Naked Wines launches Marketplace. (Disruptive young scamps.)

In which Old Parn laboriously and digressively Deals The Scoop on a new marketplace venture by online wine retailer Naked Wines

A screenshot from Naked Wines' new Marketplace (beta)

Okay, so what’s Naked Wines up to?

A Naked Marketplace, that’s what.

Now, there comes a time when dignity and good sense tells you, ‘Stop right there, Parn. Don’t you think that enough easy, easy puns have been made using the ‘naked’ part of Naked Wines? What I’m trying to say, for the love of the risen lord, Parn, is this: DON’T FUCKING BEAT THAT ROTTING HORSE CARCAS ANY FURTHER. Yes, I know it’s a verbal open goal. But sometimes you just have to walk away from an easy open goal.’

That’s what good sense tells you. (Good sense, I might add, would be a shit premier league footballer.)

So. Yeah. Naked puns are cheap as dirt. I know this. But, come on. It’s a NAKED MARKETPLACE. Can’t I please just make one little innuendo?

No?

Fine. Be like that.

So I’ll be serious. Let’s see how much fun that is, eh? Soon, mark my words, you’ll be begging for more naked gags. Bitches.

(Here you see why Old Parn never got out of the starting gates in his early ambition to be a journalist. Because we’re SEVEN PARAGRAPHS IN and you still have no sodding clue what the story is. But we’re amongst friends, here, aren’t we? Besides, TRADITIONAL MEDIA IS DEAD, innit? Like that horse I mentioned, before.)

OKAY. So here’s the scoop. Naked Wines is launching a marketplace via which the customer can ‘bid’ for wines direct from the producer. Naked sits there (like Apple in the App Store — indeed, with nakedness and apples, this is all getting rather Edenic, don’t you think?) — simply providing (in theory) a forum within which these negotiations and purchases take place.

(Naked will take a 10% cut. Which is a good whack less than Apple, I might add.)

What does this actually mean? It means that producers can find a market without going through the usual channels of importers & retailers. Instead, they just go through Naked. Cutting out a bit of the middle-man (for argument’s sake, let’s say his torso and a bit of his pelvis). So — the idea is — savings for the customer and the producer.

Indeed, you could pursue my metaphor and imagine that the wine producer and consumer sit down together and good-naturedly get to know one another over a fine dinner made from the torso and pelvic meat of that unfortunate middle-man we mentioned earlier, with a side dish of beaten horse. All washed down, natch, with a glass of the red stuff.

(I imagine so, anyway. Though none of my wine books or resources suggest appropriate wine matches for either horse-pulp or human meat, so I can’t be sure.)

Now, there’s a bunch more info about this that I haven’t told you (no, no; instead, I’ve wasted your powers of concentration of images of pelvis-chewing and equine violence. Shame on me). Indeed, I have a very nice press release right here that Naked Wines’ very own Fran Krajewski disarmingly suggested I might like to take in order that I might ‘throw it into the bin later’.

Oh, Fran!

So — if only to give the lie to poor Fran’s pessimism — let me rattle through a bit more bumph about this Naked Marketplace.

In a way, think of it like Amazon Marketplace. Anyone can list something on there; Amazon brokers the deal. Because marketplace items may be either very scarce (not available via any other retailer) or bargainously cheap, the customer gets a bit of that thrill of the hunt, I suppose. Snapping up a good deal or a rare delight. Tracking down a virtual wildebeest, as it were, and dragging it back to the cave. (Um.)

So (with each paragraph, my natural affinity for an MBA course at a top business school becomes ever clearer) — the wine producer states an asking price for the wine. The customer can then either agree to pay that price, or can make a lower bid. Say, offering £8 for a wine priced at £10.

A bunch of other customers are all doing the same thing. So what we end up with is a reflection of what people are willing to pay for this wine. The producer can see this — and can make the decision as to the ultimate selling price, knowing exactly how much demand exists at that price point.

So hypothetical producer might choose to stick at a higher price for fewer sales, or go with the lower bids for more sales. Obv, dude. And, assuming the lower price is chosen, the customer gets her wine for less moolah.

I’ll be fascinated to see how this mechanism works in practice. At tonight’s demo (Rowan Gormley presenting to a packed room of wine bloggers), I couldn’t see much of the actual user interface (which I suspect will be key in rendering the whole process simple-seeming and unintimidating). But given Naked’s fairly decent record of simplicity and plain-talkin’, I hope this side of things will be well-managed.

But enough slathering and waffling. Get your bad arse on over to the Naked Marketplace and see for yourself. It’s launching tomorrow. Which is (by the time this is posted) ALREADY TODAY.

