Wine on YouTube: Stars and channels to watch

I never really got YouTube. I know that people love it – the way that Instagram absorbs me, others can spend hours flipping from video to video on YouTube.

There are influencers who’ve made their fortunes on the platform, viral personalities of whom I’m entirely unaware. But it’s a whole world I hadn’t really delved into – and especially not for wine. Until now, that is.

I stumbled across The Back Label, a new series from Mackenzie Casey – the creator and host of the Pour Decisions interview series – designed to take you behind the scenes of the world of wine. The first episode features Domaine Dujac’s Jeremy Seysses – a big Burgundy name and a thoughtful, articulate winemaker – and if this initial offering is anything to go by, the series is well worth following.

So, down the rabbit hole I went. And what a warren it leads to: there’s an enormous amount of content on YouTube, targeted at every level of wine knowledge and of wildly varying quality, in terms of production values and accuracy.

In some ways, it’s an amazing resource; in others, there’s an awful lot to pan through for just a few nuggets of gold.

Among those nuggets is the now famous Tom Gilbey. Gilbey is one of YouTube’s most popular wine gurus and it’s easy to see why: he doesn’t take himself too seriously, his jokey style is entertaining but backed up by real knowledge, and the videos are short, sharp and to the point. He’s one of the few to make tasting wine on camera bearable.

And that is, for me, the problem: most videos centre on tasting wine – but watching someone else sip, slurp (and often spit) on screen, then tell you how it tastes, is incredibly dull.

There are, however, a few other exceptions. Sommelier André Mack’s content for Bon Appétit is excellent – slickly produced and interesting, concise without being reductive – but sadly those videos are few and far between.

If you’re an Australian-wine enthusiast, Wine Advocate critic Erin Larkin has a channel that offers the inside track on key new releases and her favourite wines.

There’s some seriously geeky content out there, too – check out the Australian Wine Research Institute’s webinars for a really good nerd-out sesh on pruning, malolactic fermentation or yeast strains.

While nosing around myself, I asked people on Instagram who they liked on YouTube; it seems telling that no one volunteered a name. Mostly, it seems as though the world of wine hasn’t nailed YouTube – or YouTube hasn’t nailed wine – or maybe I still just don’t get it.

Sips and Giggles

Comedians Alan Carr and Lee Peart have launched the new Bottoms Up! podcast, in association with Laithwaites. It’s silly, giggly fun – two friends whiling away time, popping corks and allowing conversation to occasionally stray into the world of wine. If you happen to have a screen to hand, you can watch it on YouTube, too. Will you learn much? No, but that isn’t really the point.

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