When I first got into wine I spent as much time with my nose in a wine book as it did in a wine glass - come to think of it that’s still true. That was thirty years ago and wine books were serious things in those days - thick tomes by British writers that read like the textbooks they were. I learned a lot, but it was a rather dry experience, which seemed a bit of an oxymoron when the subject was wine. I balanced the books with a tasting group that was loaded with energy - we had a blast and learned a lot.

One of the most exciting things about the online wine community (bloggers, Twitter, Facebook etc.) is they have expanded the online wine world into one gigantic virtual tasting group. Not to say studying about wine is any less important, perhaps more so now there are so many more wines, but the amount you can learn about wine on the Internet is truly astounding.

One of the most charming aspects of the explosion of wine blogs is the large number of young wine drinkers who share their thrill of exploration with their readers. They’re not really critics, but more like the host of a wine tasting. Visiting their blog is like visiting their home for a wine tasting party. Yes, sometimes there may be some inaccurate technical information, but the energy and love of wine they share more than makes up for it. They’re learning along with you, not pontificating from up on high.

I love to visit these blogs as they recharge my batteries with their enthusiasm and make me remember my excitement of discovery when I first fell in love with the world of wine. We all should remember it’s less important to get the pH of a wine right than it is to feel its spirit - its soul. These writers are about soul not technical sheets and I love them for it. These are the writers that are giving birth to a new generation of wine drinkers that, while it will be a small percentage of them, will be drinking the wines that the writers in my previous post,“Going to School” are writing about now. This new generation will preserve those wines as my generation drops the wine list. They represent a passing of the torch even if they don’t yet know it or appreciate the beauties of Poulsard yet, but some of them will some day. Eventually they, and a sadly small percentage of their readers, will turn away from the obvious side of the force and learn to love finesse over sheer power. This is the way of the wine world and it will always be so. It’s a right of passage. I went through it too.

Here’s a woefully short list of these young leaders. It’s a dangerous thing to make such a list as there are so many talented wine bloggers out there. So my apologies to the majority that I leave out here as I include just a few I’ve had the pleasure to meet personally. I encourage you to visit my blog roll or the ones on Vinography or Fermentation to really experience the beautiful diversity of these new, new media wine writers, which interestingly are mostly female. Change is a good thing.