The Wine Wide Web (pick’n’mix delights)

In which Old Parn presents a dainty assortment of candied (wine-flavoured) treats, lovingly gathered from the vast sweetshop of the world wide web

Numerous tubes of multicoloured sweets, arranged in a rainbow.

Right. First up, what you should do is get off your swollen arse and enter @wine90’s competition to win some doubtless gobcaressingly good Barolo.

(NB this may in fact prove easier if you stay on your swollen arse.)

You’re back. Good.

So, what’s the deal with this post?

Well, I’m tearing my sorrowful (yet somehow disturbingly lustful) eyes away from my own navel and directing them instead at the assorted goodies scattered elsewhere around this big ol’ internet. Think of it as me presenting you with a dainty assortment of candied (wine-flavoured) treats, lovingly gathered for you by my calloused old hands.

So, grab a hold of one of the aforementioned hands (I promise it’s hardly sweaty at all) and I’ll lead you on a brief tour of some good bits of the world wine web from the past week or so…

Avatar of Cambridge Wine BloggerNow, some of you may have observed that we’ve officially passed into the season of summer (even if, like me, you are permafrosted in a barren winter of the soul). Some reckless and bile-inducingly happy humans seem to like to mark this season with the consumption of outdoor food, which they may extravagantly pair with outdoor wine. For these sickening folk, I recommend the Cambridge Wine Blogger’s selection of Six Summer Picnic Wines from Naked (especially as he shares not only my christian name, but also my affection for Naked Wines’ Picpoul de Pinet).

The Sediment Blog avatarSickening in quite another way, meanwhile, is wine writers’ widespread employment of impoverished, slackjawed synonyms for the simple verb ‘to drink’ — resulting in the kind of overuse of the word ‘quaff’ one would only otherwise encounter in a shit fantasy role-playing game. So say our friends over at the Sediment Blog, in any case, as they energetically skewer this demented quaffing and glugging.

(While you’re there, you should also read their fine review of M&S’s £5 house red.)

Quaffable avatarComing at you from the other side of the great quaff divide, though, is the nicely designed, impeccably tasteful, not remotely RPGish Quaffable — a blog with a focus on wine label and packaging design. Since I’m a designer and a wino, this is a subject close to my heart. Plus, you get to witness a random marsupial being given a deserved kicking.

(FOOKIN’ MARSUPIAL HAD IT COMIN’.)

Grape Escape avatarFinally, with even fewer words to strain your weary mind, there’s @grape_escape’s brilliantly-styled video of Beaujolais hijinks.

Which would make me yearn for a holiday, were I not, as I said, ensconsed like a (way less sexy) version of the White Witch in my own perpetual winter.

(Oh, where’s my Edmund? I’ve got fuckloads of Turkish Delight, believe me. Or fuckloads of Gewurtztraminer, which is pretty much the same thing.)

Photo by Josh Liba (Creative Commons)

5 thoughts on “The Wine Wide Web (pick’n’mix delights)”

  1. Awwww – Yay! Thanks for the mention, I can’t seem to give this Barolo away! Come on people it’s free!

    Really nice to see the round up and I also recommend the Beaujolais video, really nicely shot.

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