Had a very pleasant surprise the other day. I was flicking through the latest Time Out London paying particular attention to their Food and Drink section when I noticed a nice little write up on Bottletalk.

“This smart new online forum for wine lovers allows anyone to rate and comment upon bottles they like or dislike. A centralised tagging and rating system aims to create a rolling up-to-the-minute database that can be browsed by score or keyword. Thus a search by ‘blackcurrant’ yields a list of bottles that have put quaffers in mind of that aroma and taste. It’s a nice idea, but will only work if enough people contribute to give the average scores any credibility. It’s open to abuse from people with vested interests. But scepticism aside, this is a slick, visually appealing website.”

Thanks! It is fantastic being recommended by such a well established London magazine and even better finding out by just browsing through the magazine over breakfast. We have had great write-ups online - UK TechCrunch and Spittoon to name a few - but reading something in print has a certain added excitement about it!

Welcome to Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV - Bottletalk’s first sponsor.

Gary does an almost daily vidcast where he gives his honest, interesting and fun tasting notes on a whole range of wines.

Wine Library TV visualises what we at Bottletalk are trying to do on the web - making wine fun and accessible.

Some of our favourite episodes which we think are a good introduction to Wine Library TV and to Gary are:

• Wine is fun

• How to train your wine palate

• Second wines (and a great anology used for describing Second wines)

• Sauternes tasting

Please remember when watching the vidcasts that when Gary mentions football he is of course referring to the American kind and not the beautiful game as we know and love here in Europe.

Cheers

Mark

http://www.bottletalk.com