And that’s it. Not a naked pun (or, alas, even a naked nun) in sight.

I hope you’re happy.

Wine reviews vs restaurant reviews

In which Parn muses on the difference between restaurant reviewers and wine reviewers in the public eye

A question.

First, imagine you reviewed restaurants for a living. And when people asked about your job, you said to them, ‘I review restaurants.’

How many of them do you think would reply — with apparent awe — ‘Oh my god. I could never do that. I don’t know anything about restaurants’?

Now imagine the same exchange, but with ‘wines’ in the place of ‘restaurants’.

Five reasons to swear — about wine or anything else

In which Old Parn sets out his Manifesto For A Blogosphere Of Unrestrained Profanity — enumerating the reasons for which swearing in a blog post is not only justified, but positively to be encouraged

A youngish man with scrunched eyes screams an obsenity

1. The Kiddies Are Safe, Thank God!

Let’s get this boring one out of the way first: the only reason I can see for not swearing is that of exposing young children to THE AWFUL, AWFUL, CORROSIVE BADNESS of it. And I don’t think many young children are going to be reading sites like this.

They have better things to do, and I’m jealous of them for it.

I mean, hell, I was a massive fucking loser when I was a child (plus ca change), but even Young Parn wasn’t so much of a loser that he was reading wine blogs.

2. Swear Words Are Indecorous

Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.

I don’t think the First World War poet Wilfred Owen was massively into decorum. Nor am I. The difference is, of course, that he was writing slightly (if understandably) iffy poetry about a vast human tragedy and I’m writing a slightly (and less understandably) iffy blog about alcoholic grape juice.

But I think we can agree, Wilf and I, nevertheless: decorum is a sham. Decorum is a wretched, weak-bladdered means by which to intimidate the uninitiated, to make the underling fall in line, to belittle the outsider. Decorum is a way to make you feel shame because you don’t know what the words are that the Proper People use. SO JUST SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT SERF, AND GO STUFF MY CODPIECE.

The youngish Old Parn screams an obscenity once againIf I write that a wine is ‘fucking good’, I reckon that’s actually kind of inclusive. That’s what it’s meant to be, anyway. Because no way does anyone think that ‘fucking good’ is The Proper Way To Describe A Wine. To me, using language like this is like hanging up a big old sign saying, ‘In my book (and on my site) you don’t have to use the ‘correct’ words to express a valid opinion (just so long as you don’t use the word toothsome)’.

I mean, it’s obviously okay — really, truly, more than okay; it is the only thing that fucking matters in the slightest — to describe this wine stuff in any way you damn well please. And, yes, I must grudgingly admit that this even extends to use of the word ‘toothsome’. Even though, I reiterate, NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS.

Anyone who relies on decorum is probably also quite stupid. Because decorum is a weapon of the stupid.

3. Swearwords Are Joyous

It feels fucking good to swear. I imagine you’ve tried it yourself. Isn’t it nice?

It’s a verbal ejaculation — yes, thank you, I can use that word — and as such it’s a thing of joy. It’s a trumpet-blast of feeling. It’s life-affirming, it’s defiant. It’s like all the best things about humanity in one deliciously blunt four-letter syllable. A buttery, crumpetty nugget of life.

Surely I can’t be the only one who finds verbal abandonment both fascinating and sexy? No, it turns out I’m not. It’s there — all over the fucking place — in Chaucer, in Shakespeare, in Joyce. Who’d’ve thought?

And if you should come across someone who mocks the revelry of your swearwords, pity them for the arid, joyless puritan they are.

Thus, the kind of fool who’d mockingly quote your swearword back at you (perhaps inserting, with a tin-eared editorial flourish, a double exclamation mark?) is probably also the kind of fool who’d try to insult you by paraphrasing a self-deprecating pun that you actually wrote yourself, as if that were somehow meant to achieve or prove something other than a chronic dearth of wit.

(My example is hypothetical.)

4. Swearwords Are Anglo-Saxon And Therefore They Are Awesome

Fuck. Cunt. Arse. Shit.

Don’t be afraid, I’m not about to start into that cringe-inducing ‘comedy’ scene from The King’s Speech. [Shudder.] No. But I am going to talk about Englishness.

Or Anglishness.

You see, all the best words in this sexy mongrel language of ours are Anglo-Saxon. Well, okay, maybe I should qualify ‘best’ — I guess I mean ‘most evocative’. Gerard Manley Hopkins, an English poet from back in the 1800s, is good on this: he pretty much refused to use anything but Anglo-Saxon-derived words in his poetry, because words derived from Latin (words like ‘derived’, in fact — or ‘evocative’ or ‘refused’ or ‘exclamation’ or ‘deprived’ or ‘misguided’) have a clinical, cold, precise, impersonal feel to them. They’re somehow more remote, more official, less affecting.

