Blogging Matters to Harpers

I had a piece published on the Harpers, or should I say Talking Drinks, web page yesterday.

I had been talking to their web editor for some months as I knew they were looking at this area, and we had similar views. He invited me to write a short piece about the state of blogging and introducing the concept of blogs to their (probably sceptical) readers.

Hopefully I did the latter, but there wasn't room enough to explore all the sorts of conversations that are going on in the space available. That's what I do more of here.

If you are interested, please take a read and let me know your thoughts on "Why does wine blogging matter?" and pass on the link to others as well.

The wine business has always sought ways to reach out to consumers and communicate the personality and individuality of their wines, and now blogging - whether it be by the winemaker, the consumer with first-hand experience, or the trade professional offering a trusted review, makes this possible.

Lots of fun stuff to discuss at the upcoming European Wine Bloggers Conference

See you there?

A very social media

It seems I am spending more of my time socialising than writing about social media at the moment.

Last week I was off to Windsor to meet Joe Roberts and Andrew Barrow, then on Friday I met up with the "Lewisham Bloggers" (a local grouping of bloggers on a whole range of topics, living in this part of London), and last night it was the London Bloggers.

Wow! What a night for someone who spends so much of their day involved in social media sites like me ("My name is Robert, and I'm a SocialMediaChat-a-Holic")

One of the great things about blogging, as I have mentioned before, is that you meet all sorts of different people around the world who share your interests and passions. But one of the other aspects is that, as bloggers, we are in the business of building communities, and we are therefore, it seems to me, interested in all sorts of other communities as well.

Last night I had great conversations about wine (amongst other things), but none of them with other wine bloggers. There was the digital marketing consultant, the Food & Drink Editor, the Digital PR strategist, the Underground blogger (I was particularly excited to meet Annie Mole, I must admit), the Digital Brand & Marketing Commentator, and many more.

One of the things I learned is that if you want to be taken seriously in these circles there is one "must-have" item.

Not a 3G iPhone.

It is a Moo Card.

I started picking up a few of these last night, and by the third or fourth, I felt like apologising for only having my "boring, traditional" cards to give in return. So my Moo cards are on order right now!

It was interesting to meet all sorts of people, and all levels of bloggers - from the A-listers to those starting out, and generally just have fun without having to explain (again) why I spend so much time on these sites.

A particularly big thank you to Stella Artois for sponsoring the evening, not only with some drinks for everyone, but also offering a prize in their airship.

Oh, I should mention THAT I WON A TRIP IN THE AIRSHIP!!!!!


I'll be posting photos here after the trip, currently scheduled for this Friday.

[I wish I had an airship to use for promotions!]

Thanks to everyone for the evening, and I'll update this post with links to other round-ups as I come across them.

Some other round-ups:
London Underground Blog
Social PRobiotic

You can't share a bottle online

I really enjoy building online relationships and keeping in touch with a great range of people through blogs, comments, facebook, twitter, Open Wine Consortium, etc., but the ultimate goal, really, is to make 'real' friends.

So when I saw a 'tweet' by @1WineDude, otherwise known as Joe Roberts who blogs at 1winedude.blogspot.com out of Philadephia, mentioning that he would be in the UK, I jumped at the chance to meet up with him and share a glass, or two, of wine.

Andrew Barrow from Spittoon joined the party and we met up at The Two Brewers in Windsor.

We talked about wine, blogging, US vs. UK, music, food and all the sorts of stuff people who have known each other for a long time would talk about, yet we'd only met an hour beforehand.

It was fun, and if any other wine blogger out there is planning on passing through London, or its environs, do get in touch so we might arrange a get together of our own.

