers. Do your homework well and become knowledgeable before becoming active on this board. I also suggest reading a lot of the posts for awhile before jumping in, as the board is really not oriented towards beginning or intermediate wine fans.

An interesting approach is to learn about history, geography, chemistry, genetics, or other avenues of inquiry through the vehicle of wine. Have fun digging deeper into wine and don’t be afraid to embrace your inner wine geek!

Cheers,

Dave