Profile of our hero halfway through exclaiming a word beginning 'sh—'They’re not where the music is, in other words; not where the gut-punch is.

No, the music is in the old, old words. In the fist-clouting, axe-bitten, mud-tramping Anglo-Saxon stuff.

And right up there at the top of the pile are the most defiantly Saxon of them all: the swearwords. Old as the soil and the blood and the rock and the shit of England before it was even England.

Show me an English swearword that’s not Anglo-Saxon and I’ll show you a shit swearword.

5. Swearwords Are Just Words

Yes. I know. I’m wheeking this one at you from left-field. But those words that we call swearwords are still, in fact, just words. The clue is in the ‘word’ part of the word ‘swearword’. If you look carefully, it’s there. At the end, after the ‘swear’ bit. Stop me if I’m going too fast (Jesus, stop me) or using the word ‘word’ in a way that you find confusing, ambiguous and/or offensive.

But — listen! It’s about to get good! — they really are just words. And anyone who’s an adult and relatively well-adjusted surely ought to realise that they’re no more or less legitimate (or indeed remarkable) than any other means of expression. And that pointing them out and making an issue of them causes you to look like a child squealing and giggling at his first potty shit.

What I mean to say, I suppose, is —

A high-contrast photo of a youngish man shouting a swearword at the camera

THEY’RE WORDS FOR PITY’S SAKE JUST WORDS MADE OUT OF LETTERS WHICH ARE JUST SHAPES MADE OUT OF LINES WHICH IMITATE SOUNDS THAT ARE MADE BY OUR MOUTHS JUST LIKE ANY OTHER SOUNDS FOR PITY’S SAKE SOUNDS MADE FROM NOISE WHICH IS MADE BY AIR AND MOVING PARTS OF OUR BODIES WHICH ARE MADE OF SKIN AND BEARDS AND TEETH AND OTHER THINGS AND YES I’LL GRANT YOU SKIN IS SOMETIMES A LITTLE BIT RUDE SOMETIMES BECAUSE SOMETIMES IT SOMETIMES MEANS SEX AND THINGS WHICH ARE EMBARRASSING AND REGRETTABLE AND GIVE ME NO PLEASURE AT ALL TO RAISE OR DISCUSS IN THIS FORUM OR INDEED ANY FORUM BUT STILL IT IS JUST SKIN FOR PITY’S SAKE WHICH IS MADE OF MOLECULES AND ATOMS AND HAIR AND ALSO FOOD AND HOW CAN ANYTHING MADE OUT OF FOOD BE BAD OR EVEN DEBATABLE?

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.

Wine writing is broken

In which Old Parn launches into a tirade at the leprous state of wine writing in 2011, and the miserable failure of its practitioners, en masse, to inspire, engage or reach out through their words

A splintered pane of glass makes a crescent. In the background, obscure, dark colours

Here’s what’s wrong.

The world of wine writing is insular. It treasures its own elitist terminology. It prizes information before communication. It jealously, gleefully guards its own exclusivity — a hideous, smugly masturbating gatekeeper — crooning and babbling, gollum-like, at its own shrivelled genitals.

(So. That’s the metaphor over with, eh?)

See, it’s my opinion that far too little wine writing reaches out to the uninitiated. Next time you’re reading an article about wine, ask yourself: if I were new to wine — if I knew none of the terminology — would this mean anything to me? Would I find it engaging? Indeed, would I even have read this far in the first place? Far, far too often, the answer is no.

I am staggered — actually, I’m fucking angry — that something so many people love is still largely written about either in patronising and insipid ‘buy this one not this one’ columns, or in exhaustive, geekily inaccessible prose.

Of course there are exceptions. But where is wine writing’s Giles Coren, wine writing’s AA Gill? Hell, where’s wine writing’s Michael fucking Winner, come to that? Or where’s wine writing’s Jeremy Clarkson? I can’t fucking stand Clarkson. But at least I’m not indifferent to him. At least he gets my attention.

And how? Let’s see. Does Clarkson’s weekly column go like this?: ‘A common feature of many cars is air conditioning. [Insert dumbed-down, humourless technical explanation of air conditioning and its origins]. So this week we’re going to look at three cars with air conditioning and write a few tired adjectives about each one, then tell you where you can buy them and what kind of roads you might like to drive them down’

Not it does fucking not.