Two of the topics we discussed which are worth bringing up here, were:

The serving temperature of wine, particularly reds. The Two Brewers is a great place to go for wine as it has a limited, but adventurous wine list. However, the UK is not built to deal with heatwaves, and our bottle of Chateau Musar 2000 arrived too warm (as did the later bottle of Astrolabe Pinot Noir 2006). No problem! Drop them in the icebucket left over from the Rose (from Provence, but label had washed off). We did get a reputation from the staff for "liking chilled red wine", so I had to point out we were only lowering it to where it ought to be, around 18 degrees. The idea that serving at 'room temperature' does not mean "whatever temperature your room happens to be" has yet to filter down properly. This is Confessions of Wino's personal crusade, and I'm happy to support it.

Bloggers need to work together more. This one was more controversial, and I must admit it is my own agenda. I do believe that we need to find ways of doing things together that go beyond links and comments if we are to have real impact. This is the subject for what is going to be discussed at the European Wine Bloggers Conference, as well as the North American one, so expect to see more on this.

My thanks Joe and Andrew for a great evening. Let's do it again soon.

Interactive Wine Sites

Over the next few days, thanks to their well established brand and their PR muscle, you'll probably see several headlines like this one:

Roederer champagne launches new interactive website

I don't know about you, but the interaction I want with my wine involves drinking it!

I don't understand these Flash-based websites (you might want to go off and start the page loading, then return to read the article while you wait - but remember to turn the sound off).

The vast majority of people browsing the internet for wine are looking for:

1. background details
2. stockist information
3. a 'deal'
4. fun

(check out Able Grape's take on this too)

Using Flash to promote your wine brand is like hiring a stand-up comedian with ADHD to be your spokesperson - however amusing he may be, he is getting in the way of the message.

Sure, with Flash you get bells and whistles. In fact, the Louis Roederer site is like a unicycling bear that is playing La Marseillaise on his bells and whistles, but what are they doing to address the needs of the customers? What is the goal of the 'interactivity' on this site?

(oh, and by the way, that unicycling bear keeps falling off and his bells are out of tune - the sound on the site is awful and I keep getting stuck, unable to go back)

Joel Vincent made an interesting observation on a recent post on his blog Wine Life Today:

My bottom line points are simple. I’ve written about and preached on the “Wine Life Value Chain” where I talk about how the strength of a relationship basically has direct correlation to influencing a wine buyer. The closer you are, sociallogically, to the source of a wine recommendation the faster and more likely you are to buy it. So with that theorum guiding my thoughts we look at social media.

Flash CAN be a great tool to aid this relationship, but all too often it seems to be used to create a barrier between the people behind a wine and its consumers - something akin to a prestidigitator's distraction technique.

One might argue that this is exactly how Champagne has managed to create a strong stylish brand, separating itself from its plain and homely still wine cousins - we're missing that 'magic' ingredient. Maybe that is why it was used and I'm the one who is missing the point.

In any case, my preference is for sites that engage me in a meaningful relationship, that have answers to my questions and encourage me to commit myself in some way to the brand in the way they are doing with me.

The interactivity I seek is knowing that the winery, or winemaker, cares what I think, and helps me to both taste and understand their wines. Here are a couple I have come across recently that make me feel this way.

• Cortes de Cima
• La Gramiere

Neither of these sites has spent anything like the amount of money Louis Roederer must have done, but I get so much more out of them because I feel I know the wine, the people and the reasons for their existence so much better and on a more personal level.

And talking of interactivity, I'd love to hear your comments on these sites as well. Have I missed the point on the Champagne site, or am I too committed to blogs? Let me know.

(Photo Let it Float, courtesy of hashmil)

Thoughts on a European community

Gabriella asked me an interesting question regarding the European Wine Bloggers' Conference yesterday. We have focused a lot on getting bloggers excited about the opportunity of the conference, but what do our READERS think about it? Why should THEY care?

Admittedly we have not clarified that point very much, although it has always been part of our thinking.

Ryan and Gabriella were kind enough to post my response on their site, which you probably already read, but just in case, check it out here:

Why Should Readers Care About the European Wine Blogger Conference?

"In my view, the most important goal of the European Wine Bloggers’ Conference is to start a conversation between the European voices at this party. Readers in Europe, and indeed the rest of the world, want to hear a familiar perspective on wine and one that is relevant to them."

