An Anorak is one of those silly fake-fur lined hooded coats worn by people who like to stay warm during winter but don’t really care that they look ridiculous. Why everyone can’t survive -10 F° weather in nothing but a Morissey t-shirt and a hoodie from some obscure band that’s fronted by some guy who wishes he was Morissey is beyond me.
Indie Rocker Parka Pose
Anorak is also British slang, Brit-speak, if you will, for someone who’s abnormally obsessed with something. Allegedly it’s derived from the proclivity of train-spotters to wear Anoraks, and apparently train-spotters are pretty much batshit crazy about looking at trains. It takes a village.
None of this was common knowledge to me until I stumbled upon Jamie Goode’s indispensable website, the Wine Anorak. In the days before I discovered wine blogs, his site and The Wine Doctor were my go-to internet portals for any question I had about wine. Heck, they still pretty much are.
The breadth of Jamie Goode’s wine knowledge and his agility in discussing wine from so many different angles is awe inspiring. Beyond Jancis Robinson and Hugh Johnson, I don’t know if there are any wine writers who are more vinously endowed. You need to be reading this stuff.
(picture via iluvrhinestones’ photostream)
