Hiya. I’m Seth, your friendly Stormhoek intern. Nice to meet you. I’ve been put in charge of finding links. Off we go.

Lots of the so-called “oenobloggers” are of the tasting note variety- these can be a fun way to learn the lingo of the swirl, sniff, sip, and spit crowd. A fun way to play along at home is Wine Blogging Wednesdays, stared by Lenn Thompson at his Long Island focused wine site www.lenndevours.com. Various weekly hosts choose a theme, and everybody writes up their impressions and shares them. They’ve done everything from Sicilian Reds to Drink From Your Most Local Winery. It’s been growing week by week. Hmm, they’ve never done a WBW where everybody’s drinkin’ the same wine. Since most of these folks are Statesside, perhaps something to keep in mind for when Stormhoek’s ready to do its American promotion?

Recently, Food & Wine did Seven Best Wine Blogs feature, and their recs were pretty good. I especially like Joe Dressner’s, though it’d be nice if he set up an RSS feed. I met Joe last Spring at the Polaner tasting, and he’s a trip. Joe brings in a bunch of high quality, small production European wines. If you see his company’s name on the back of the bottle, you can be assured that the wine inside’s going to have something to say.

Another standout mentioned in Food & Wine is www.vinography.com. Alder’s a dedicated blogger with a nice balance of tasting notes (the guy drinks lots of grape), comments on the wine world, and original content.

Though his blog ain’t a blog, Jamie Goode’s The Wine Anorak is a great resource. It’s got a ton of quality free content. Before I laid down the dosh for some Serious Wine Books, I used his site for digging a little deeper into regions, the industry, and particular wines. It’s a great timesuck while you’re wasting time at the office.

I used to browse Wine Spectator’s site before they they made you pay for everything. Haven’t they read that other Seth’s latest thoughts? There’s going to be plenty of us geeks who go to buy the mag if we get turned on about wine through browsing the reference portion of their site. I’ll begrudgingly admit they might have a vested business interest in not giving away all the latest and greatest news and reviews online that they put into the monthly mag. But reference-level stuff only serves to make a more informed reader. Hard to have a smarter conversation if you’ve constantly got your hand in the other guy’s pocket.

Anyway, if you’re looking for more advice, and you want to put your money down, you can also check out Jancis Robinson’s site. She’s got some free stuff, but the different shading of the icon between her free stuff and pay stuff is nearly indistinguishable for a colorblind guy like me. Frustrating, so I don’t spend a whole lot of time surfing her site.

The most powerful man in the biz is critic Robert Parker. He’s got another pay-for-content site, but allows Mark Squires to run a discussion board off of it, which is free after registration. You’ll find a lively debate in the forums- certainly not all members are in lockstep with the so-called Emperor of Wine.

Finally, someone who gets the whole smarter conversation idea is Sergio Esposito at the Italian Wine Merchants. IWM is a high-end shop in NYC that focuses on a highly-edited selection of Italy’s best producers. Their site is a bit tough to navigate, but they tell a helluva story on nearly each of the wines they carry. They’re an inspiration.

Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.