Wine Blogs - Part Two (8 Aug)

Part One of “Wine Blogs” examined wine blogs in general. In this section the blogs that are relevant to lovers of Australian wine, and wine blogs that are run by Australian’s interested in all aspects of wine are examined. The sites are listed in no particular order.

Winorama concentrates on tasting notes. News, debate on industry matter and other associated topics are virtually non existent. The site is updated very frequently and covers a broad range of wine styles. At the time of writing this, there were almost 2,000 tasting notes, not a bad feat for a site that has only been going for a few years.

The main bloke behind the site is confessed Hunter Valley wine lover, Gary Walsh. (I guess there has to be one Hunter wine lover.)  Gary is a transplanted Pom in his mid thirties, who has been drinking plonk since he was legally allowed to, and possibly before. When he was in his mid twenties, he did a four year stint in “the old country” and found that he like Bordeaux (who doesn’t.) Gary is also keen on Margaret River Cabernet and c-throughs, so he provides a broad range of tasting notes.

Also contributing to the site is banana bender, Lincoln Scott who seriously got into wine about a decade ago. When I first started seeing Lincoln post on the Auswine Forum, like most of us he was into big Aussie reds. Over the years his tastes have changed and now he is into Southern Rhone blends and Burgundy. According to his bio, “I don’t believe in pandering to the local wines, and I live for the day that we can make an excellent Grenache based wine” and that provides a snapshot of his attitude, likes and dislikes.

The third member of the team is David Lloyd who is, perish the thought, almost as old as I am. He was fortunate enough to have been born in South Australia, and in the 70’s cut his wine making fangs on Coonawarra cabernet. By the 1980’s disaster had struck and he fell in love with Beaujolais and Pinot! To make matters worse, he moved to the Mornington Peninsula and made wine at Eldridge Estate.

Three contributors, each with their own wine loves, and each of them different; the result is a real diversity of wine reviews. Each review has the reviewers name next to it, so palate calibration with the originator is possible. The wine reviews are thorough and contain all the necessary information. Searching is easy. The readers’ comment facility is used effectively with loads of responses, especially considering the content is mainly tasting notes. There appears to be a “hard core” group of people responding, but that’s pretty normal.

It’s a professionally presented site that doesn’t pretend to be all things to all people and provided your palate is aligned to one of the reviewers, it could be very useful. It would also be a good site to visit if you are looking to experiment and try new and diverse vinous drops.

The Winingpro is run by another BHB (bald headed bastard) who is probably best know for the way the author, Grant Dodd hits his balls. By profession, Grant is a Touring Golf Professional and in 1995, in a Pro-am, he found himself partnered with none other than the Granddaddy of the modern Australian wine industry, Len Evans. That chance encounter ignited his wine passion, which was further fuelled by liver destroying visits to Len’s cellar.

Sport, like exercise, is dangerous and best avoided by sensible people, but Grant is not sensible (that’s tautology, he plays golf.) After injuries curtailed his Tour program, Grant took to writing about his two loves, chasing white balls for miles, and drinking plonk. He is now the wine writer for Australian Golf Digest, as well as contributing other stories about life on the golf road.

The wine component of his site concentrates on tasting notes. The range of notes is broad; from $8 Sauvignon Blanc right on up the top of the pricing tree. Most notes are on Australian wines, but there is a fair smattering of imports too. The notes are succinct and to the point. The highlights of each wine are covered, and like most wine blogs, it uses the 100 point system. The wine component is “no frills” but it does the job. You need to be registered to see or post comments, and whilst that stops spammers, it discourages readers comments.

Wino Sapien is listed here because one of the first things I saw when browsing the site was a write up on “Toe nails and wine.” Edward (it doesn’t say Edward who) is a 30 something year old quack (doctor) who is also into photography. The site, besides containing about 300 tasting notes which can be viewed alphabetically, has write ups on cauliflower (yuck) Chanel Number 5, and the authors addiction to sniffing fruit! Esoteric – absolutely!

Appellation Australia is run by an enthusiastic, self-confessed, relative newbie to the world of wine. Cam Wheeler makes no grand promises and the site has been put together as a personal journal, in the hope that by making it simple and fun, readers will enjoy visiting the site.

