It was in 2007, when I was preparing to move abroad to Stockholm for a year as an Erasmus exchange student in a few months, and I decided to finally buy an iPod nano. I had started listening to podcasts, and wanted to be able to take them with me.

At first, I mostly listened to news, current affairs and interview podcasts. I quickly started leveraging podcasts as a language learning tool too, since then I listen to English, German and Swedish podcasts.

Looking for more wine wisdom

Besides for language skills, I also discovered that podcasts are a great learning resource for all kinds of other topics. Over time, I’ve added a couple of technology podcasts to my list.

Then, after I passed my WSET Level 2 in Wines and Spirits, I decided to continue my wine education seamlessly after the course via a number of podcasts.

I subscribed to a wide selection of different ones. Now, after listening to hours of exciting wine knowledge and entertaining conversations, here are my Top Five Wine Podcasts.

Pick your podcast

• A Glass With … Olly Smith:
  Fun and entertaining interviews with famous people such as food writer Jay Rayner (Bonus 2)or pop star P!NK (Series 1, Episode 1) who mostly have a passion for wine, that I never knew of. Usually not too technical.
  (“Each episode features a celebrity guest chatting to Olly as they share a glass of wine.” /
  20–30 minutes per episode, around 10–15 episodes per year)
  🎧 on Spotify | on iTunes
• Wine Enthusiast Podcast:
  General high-quality, varied episodes. Sometimes interviews, sometimes more about a specific topic or region like “Volcanic Wines” or “Washington Wine”, often focused on USA in some way.
  (“The Wine Enthusiast Podcast takes you on a tantalizing trip into the world of wine, beer and spirits. Drink up engaging, behind-the-scenes stories reported and recorded by Wine Enthusiast’s editors.” /
  20–40 minutes per episode, 10–20 episodes per year)
  🎧 on iTunes
• Matthew’s World of Wine:
  Kind of like a WSET study book chapter, for example “California Grape Varieties” or “Pinot Noir”. Plenty of information to take in, also featuring some technical details.
  (“An educational podcast for you to listen to while you’re travelling about.” /
  10–15 minutes per episode, roughly 20 episodes per year)
  🎧 on Soundcloud | on iTunes
• Guild of Sommeliers Podcast:
  Highly educational, often quite technical — and very interesting! Episodes regularly feature different experts on one topic such as “Tannin” recently or “UK: Then and Now”.
  (“Podcasts cover varied topics on the world of wine.” /
  30–70 minutes per episode, one episode per month)
  🎧 on Spotify | on iTunes
• Interpreting Wine:
  In-depth and insightful interviews with winemakers and people in the hospitality industry and the trade, for example Mel Brown from The New Zealand Cellar in Brixton (Episode 34)or Pull about Pull The Cork Ltd (Episode 189).
  (“Coverage of wine regions, wine producing countries and wine fairs.” /
  20–30 minutes per episode, roughly one episode per day)
  🎧 on Soundcloud | on Spotify | on iTunes

Listening and learning

If you are interested in wine, I can only recommend to listen to one, or all, of the podcasts mentioned above.

For everyone who commutes to work or enjoys walking, adding podcasts to your routines are a simple way to learn something without much effort. I got to know so much by just listening on the go, that for me leaving home and turning on my podcasts has become a basic habit that complements my constantly growing reading list very well.

In our next article we will focus again more on UnscrewMe and give an overview of our first experience with social media advertisements on Facebook.

(Taking a little break from wine, I had the pleasure to taste through a coffee special at Curators Coffee, the same beans from El Salvador processed in three different ways, it was quite a lot like a wine tasting.
And then there is a wine that almost made it into the October 2018 Wine Highlights, the smooth 2013 Corvina “Veronese” by winemaker Antolini from Valpolicella Classico in the Veneto region in the North of Italy 🇮🇹 that I had over dinner at Cafe Murano in Covent Garden.)

First published in November 2018.
Also available at https://medium.com/unscrewme/top-five-wine-podcasts-55bbe491515a