I love wine.
I really love wine.
In fact, if you google “Barclay Loftus” one of the first things that pops up are some of my reviews of wines in cork’d. Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m far from an expert… But, to steal a term from marketing folks I would consider myself an “expert novice” when it comes to wine.
So the other day I was serendipitously surfing around, and stumbled across Gary Vaynerchuk’s podcast. So here’s some dude from Jersey that knows a tremendous amount about wine. At first I was a bit put off, but I watched an episode or two, and holy smokes, this guy is something else. He’s got amazing amount of knowledge, and gives some pretty damned interesting metaphors for tasting. He really comes across as a down to earth guy—a fella you could meet at a bar and have a good time chatting up. If you at all enjoy wine, do yourself a favor and watch a couple of his podcasts.
Now, this contrasts sharply with my previous experience on wine tasting blogs: “What Lukka Likes”.
Ok. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but from watching a couple episodes, I gotta admit that I just fucking detest him. From his fake accent (it’s really funny when he forgets and then catches himself), to wearing his hipster sunglasses inside (that room sure looks bright, guy)… he’s just ridiculous. This guy exemplifies everything bad about wine tasting.
In the last episode I was watching, when he went to “saber” a bottle of champagne (opening by whacking the cork off with a blade), there was quite a bit of me that was seriously hoping he would take his own arm off. Now THAT would have been funny.