Top 5 spoof Twitter accounts

We point to five of the top Twitter accounts that humorously take on the role of some well-known, and entirely fabricated, wine personalities.

Twitter is full of genuine people telling you all about their real lives, opinions and breakfast habits.

It’s also a place where users can create their own world in an anonymous way, and inhabit those roles completely in character, tweeting sometimes witty, often controversial comments that raise a smile in their followers and prick the pomposity sometimes associated with their real life counterparts.

Spoof celebrity accounts are rife across the Twitter-sphere, but they also exist in the drinks world.

We look at an amalgam of American wine critics, a destructive insect tweeting its views, a straight-talking sommelier and a pedantic wine grammarian.

Cultivar Awareness (@cultivar_bot)

@hellovino The use of the word “varietal” as a noun results in a Chablis-constructed sentence.

— Cultivar Awareness (@cultivar_bot) August 14, 2012

This campaigning tweeter pushes out automated responses to anyone who utters the word ‘varietal’ on Twitter … when they really mean ‘variety’, and wraps the tweets up with plenty of grape variety-based puns. These puns are often toe-curlingly corny– but somehow cultivar_bot maintains its humour throughout.

Bobby Parkerchuk (@bparkerchuk)

…rain…with no #THUNDER…is like cabernet…without 200% new oak… enobytes.com/2011/12/19/par…

— Bobby Parkerchuk (@bparkerchuk) December 20, 2011

This tweeter blends the zany directness of Gary Vaynerchuk, and the points-based musings of Robert Parker, and parodies them mercilessly. Sadly Parkerchuk seems to have gone quiet since the real life Gary V took a step back from wine … but he’s still a worthy inclusion in our list.

Phylloxera Vastatrix (@PhylloxeraBug)

@jonivers Chile’s like the worst beach holiday nightmare. Sand in all your food. Yuk. No, I’ll stick to easier places. Plenty of choice.

— Phylloxera Vastatrix (@PhylloxeraBug) June 13, 2012

An invasive insect tweeting like it doesn’t care too much for the niceties of wine culture. PhylloxeraBug is quite ready to take credit for disasters all over the world, and puts a phylloxera slant on the demise of companies  (“#Oddbins … that was me”). 

ShitMySommelierSays (@ShitMySommSays)

I just ordered the new Sommelier Series Riedel glasses with the 4 inch retina display.Biggest thing to happen to glasses since glasses.

— ShitMySommelierSays (@ShitMySommSays) September 12, 2012

Random musings on wine from someone who may just be a real sommelier – who knows? Finely tuned commentary on wine nomenclature and the daily grind of the sommelier. Watch out also for the sommelier’s sidekick @My AssistantSomm .

Fake Robert Parker (@robertparkerjr)

Disappointing speech last night. Needed to have more fruit. And I’m pretty sure it was filtered. A big no-no for me. 87pts

— Fake Robert Parker (@robertparkerjr) January 28, 2010

Another spoof account that seems to have dried up of late, this user tried to inhabit the world of Bob. Maybe the oak got him in the end.

If you know any other worthy contenders for this list, let us know in a comment.