Who are the WinePunters ?

The WinePunters crew currently consists of a number of people who happily admit their total lack of qualifications with regard to vine cultivation or wine making but who all really really really love their wine.  None of them have any connection to the wine industry but believe this lack of knowledge allows them to bring a fresh eye to all things wine.  In case you are even remotely interested here is a brief summary of their life stories:

PJ

Despite being qualified PJ lacked sufficient personality to make it as an accountant in the real world so he became an overpaid, underworked IT consultant and proceeded to prey on gullible but cashed up Government Departments.  When the strain of actually working for a living became too much he decided to dedicate his life to drinking wine and letting everyone know what he thinks about a range of issues (yes, this has made him as popular as you would expect - Ed).  He lives with his girlfriend "She is so much better looking than me" and their two furkids 'Chef' and 'Skinner'. 

Gav

Is a senior marketing executive in a multi-national transportation company and a former Aussie Rules premiership player and coach.  He is the closest thing we have to a chick magnet and serious business person.  He lives with his wife "if you mention me on your site I will kill you" and his son "I thought you were a beer drinker". 

For the last couple of years he has been trying to kill himself by doing increasing insane adventure races (like the Mark Webber challenge) that seem to involve running long distances, crashing a lot of pushbikes and attempting to drown yourself in racing kayaks. 

"Please don't name me" 

Due to an unfortunate incident at our local library (all he would say is ' I can never go back' - Ed)  "please don't name me" has ended up as our unpaid audio producer and photographer.  A court order prevents us from using his real name but helping us counts toward his community service hours.  However he is also hopeful that something good may come from it eventually.  He is married to Mrs "please don't name me" and has two sons "please don't name me jnr" and "please don't name me the third."

Michelle - the sparkling wine expert

Michelle is clearly the best looking person at the Winepunters.com HQ.  She has consumed more sparkling wine than most of us mere mortals which is why she is the expert and we are mere quaffers. We now have a female voice on our podcasts so please no more angry emails from the feminists.

Rachael 

See feminists we are on a chick recruiting frenzy. Rachael has real wine experience. Her Mum and Dad own a small vineyard in the Tamar Valley that provides grapes to one of the biggest names in wine. She can also drink anyone and everyone we know under the table and do it all again tomorrow. But no matter how untidy she gets she never loses her femininity or class. None of that ladette type carrying on here. She has promised to provide photos as often as possible.

Why are we doing this?

We have noticed that most of the commentary about wine either comes from industry insiders (like vine growers, wine makers or wine critics) or people who make a living off the industry (like tourism business, the Government or restaurant owners).  So we asked ourselves, what about the people who actually buy the wine and help to pay for it all?  Why don't they get a say?  ...... Well fear not fellow punters .......  your time has come!!

What do you get out of it?

What we hope you will get is honest information about wine and the wine industry. We have no connection to the wine industry so we can be objective.   We are trying to offer a 'real world' perspective on wine rather than the approach used by wine judges or critics.   We believe what punters want is answers to questions such as: 

Should I buy this wine?

What will it taste like in a real situation (eg in a restaurant)?

Will the object of my desire be impressed if I turn up with with this?

Our initial focus will be on the Tasmanian wine industry, partly because we live in Tassie but mostly because we think it produces great wine.  Over time, however we hope to cover wines from mainland Australia and where possible overseas.

The site will present a mixture of 'conversations' with Tassie winemakers, vignerons and other industry people as well as our wine blog 'Under the Influence'.  Hopefully you will be entertained and have a better understanding of the wines Tassie and the rest of Australia has to offer.

How come you do wine 'impressions' and not 'reviews'?

This might seem a bit pedantic but since we are not winemakers, wine judges or wine critics we don't feel qualified to review a wine.  We have always held the view "don't criticise what you can't do" but what we can do is tell it like we find it.  We also believe that the complicated and convoluted language that has grown up around wine not only makes it harder to get to the essence of what a wine is like but turns some people off. 

The way we have decided to tackle this situation is to give our honest impression of a wine based on the situation we were in at the time we drank it in a simple and straight forward manner.

So what's a wine road test?

Some times we will put a wine through a more involved impression. These road tests are often more serious than our usual fare. We are trying to be useful not entertaining. Think of it as a grown up review. Because we are trying to be useful we want the road test to mimic how a wine is drunk in the real world.

Usually this means treating a wine exactly the way it gets treated in many Aussie homes rather than as the winemaker would like. As an example, winemakers will tell you not to drink a white wine straight from the fridge since it's often too cold and this makes it tasteless.  But since many people do just that we taste the wine as soon as it comes out of the fridge. 

Most wine people will tell you to have wine with food. Fair enough. There are, however, a lot of 'rules' about what food should go with which wine. Again people either don't know or don't follow these rules. So we try our test wine with whatever we happen to be eating, whether or not it is regarded as a good match. 

Wine and heat don't mix. So a wine that is too hot is as bad as a wine that is too cold. But people leave bottles on the table in the sun at bbq's. So if the weather is hot then we will try the wine after it has heated up. 

Lastly not everyone finishes the bottle in one sitting. We know at least one punter who makes a bottle last a whole week. We can't go that far but we will leave the wine open for a day or so and then try it again.

The upshot of all this is that you should get a real sense of what a wine is like in reality rather than the usual approach with wine reviews which is to taste the wine in optimal conditions and then write it up.