The Links at Swig Coach

At Swig Coach we don’t pretend to have all the answers. Certainly not when it comes to golf, where we consistently prove we know nothing. The key is knowing what you don’t know, and for that we’ve compiled a big list of links to experts we trust across the alcohol-imbibing spectrum.

When you “play” The Links at Swig Coach, you’ll find helpful tools and references, wine critics and bloggers we’d drink with any day of the week, and even authoritative sites on other drinks to optimize your experience at the 19th hole. We accept nothing in return for these recommendations, we just think these sources know what they’re talking about, and they are all “Swig Coach approved.”

A general word of advice. Even experts disagree on specific wines and may rate the same wine quite differently. This is especially true in a detailed tasting note where sometimes you can’t really tell if they’re even talking about the same wine. Not to worry. It’s no different than golf instruction. Look for the “teachers” who speak your language and you’ll be fine.

If a link leads to something behind a pay wall, we’ll let you know that too. In wine as in life, you tend to get what you pay for!  Note this list and the commentary will likely expand over time so come back and play regularly.

Immediately below you’ll find what we’d call the “yardage book version”, with descriptions of the holes and how to play them. Click here to jump to a “scorecard version” with just the links themselves.

Free Tools And Resources  

Wine-searcher

Why overpay? This is the go-to site for figuring out what a specific bottle of wine should cost based on thousands of retailers around the world who put their inventories online. Because they aggregate data for a living, they also have special features that are both interesting and very useful, like “the best wines by style near you.” Especially useful if you are thinking about case quantities. Aggregates critic scores and offers tasting notes when not precluded by pay walls. Great free content too. An annual upcharge for Pro Access gets you an expanded list of prices for the entire database of retail outlets who stock a given bottle. One caution: make sure you’re looking at data for the exact wine and vintage you’re researching. Easily the one site we visit most often.

Cellartracker

Enormous database of consumer tasting notes, easily searchable. Follow people who have similar tastes. Track your wine collection online. Voluntary payment requested if you use it for inventorying purposes. Read more than 1700 Swig Coach tasting notes dating back to 2006. (Note: our username here is bevetroppo-a made-up Italian word meaning he drinks too much). Back when we cared about such things, we didn’t want our bosses to know how much we were drinking… 

That Useful Wine Site

The 90’s called and they want their web design back. Don’t be fooled by the out-of-date looks, it’s one of the most comprehensive free sites you’ll find on all things wine, especially good for exotic grape varieties. Meticulously cross-linked to source material.  

Vivino (under review)

Candidly, we know a lot less about this than we should. Like a mash up of wine-searcher, cellartracker and an eCommerce site, with a much friendlier interface than any of them. Millions of reviews by passionate members, an app that lets you scan bottles right on the shelf to get detailed info, lists of popular wines, and lots, lots more. You can buy directly from them. We need to spend more time here to render an authoritative opinion.

Pix Wine and The Drop (under review)

A newcomer designed to compete with Vivino offering the promise of more insightful use of data and an online wine magazine (The Drop) written by experts who presumably know how to communicate to younger drinkers looking to explore their new hobby. We put it here now as a placeholder until we know more, but believe it could be worth checking out.

Critics and bloggers

Critics tend to make their living from wine writing and charge for subscriptions. Bloggers may make money from advertising or other sources or just do it because they love wine. Almost all have a newsletter you can get for free if you don’t want to pay for access to detailed tasting notes, in-depth vintage profiles etc. 

Expert subscriptions we pay for because we think they’re the best at what they do, focused on a specific region: 

Burgundy (we can’t afford it but we can’t not look either):

All things Rhone 

Bordeaux

They cover the world (multiple writers on staff). Get authoritative perspective on the above plus all other regions such as Italy, California, Australia here.

  • vinous (Antonio Galloni and crew)

  • decanter (cast of 1000’s) Right or wrong, we have a soft spot for British wine criticism dating back to our early indoctrination via critics like Michael Broadbent and Hugh Johnson.