There is one thing I will say about Cam, he eats at the top spots and drinks buckets of top-shelf Frog bubbles, as well as bath tubs full of other bloody expensive wine, both imported and local. That alone makes the site worth a visiting. If the only thing vinous you are interested in is big Barossa Shiraz, give this site a miss, but if you want to drool, it’s worth spending time here. The comments here are extremely limited, which is a shame as the site looks like it deserves more.

Vinosense is run by a trio. David Brookes has worked in the business for 15 years; he’s done just about everything vinously possible to expand his wine knowledge. The word “obsessed” doesn’t do justice to his wine interest. Murray Almond is a self confessed wine geek (and computer geek) who has been floating around the fringes of wine journalism for yonks, and the third member of the crew is Mike Bennie who is almost as obsessive about wine as Dave.

The site has a couple of hundred tasting notes, but the wine news section is active with well over 200 items listed. There is also a catch all, esoteric section called “Vinous Ephemera”, and this is typical of the site. It’s not exactly main stream, and there in lies it interest. Quirky can be good and entertaining to boot. It’s a small site and not updated all that frequently, but there is some interesting stuff there.

Wineoftheweekblog is also known as Sue Courtney’s blog of Vinous Ramblings. Sue has had her own wine website, Wine of the Week for relatively ages. It was around well before I started TORBWine. Unlike most people with a wine passion, Sue has actually completed a course in journalism and regularly contributes to real newspapers and magazines. Sue is also a wine educator, so other than the fact she is a Kiwi, she is a well rounded wine person. As well as maintaining her website, Sue has branched out and appended a blog to it. So there is place for the formal stories/articles as well as the informal shorter stories and tasting notes.

There are loads of tasting notes, commentary, recipes etc. It’s even varietal in the choice of wines, with everything from “American Wine Drinking Day”, through Sparkling Shiraz, to Zealand Cats Pee. It’s a content rich site.

I like the layout of her blog, but it possibly does not use conventional blog software. There is a fair smattering of pictures which helps break the monotonous look (that many blogs have) and lifts the aesthetics of the site. Unlike most other blogs, there is no facility for readers’ feedback, but with a site of this standard and quality, it’s not missed.

DAVIDLOLE.COM needless to say is not run by Fred Nurks! David has been into wine for a couple of decades and even did a stint writing for the Canberra Times, but we won’t hold that against him. I have broken bread with David on a number of occasions and he has a fine palate, and expensive tastes. Luckily he is a very canny auction buyer and has procured some amazing bargains over the years.

Like the man himself, the site has no frills, pretensions and doesn’t reek of bovine manure. The site was set up in June 2006 to mainly record David’s tasting notes. David is known for his vinous generosity and always brings far more than his fair share to wine dinners, which he goes out of his way to attend, so it’s no surprise that many of his wine reviews are from offline dinners. The tasting notes are diverse, loads of Frog bubbles, c-through and imported European stuff. For a site that has only been going for just over a year, there is a good level of content, but that’s not surprising given David’s ability to “taste” wines over the course of an evening.

Vinodiversity is run by the most eccentric wine character I have ever met, Darby Higgins so it’s no surprise that his interests in wine are esoteric, which is reflected in many aspects of his blog. As the name implies, it’s all about diversity, in this case grape varieties. Forget about Shiraz and Cabernet, but this site covers everything from Aglianico to Zibibbo, and if you have the latter, I understand that if you see a doctor, there may be a cure!

The advertising on the site sticks out, rather than blending into the background, as it does on most wine blogs. There is also a “wine club” coming soon and Darby is also selling his own book on this site, so it is looking a bit “commercial”, rather than a labour of love.

Shiraz – what a great name for a blog! It’s run by Mike Pollard, and expat Aussie, who has been living in San Diego for the past 17 years. Mike has been blogging for four years, which makes him an old timer! I really like his site. Firstly, it’s clean, uncluttered, easy to read, but above all, incredibly well researched, well written and balanced. Mike must spend a huge amount of time reading and researching the latest wine info all across the web. He actually used to run two blogs! The first is all the commentary, and there is a copious quantity of it, and the second is devoted to tasting notes. Unfortunately the tasting note blog died a natural death after two years and has not been resurrected in the last year. There are not many readers comments posted on Mikes site, which is a pity.

