The nights are drawing in & I cant be bothered with telly. Can anyone recommend some interesting wine related blogs / websites ?
MUST be 100% free, nothing that’s half-behind-a-paywall. So that rules out ‘Decanter’ and many others. I haven’t a problem if the site gets it’s revenue from advertising, providing any wine reviews are totally independent, not sponsored or paid for.
eg: whiskyfun.com or andrewjefford.com
I receive blogs/email updates from David Crossley, he focuses on low intervention wines from all over the world. Writes very well and the emails arrive with excellent illustrations. Knows his stuff.
I like Tom Cannavan’s Wine Pages at wine-pages.com
There’s a forum on there which a few of our members (me included) contribute to.
Be warned, it’s another world over there. They do a midweek/weekend drinking thread like we do. One midweek this guy just deadpans it:
2003 Rousseau Clos de la Roche for me
£760 a bottle currently. 
Another time a, member drank 1979 Forts de Latour, 2nd wine of Latour. Being my birth year I had to ask how it was. I have seen it up on auction sites a few times. The 1979 vintage is not considered all that good so many of the wines seem a right punt. His reply was:
The Les Forts had medium intensity of pure garnet colour and a signature Latour nose to die for, with gravel, soil and walnuts. At the beginning it was all about the frontal attack, while the medium bodied elegant but austere palate had at best medium length. It began to fill out and become more expressive after a while and the last glass had a Gironde estuary seaweedy nose, and was fuller on the back end. An enthralling and memorable wine.
However, the discussion is good and the site content is also decent. Reg required for the forum (in your real name) but not for the website.
I quite like John Fodera’s Tuscan Vines site, if you’re interested in Italian wines.
How about Wine Pages?
Lots of features, articles, contributors, even a few quizzes. Think the main draw is a pretty solid forum (obviously nowhere near as nice as this one 
)
I personally like to bathe in Gironde estuary seaweed 
Not bad going! 6 posts and we have drifted to the subject of bathing in Gironde estuary seaweed! Although, when I was last in Pauillac the Gironde looked particularly muddy and unhealthy.
Wine pages looks good - didn’t know that existed. Many thanks!
I’m still doubled over laughing at the Gironde seaweed estuary and the “signature” latour nose 
, because we all know what that smells like 
!
I like Jamie Goode especially and also Tim Atkin. They are both quite savvy with different content for different channels so you need to get them on Instagram, Twitter, blog or subscribe to newsletter, depending what content you like most — tastings, reviews, interviews, photos, short form exchanges, articles etc. I bore my partner endlessly, watching Jamie Goode Instagram mini-tastings in bed on Sunday mornings
This is an awesome tasting note. I will be tasting my next glass of Essex bacchus on high alert for notes of Thames estuary.
Yes, my wife is very familiar with Jamie on Instagram TV by now. She normally grunts and mutters something under her breath when he starts talking.
I particularly enjoyed him and Greg Sherwood reviewing a Spatlese by Donnhoff last weekend.
Wine anorak is a good website - loads of articles and reviews
That was really good, wish I had a bottle with that age.
Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to save my JJ Prum 2012 Spatlese for. Also it appeared to me that it might not have been the first bottle they’d opened that afternoon, but maybe they were just having a lot of fun. 
What was ‘that age’?
14 years I think
The Sampler often has Rieslings with that kind of age, they don’t have to break the bank either.
Spanish Wine Lovers is a very good resource, if a domain name which could be misconstrued
The Winery in my half of London has a decent range of mature Riesling too. Sometimes remarkable value.
yeah…
Go on then… what does it smell like? (except Gironde etc) - I seem to have forgotten to cellar a few cases at chateau Lapin…
01438 741177