The thoughts of a Winefarmer

I've been meaning to say something about a blog I found some time ago (can it really be over a year?) but somehow I never knew how to put it correctly so I didn't, and now I feel guilty.

I feel guilty because Rob (that's him, not me) has a unique voice in wine blogging and I think we could all do with a dose of this reality.

So many blogs, including this one, dwell only on the consumption of wine. We agonise over how to rate a wine, how to share the drinking experience, where to spend our money, and maybe a little about those trips out to vineyards and to meet winemakers.

For most of us, that is our relationship with wine - as consumers.

There is a separate breed. Blogging winemakers. They know a lot more about the process of making wine and the real effort that goes into making those bottles we gratefully, or otherwise, consume and critique. But even these blogs are often removed from the toil of the everyday effort involved in running a vineyard.

How might we ensure we do not forget that wine truly is an agricultural product, a product of nature, sweat and toil? Read this blog!

http://winefarmer.wordpress.com - Winefarmer's Weblog

Rob manages to convey some of the reality of working in the vineyard. It isn't a straight diary and it isn't philosophical musings. What it is, is the honest, uninhibited thoughts of an obviously very intelligent and creative human being who likes working with nature.

I admit to not being a particularly well read individual, so I probably shouldn't compare his style to other authors, but to me at least, there are echoes of John Steinbeck in his writing.

He covers organic farming, vineyard working practices, cultural issues he faces working alongside largely Mexican labourers, the tragedies of manual labour (some are very sad - read to the last section), and even astrology, astronomy and nature.

I urge you to take a look and subscribe. He doesn't update it very regularly (who am I to fault that?) so it won't overload your daily reading, but maybe help to give all the rest some context.

Thanks Rob!

Ratings and Recommendations

There are so many articles on the topic or rating and reviewing wines that I hesitate to write another one, but one thing I have discovered in my brief research is that almost all of it is based on attacking or defending the 100 point scale.

In fact, in my very first post on this blog (back in June 2006) I said:

This is not a site about wine tasting notes, collecting and investing in 'fine' wines, ranting against the 100-point systems and a certain reviewer (although it may come up from time to time) or matching it with food. When I say "Wine Culture" I am thinking of how the vine, its fruit and the fermented by-product has played some role in our lives for thousands of years, and how even today this agricultural product is present in our digitised, mechanised and hectic lives. Just as well.

However, the European Wine Bloggers' Conference is encouraging us to discuss the issues that ALL wine bloggers face, and this is most certainly one of them. One of the latest posts by Ryan Opaz is:

To Rate or Not to Rate - That is the Question

There is a high likelihood that if you have a wine blog you will be tasting wines and writing up the results in some manner (there are a few weird sites like mine that don't, but we are not common). If so, should you be rating them for your readers?

One argument, for example here on Fermentation, is that wines ought to be judged on some objective criteria, whatever these may be, and if we fail to establish what these are and how they are measured, then the whole business of rating is worthless.

On the other hand, companies like Wine Spectator, rely on a fixed scale to be able to classify the thousands of wines they deal with.

But where do bloggers come into this?

One of the themes that keeps coming up in my thinking about wine blogs is that the majority of them are NOT objective writers trying to be "journalists", but rather they are, and should be, individuals with opinions looking to entertain. This means that we bloggers should be encouraged to say what we think, whether we are experts on the subject at hand or not, just as we would in a conversation with friends, not writing a piece for Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Wine reviews in this context are not supposed to be "objective" reviews. You don't go round talking to your friends about that 88 point wine you drank the other night, do you? In fact, these are a form of word of mouth recommendation and as such a recommendation should be simple; buy it, or don't buy it!

If bloggers could agree on this as the start of a common recommendation system, we would have a way of cooperating and make wine blogs a more influential voice for consumers looking for recommendations and information (as discussed recently on 1 Wine Dude).