  • jancisrobinson (Jancis Robinson and crew)

Newcomer we think has potential:

  • Starwinelist is a paid subscription (we’re thinking about it) that is dedicated to the best restaurant wine lists around the world. It has an international orientation in addition to covering the US if you happen to be playing golf overseas, and is juried by highly regarded sommeliers. If your glass is half-full, they are the “cool kids.” If it’s “half empty”, they are annoyingly self-indulgent snobs who only care about the most expensive or hard to get, critical darling wines from small growers working sustainably. Still, if you love wine lists like we do, this site, while still young and far from perfect, is already a museum of modern art.

Free websites and blogs we read or refer to all the time: 

  • thewinecellarinsider

    • An amazing free source for Bordeaux, California and Rhone wine reviews and tasting notes, past and present

  • terroirsense 

    • The blog of our all-time favourite writer on Italian wine, the incomparable and indefatigable Ian D’Agata, who is now running a wine school based in Shanghai and covering all things great and authentic in wine. Long may his liver hold out.

  • vinography

    • The links provided on Alder Yarrow’s wryly curated Monday morning email is how we start each week

  • terroirist

    • More focused on the trade than the drinker but a good compilation of wine info and news, updated daily

  • tastingbook

    • We’re still unsure what this is, but it appears to be a wiki-like site where the entire wine industry (wineries, winemakers, sommeliers, critics and more) have pitched tents to stake out their turf. Registration is required (free) and you can browse to your heart’s content, including lots of free reviews of vintages and specific wines, mostly high end

Good social media follows (twitter/Instagram): 

Voices we trust to tell us what to drink or what’s going on in the moment. We try to focus on people who stick to wine, but we have no control over and do not endorse any political or other stances you may come across. Some of these people post tidbits and hide the good stuff behind a paywall/subscription, so be forewarned.

Writer/Instagram/Twitter

Wine Porn: Instagram accounts you can follow showing pictures and sometimes describing wines we’ll never see let alone drink, but if we won the lottery… Note there are also dozens (thousands?) of Instagram accounts with pictures of pretty women posing suggestively with wine bottles, running in sexy attire through vineyards, etc but we wouldn’t know anything about that.

Podcasts

  • I’ll Drink To That… Billed as the “world’s most listened to podcast on wine,” Levi Dalton has expertly curated almost 500 in-depth interviews (and counting) with winemakers, importers and other influencers from around the world. Available from Apple, Spotify, Google and more

Beer

  •  The Beer Advocate “Putting the Beer Into Geeks Since 1996|Respect Beer” Enough said.

Spirits

  • Punch Where bartenders swap recipes. Cocktails are treated with the reverence of magic potions.

  • Distiller As the name implies, it covers nearly everything. Try the nifty recommendation engine to discover something new.

  • Tequila Matchmaker 4,694 products in their database on 1/30/22. It’s definitely worth a shot

Online retailers 

We buy regularly from all these stores and have never had any issues. In bad (too cold or hot) weather they will hold wines for a reasonable amount of time without additional charges. Shipping costs can vary widely so make sure you check.  Don’t forget to check into discount policies on mixed or full-case orders. There are many other good ones out there. We’ll add more when we launch our “On Tour” feature in the next few months.

Due to the persistence of archaic and in some instances even Prohibition-era laws, always verify whether out-of-state shipping is legal from a given internet store to where you live before entering credit card data for an online wine purchase. 

Our favourite homeboys: these stores all have websites and will ship anywhere it’s legal, but they’re all less than a half hour from Morris County, NJ where we live. All three can give you a much-needed respite from the endless shelves of pedestrian-branded wines that dominate retail in this and every other state.

Auctions

We’ve bought from the following online auction companies and have had no problems with their trade practices. They all have online retail operations as well. Just remember you will be paying a substantial buyer’s premium (hovering these days around 20-25%) plus shipping, increasingly from Delaware. Also, the dark underbelly of all wine auctions is not knowing for certain where the wines come from and how they have been stored, so keep that in mind when bidding. The auction market has been on fire since the start of the pandemic. Be prepared to get outbid on anything generally regarded as good.  Our strategy can best be described as bottom-feeding, and we’ll cover it in detail in a future post. We are not bidding with billionaires and scalpers for trophy wines or for investment purposes. We drink what we buy.

 Have a favorite source you think we should include? Hit us up at info@swigcoach.com

Just The Links (49 holes and counting…)