On Wine Websites

My favorite online site is Robin Garr’s Wine Lover’s Page, where you’ll find pertinent articles and reviews, heavily slanted toward real-world wines and wine-food pairing. There’s also a lively and diverse forum and discussion group. Robin grinds fewer axes than any other writer I know of.

MarkSquires.Com is a site that is part of the Robert Parker empire. If you want the very latest on what Robert Parker thinks and want to be surrounded by other people who want the very latest on what Robert Parker thinks, you have found your place. And if you pony up $100, Robert Parker will tell you the latest on what he thinks so that you can tell everyone else who wants the latest on what Robert Parker thinks what’s the latest on what Robert Parker thinks.

Another entry is Arthur Johnson’s Wine-People. Arthur is another drinking buddy and one hell of a writer. His views on wine make a fine counterbalance to ours (i.e., we disagree a lot!).

Ah, importer sites. Most importers have ’em. Joe Dressner, the son of famed importer Louis Dressner, has a satellite site. You should read it before taking your meds, when it will make the most sense. And drink Louis’s wines- we haven’t liked all of them, but we’ve liked most of them, and none of the wines with Lou’s name on the back have ever been boring.

A nice hobby site is The Gang of Pour. They’re also good friends of The Stupids- our esthetic in wine is pretty different, but they know how to throw a party!

In my top echelon of Fun’n’Witty is Chris Coad and Lisa Allen’s The Compleat Wine Geek. “Waiting for Callahan” is the funniest piece of in-group writing I’ve ever seen.

The Brits have some serious sites of their own. We really like Jamie Goode, and we really like his site The Wine Anorak. We have some fundamental disagreements (and many more agreements), but his presentation is always intelligent, clear, and devoid of cheap debating tricks. Right there, that puts him ahead of most wine writers.