Here’s a list of some sites and blogs that may interest  folks with more spare time than me;  I have concentrated on free sites; my list is far from complete but will gradually improve.

Australian reviews and so on

• Chris Shanahan – Canberra-oriented, beers too. No scores, but the descriptions provide enough cues.
• Australian wine review – Andrew Graham’s very active site, refreshingly honest with his views and scores; he’s fortunate enough to get to many vertical tatsings and other opportunities
• Drinkster; Philip White’s site – imagine Hunter S Thompson in stream of consciousness mode about wine; I can get pleasurably lost in the full-throttle imagery
• Grape Observer – despite Sean Mitchell’s WSET diploma, the language in the reviews is cogent and usefully abetted with the right amount of background history, theory and analysis
• Brisbane Book Club – sporadic, but worth the odd peek; scores usually realistic, avoiding the hyper-inflation of some other places.
• Wine reviewer – Patrick Eckel reviews many interesting wines in unexpected and useful detail; and some more extended musings are worth the detour.
• Simple palates seriously – Terence Pang’s writing is easy to read, but there is a real sense of person and perspective here.

 NZ reviews and so on

• NZ Wine of the week – Sue Courtney’s site, relentlessly positve, but also has excellent indixing of tasting notes, information about NZ wine areas, wine show results etc.
• Otago daily news– Mark Henderson’s weekly wine page, provocative insights, not just reviews
• Geoff Kelley – quite technical, but some terrific tastings here, many international benchmarking studies, amazing wines
• Raymond Chan wine reviews – very active, good reference site for NZ – and beyond – scores are on the enthusiastic side

Australian reference sites

• Winebiz daily wine news – a roundup of links to news snippets, PR pieces; some international (mainly NZ) too
• Sommeliers Australia – events, education, industry jobs
• Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI); more of a site for winemakers, but there is lots of information tucked into the tabs
• Langtons – it began life as an auction site, but the “price guide” area (under the resources tab) provides estimates of what the market (rightly or wrongly) believes is a fair price for thousands of different wines

 Community forums

• Auswine is very active, with a healthy South Australian focus, and very varied contributors – a good source for “off-line” events.
•  Australian Frequent Flyers wine lovers– enrol to reduce maddening ads; this is a great place for bargain hunters to pick up discount codes, identities of mystery wines, and some wines to avoid!