The detail and level of knowledge is excellent and whilst that may be the sites biggest strength, it also may be its greatest drawback in attracting readers. Intentionally or unintentionally, it aims at those who really want a high level of detail and knowledge about the industry and about wine tasting. People can learn a lot here, but how many of them want that level of wine knowledge?

Yum.org was started by Max Veenhuyzen, a West Australian twenty something year old who actually has a uni degree in creative writing and journalism. He was employed as a journalist by the Community Newspaper group and he became their de facto “resident expert” on plonk and good grub. He now writes for a couple of local lifestyle magazines and is on the panel of Quaff, so he is doing some “real” wine journalism stuff as well as his blog. When I clicked on the link, I fully expected to be taken to yum.org, but instead up popped ACEHIGHWINE.

When I first saw the site, I thought that his advertising company must have slipped a cog with all those poker links intertwined between the wine links. When I digged into the bottom of the deck, it turns out that “No paid advertising is accepted on AceHighWine. At all. Whatsoever” so it turns out Mad Max is a poker nut as well as being a professional journalist and piss pot. (I hope he doesn’t try and combine wine and poker.) Good on Max for refusing paid adverts and only putting up links to sites he thinks are worth the free plug. (Just as well TORBWine is there!)

Like a couple of other wine blogs, Max got sufficiently frustrated with the avalanche of bot generated spam to the readers comments facility, and in frustration has removed the feature, but for some reason, I don’t miss it here. The site is well laid out and as expected, well written. The site is a train smash between wine tasting notes and news, and poker “stuff”.  The photography is absolutely first class and Max has a good eye for his subject.

Possibly Max lost his computer in a poker game, or possibly there was another reason, but his site had no updates for six months, however it looks like he is back in business as there is a very recent post. It so different, it’s worth a visit.

Since completing this story, and the day before posting it, I found another site that is worth a mention. www.terencepang.com  has the heading "Simple palates, Seriously." Its run by Terrance Pang, a Melbourne PhD student who is trying to look busy at work.  Terrance says, "It's incredible how cuttings and clones of different vines (notable ones being pinot noir and shiraz) from single regions in France have since sunk their roots across the globe, into American and Australian soil, and yet despite common geographical and evolutionary origins yield amazingly different wines embodying the characteristics of locality and climate of the vineyard. That in my mind, is a perfect analogy of gene-environment interactions which is the backbone of my PhD. Well, that's my well-thought out scientific sounding excuse for verticals and horizontals!"

The guy has a dry sense of humour and the site has potential but, the layout is lousy and needs improvement. Its ugly, inconsistent and difficult to read, but those cosmetics can be fixed. It contains loads of interesting pictures, and an abundance of wine label shots; possibly to many. Terrance uses his own version of the 100 point system which is consistent with the quirkiness of the site, and the need to please no one except himself.  Interestingly enough, there are no links to other sites and the feedback section looks limited and very restrictive. Its a real, personal blog, that has been written for his own satisfaction and it does not look like he is pandering to any potential readers, or indeed trying to attract them. Full marks to Terrance for "doing his own thing" but in its current format it will not attract many return visitors.  With some minor changes, that could change..... assuming Terrance gives a damn about that objective.

Some international wine blogs like this one, have an Australian Section.  Researching a number of these sites shows that the Australian content, at best, is spasmodic, so if you want serious Australian wine content, there are other specialist sites that offer better information.

Some Blogs are integrated into professional sites. The best Australian example is Campbell Mattinson’s The Wine Front site. Campbell started off with a hardcopy, monthly subscription publication which quickly became a hardcopy or email version. It wasn’t long before it became an email only publication with all the information also stored online. Subscribers have access to all the online articles and can leave comments, but visitors can see a synopsis of the articles and also leave comments. This site is a classic case of migration from hardcopy, one way communication to the latest in communication technology.

