The Wine Spectator - Reasons to join their forums

The Wine Spectator is one of the top wine magazines in the world and an excellent resource for wine news, vintage quality, new producers, wine travel and overall anything to do with wine. The articles by Matt Kramer are outstanding and I’m a big fan of James Suckling (although I don’t always agree with his tasting notes) as he reviews Bordeaux and all of Italy - two wine areas I love.

The printed magazine aside, their website is an excellent resource for wine ratings, expert blogs (Suckling is very active and always has great topics, Maynard from Tool has a blog about his wine pursuits) as well as restaurant reviews and travel resources. But these features are all “premium” requiring an online subscription. There is another part of the Wine Spectators website that is free which serves as an outstanidng food, wine and travel resource, and can lead to good online and offline friendships. It’s filled with a wide range of people from the articulate to the…well, not so articulate, the expert to the beginner. The area I’m talking about is the Wine Spectator Discussion Forums.

Registering is free so is participating. Here are a few reasons to join:

1. Free knowledge from some serious wine drinkers that come from all walks of life. There are some real experts on board that are very helpful and willing to spend their time educating each other on new topics.

2. Your not participating on the foodandwineblog.com forums so you may as well participate somewhere else!

3. A great place to meet up with local wine enthusiasts to share good food and wine.

Before you join, consider these unwritten rules:

1. It’s a good idea to register and just hang out for a few days to get a feel for the forum. Do “Searches” for any questions, wines or topics you want to discuss as it’s likely it has been done before. If it’s in the archives, feel free to “bump” the thread adding your spin or perspective.

2. Don’t register and immediately try to sell wines or post links to your website or blog. Once you have been around a while, and people get to know you, you’ll have much more success in these things.

3. Have thick skin. Though the overwhelming majority is helpful and relaxed, there are the few veterans who are quick to fire off a sarcastic comment or attempt to belittle you. Someone forgot to tell these people that it’s an internet forum and nothing should be taken too serious! Just keep in mind that it’s all in good fun. You’ll notice that many of the veterans on the forum know each other well, most likely a result of the many offlines (see next rule).

4. Feel free to join in on a local offline. These are generally small wine tastings organized by forum members open to anyone on the site. There is generally a theme (i.e. California Cabernet) and the venue can range from a members home to a local restuarnat. I highly recommend pursuring this option if tehre is one in your area- it’s a grea tchance to drink a lot of good wine with some very cool people.

So that’s it! Just an overall great place to learn about wine and talk about anything related to food, wine and travel. And remember, there are forums here, too!