Good Wine Websites?

You might check out

It lists over 208 wine blogs and the most important 'wine talk' BBs.

Haven't heard any critical remarks about Parker's painting technique lately.

scnr,

M.

Don't overlook this forum, the wine newsgroup. It's the original public wine forum on the Internet -- by far -- turned 24 years old today. (See separate birthday posting.) Lots of information archived and searchable (currently on groups.google.com and elsewhere). It's not actually a "Web site" but a broadcast forum -- these were around much longer than Web sites,

15 years longer -- but it's readily readable through many Web sites (some of which indeed package its content as a draw).

Also, you can get the most help out of it by seaching archives for specifics, then asking for what can't be found. And using a real name (pseudonyms are a relatively recent fashion on Internet fora, like spam and trolls.)

Hope this helps! -- Max

Earlier in this thread Joe "Beppe" Rosenberg wrote in a helpful review of sites:

I'm sure that Joe meant to say "for six years longer than the Prodigy board" (1982 being earlier than 1988, if the latter date I've seen published is right; these dates have appeared here occasionally), but was distracted.

More historical detail:

Fora on Prodigy, Compuserve, and the like were private, for paid subscribers. Developed in competition with (and no doubt influenced by) the newsgroups, which were the Internet's own version of that, and were also older (1979). (PLATO was a still earlier, and more expensive, private service.) Peter Salus in his book on Internet history (1995) reported that the largest firms, Compuserve, AOL, Prodigy, and GEnie, did not yet provide direct Internet access to their subscribers as of the end of 1994, and that most also restricted email access. (Some irony attends current popularity of Internet services and software from certain firms that came fairly late to it.)

Later, many such private facilities opened direct Internet email, newsgroup, and/or live Internet access to their subscribers.

The wine newsgroup was always public. Newsgroups carried on Internet and associated networks have been accessible since the middle 1980s to most people in the US, and increasingly elsewhere, who wanted them, as you can see from the archives. As a last detail, the wine newsgroup almost went moderated in 1987 -- a step that worked successfully for other newsgroups, continuing today. It would presumably have evolved differently if it had, and today's junk posters would have gone elsewhere. (Sorry about that.)

Cheers -- Max

Self promo if you want to know about Spanish and Portuguese wines check out:

Growing and doing our best to be unbiased and a good place to ask questions about the regions.

Cheers, Ryan

"MagicDrinks" wrote ................

What a load of bunkum - what is "wine extract" - what is "distilled" thru my body after drinking several bottles?

Oligomeric Proanthocyanidins (OPC) are extracts from grape seeds, french maritime pine bark as well as red wine, cranberries, blueberries, bilberries, tea (green and black), black currant, onions, legumes, parsley, and the herb hawthorn.

As well as the usual claims in respect to antioxidants, some manufacturers suggest that OPCs "may" be beneficial in relieving such discomfortures such as chronic venous insufficiency, a condition closely related to varicose veins. In both of these conditions, blood pools in the legs, causing aching, pain, heaviness, swelling, fatigue, and unsightly visible veins. Fairly good preliminary evidence suggests that OPCs can relieve leg pain and swelling. However, no studies have evaluated whether regular use of OPCs can make visible varicose veins disappear, or prevent new ones from developing.

As usual with such supplements, much available data is anecdotal and suggestive, and claims made are vague.

There are more acceptable ways of promoting your blog than popping up, off topic in an existing thread, in a newsgroup to which you have never made any previous contribution.

aka tannins. Yes, OPC and tannins are one in the same. If they're so good for me, I guess that I'll have to eat more banana peels and drink more over-steeped tea! ;-)

Mark Lipton