There are scandalously few people in the mainstream writing about wine with passion and verve. Our public face is timid, introverted, gawky, dull, apologetic. Geeky. But without the leftfield charm.

If I’m a casual wine-drinker, I am not going to be captivated by information about terroir, viticulture, grape varietals. Chances are, I have far better things to do than memorise the French classification system. If I wanted to know this stuff, I’ve got a whole bloody internet to search. Or there are books on this stuff, aren’t there? I don’t need to be educated in tiresome, condescending, uninspired weekly instalments. Not to say that there’s no place for this information. But on its own — as the main feature — it’s both boring and alienating.

And here’s another thing: don’t ever tell me a wine is ‘toothsome’. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Seriously. Does anyone ever use that word except wine writers? Toothsome? Fuckoffsome.

In fact, allow me to propose a simple mechanism for wine writers. If there’s a simpler alternative to the word you’re using and yet you’ve decided to stick with the more complex, ask yourself the following question: ‘Am I James Joyce?’

If the answer is no, I recommend you spare us and just use the bloody simple one.

(Toothsome?)

You see, when I read about something (by choice, in my leisure time) I want to be inspired. Or tickled. Or shocked. Or provoked. I don’t want drab, dusty sentences or bland, self-effaced meanderings.

So why are there so few inspiring wine writers? Or, at least, why are the most visible wine writers generally so uninspiring?

If we love something, are we not capable of transcending jargon, pedantry and narrow-horizoned pedestrianism — to emblazon our love, bold on paper?

Until more wine writers are writing to inspire — whilst we’re still belching out our mass-produced £4.99 prose — how the hell do we have the nerve to castigate the buyers of £4.99 bottles?

Edit: I should perhaps clarify that the above is very much concerned with wine writing for public consumption — in the mainstream print & online press, particularly — and not wine writing for a niche/expert/obsessive audience, whose demands and appetites are clearly quite another kettle of wotsits. —OP

You can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine? Rejoice!

In which we address the news item of the day: people’s alleged inability to taste the wheat amidst the chaff.

Macro photograph of a wooden-handled corkscrew. The metal screw is in focus; the wooden handle out.

Someone’s screwed. But I don’t think it’s the consumer.

So, big news in the wine world (if that’s not an immediate contradiction in terms) is that a recent psychological study demonstrated that ‘people just [can’t] tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine,’ in the words of Richard Wiseman, who conducted the survey at Hertfordshire University.

You can read more about the story on the Guardian, but the gist is that people were, overall, only able correctly to identify the more expensive wine from a pair 50% of the time. In other words, they might as well’ve flipped a coin.

Predictably, this story is the cause of much wino hullabaloo. On Twitter, I’ve read a good number of tweets in which wine industry members and/or wine bloggers see this as a problem to be overcome.

And I’m not sure I agree. Because, in my view, if people are getting the same amount of pleasure from a £5 wine as they are from a £20 wine, MORE POWER TO THEM. They win. And can use the £15 they’ve saved to buy sex/drugs/rock & roll.

I agree it’s a problem for the wine industry, which wants to make money. That includes retailers and producers of wine. But can anyone tell me why it’s a problem for the consumer who can’t tell the difference?

Wine tasting to be defunct by 2030?

… In which I tell of scientific advances in automated taste-categorisation

Not a review, today, but a scientific tidbit that may interest you. An article caught my eye in the current issue of the Economist, describing a new system for the categorisation of smells.

‘Although the human sense of smell is keen, it is hampered by a lack of precision. When presented with hundreds of odours, the nose can simultaneously distinguish only a few. Keenly aware of these problems, Alírio Rodrigues at the University of Porto in Portugal and his colleagues compiled an extensive list of scent descriptions from the existing databases used by the perfume industry. They found that eight general terms for scents (citrus, floral, green, fruity, herbaceous, musk, oriental and woody) could work as families to which more than 2,000 specific scents could be assigned. The team then plotted these eight families onto a map that resembled the plots on a radar screen.’

It turns out that Rodrigues’ “radar” is able automatically to categorise perfumes according to scent-family. Obviously, as the Economist points out, the potential impact of this reaches further than perfumers…

So might we one day see wine tasting relegated to the status of ‘quaintly old-fashioned’ activity – like basket-weaving or letter-writing? By 2030, will all our tasting notes be mechanically generated? It’d doubtless work out cheaper than hiring all these temperamental winos. And fewer hangov sick days.

Well, clearly the answer to that is no. But I couldn’t help but throw in a childishly provocative rhetorical question.

When a machine starts being able to generate metaphors, though? Then I’ll be worried.

Read the full article in the Economist online