Some wine professionals like Jeremy Oliver, still have a foot in both camps. He still produces an annual edition of his book, but also has a complete online database available with the latest information to subscribers. There is also a limited facility to ask questions, but in no way could it be considered a blog site.

Some have a more even footing in both camps. For example some of the Wine Spectator team have their own blogs that are only available to electronic subscribers. This is in addition to, and not intended to compete with their glossy magazine.

One of the negatives I find with some blogs is the level of advertising clutter. I came across this one which is almost saturated. Whilst I know most blogs are free, when there is an abundance of clutter caused by advertising, I question the motive behind the site.

The lifespan of blogs is important and an issue that can affect their credibility in general. Some blogs go for a year, look good and stop, like this Old Bastards. Or this one from a self confessed Wine Amateur, that looked promising for six months and stopped three months ago. Pinot Island is another site that was looking good, but it stopped on 1 January 2007. It is interesting to note that the second last post is headed, “Fun with comment spam” and goes onto state….

“I’ve removed the facility to post or view comments on Pinot Island posts for now. There has been too much comment spam for me to keep up with lately. In truth, comments have never added that much value to the site. There has been some good feedback but on balance I think it is better to leave them out.”

One more post after that and it was all over. Putting aside the author’s feelings about readers’ comments not adding much value, if a blog site is to be successful, it requires an enormous amount of work, for little or no financial return. Many bloggers start with good intentions, design an attractive layout and then launch it on the www. Reality soon hits home and they quickly discover how difficult and time consuming it is to maintain a site, and continually update it with new information. This is why so many enthusiastic bloggers start off with good intentions but give up after a short period.

When I started the research for this story, I had a completely open mind about blogs, but in the back of my mind, my attitude was they were basically a good thing. The more research I did, and the more Australian relevant wine blogs I looked at, the more Daniel Rogov’s thoughts on this subject came to mind. In part one of this story I quoted him saying, “As there were great diarists, great letter-writers and authors of autobiographies, so one day there may prove to be great bloggers. The problem is that for every great diarist and letter-writer there were thousands who wrote badly and whose writing was of no interest to anyone but themselves. Those people's dairies, letters and biographies never made it to print so we were not subjected to them. True, some great writers were missed along the way, but the weeding-out process was an important and valuable one. With blogs there is simply no weeding out process and quite often until we find those who may be worth reading we have become quite justifiably weary.”

I must admit that after following numerous links to wine blogs, I asked myself is it possible to have too much information? The answer is yes. The more I researched wine blogs, the more I saw that had either died, or were slowly becoming comatose, some with only a few pages of content. Whilst it’s easy to understand why people stop their blog activities, it would be better if the owners removed them, or buried the remains as dead stuff winds up stinking. These out of date blogs jut wind up being clutter.

A major method of driving readers to blogs is by link exchange. By the time I had finished my research, I was well and truly fed up. Australianwinespot which looked promising when I first arrived is unfortunately about two years out of date. The site contained information that would have been good when it was current, and a multitude of links that could have be helpful. The Wine Blog Link Page was impressive because unlike most others, it had a bit of detail about each site listed. Great stuff! That was until I clicked on the links. Of the nine blog links detailed, four of them are “out of business” and a fifth has had no new information posted for over three months.

I now agree with Rogov’s comments, and whilst many blogs may not be professionally written, there is a small percentage that contains valuable information, and are truly worthwhile. The problem is finding the “flowers amongst the weeds.”

Who knows what the future will hold. Advancements in technology are exponential; podcasts are already a reality, and as the abilities of broadband expand, so do the interactive possibilities. One thing is for certain, the effect of this technology will impact on the tradition publications; they will have to change and evolve, or eventually go the way of the horse and buggy. Hardy copy magazines and newspapers will not die anytime soon, but competition will increase and make long term survival in their current form more difficult.

In the first paragraph of this story I asked “is the free (blog) information worth what you pay for it?” The answer depends on how you value your time, and how much time you have to spend searching for the flowers amongst the weeds.

Feel free to submit your comments!

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2007