Gluck's new wine texting service

Published: 23 July, 2008

Malcolm Gluck has written his last edition of Superplonk, and will now provide weekly recommendations by text message in his new service, The Glug Report.

For 3 a month, subscribers will receive a text message every Friday morning with a selection of six wines. Gluck admitted that the fee was outrageously expensive' and had pushed for it to be 50p. He said he had had enough of writing Superplonk and the publisher, Harper-Collins, wanted the manuscript completed in June, which would make it as out of date as all the other wine guides'.

He said: The whole idea of wine guides in bookshops is a complete waste of time. People aren't buying them, and they don't make any money.'

Gluck has not claimed credit for the new service, which was devised by Marc Lewis, founder of ICUE, a company that enables mobile phone users to download books onto their handsets.

Gluck said that he hoped The Glug Report would become more sophisticated in the future, allowing users to choose wines by price or by country.

And on his Superplonk website, he wrote: As October and November came around, I toured the nation's bookshops hosting wine tastings, autographing wine guides. You can't, I've discovered, sign a mobile phone. But what you can do is communicate instantly and cheaply with a cellphone.'

To get The Glug Report, text glug' to 64888, and to subscribe, text on subscribe' to 82772.

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