And what would this scale look like? It could be simple binary: yes/no; toast/bury; etc. but this is a little too simple even if it is a model that works elsewhere.

I would like to throw out the following for discussion, and I'm sure someone, somewhere, is already doing this, but unfortunately I have not come across this*:

+2 I loved it and would really recommend you buy this
+1 It was OK and largely worth the money
0 OK, reasonable but not memorable and there are probably better options for your money
-1 A bad investment of time and money.
-2 I hated it. Avoid at all costs.

Points to note:
1. It uses +/- numbers so that the aggregate reviews can be summed, and strong feelings have more impact than lukewarm ones, after all there is a difference between a recommendation that sounds like "Yeah, buy it I suppose" and "go out and buy all the bottles you can, now!"

2. It is based on no more than personal opinion at that point in time (taking into account cost, perceived value, quality, context, etc.)

3. It gets around the issue of the "great value" wine that only scored 87 points, compared to the exhorbitantly expensive 93 pointer. Which would you rather recommend more to your friends?

4. It could be refined further, but ought to remain simple

Most bloggers I know who rate wines point out that this is just their point of view and you need to read the rest of the text about quality and context anyway. They also point out that it is only a reference point and that once you get to know them, you can get a feel for whether you have similar tastes, and therefore whether you could use their ratings as a guide to your own shopping.

In this case, let's ditch the intermediary step and go straight to the heart of the matter - buy it, or don't buy it.


* this is not completely true as I read a blog some years ago that had something like this but I cannot locate it any more as the conversation about 100-point scales drowns out all other discussions. Please send me any suggestions for where to find such scales.

UK Blog Fest

In my last post about the LIWF I mentioned that I happened to run into lots of interesting people at the show.

Whilst I'm sure most of the people I spoke to had interesting stories to tell, I did not know them well enough to make much of the 5 minutes we had together beyond trying to tell them the story of my wines.

On the other hand, having got to "know" them over the last few years by reading their output, the vast majority of the most interesting people I spoke to happened to be other UK wine bloggers.

What was interesting to me was the fact that last year none of us might have bothered to seek the others out, or maybe even present ourselves as "wine bloggers", but this year we are joining forces, proud of our medium and even getting some benefit from it.

Maybe it is my own experience alone, but it feels like this year marked a BIG change for wine blogs in the UK wine trade. I think I might propose that next year Brintex host a UK Wine Bloggers Area, where we wine bloggers can hang out and meet those who regularly read our blogs. What do you think?

In the three days of the show I bumped into:

Peter May; The Pinotage Club
Peter was kind enough to come to the stand to meet me. He was meeting up for lunch with other wine-pages.com contributors and wondered whether I wanted to come along. It was great to meet "Mr. Pinotage" even if he failed to turn up with the fedora I hoped he would be wearing.

Thank you Peter for some great comments and for insightful questions. We are still due our own catch-up!

Douglas Blyde; The Daily Wine
Douglas thought he could sneak by my stand, but unfortunately for him I make up for an absolutely dreadful memory for names with a pretty damn good one for faces, and having seen a photo or two of him on his site, he was snared!

I really like Douglas' reviewing style, often somewhat cruelly direct, but I'm sure not undeserved. He turned out to be a much mellower, polite and reserved person when face-to-face, but pretty much as I had pictured him.

Keep investigating Douglas, we need more individual and insightful reviews like yours!

Andrew Barrow; Spittoon.biz
Jeanne Horak; Cooksister.com

Andrew and Jeanne turned up together which was fun, a bit like a reunion of our visit to Vivat Bacchus. I suspect that the LIWF was a little overwhelming for Jeanne, but hopefully she enjoyed it (?).

Jamie Goode; Wine Anorak
Jamie was far too busy to stop and taste (if you read his blog you'll understand why), but he did "pass by", so I think it is fair to add him in (he did seem rushed, and that is saying something by LIWF standards).

And since the event I have also heard from a blogger that I didn't manage to meet as he too was stressed out on his stand, but was kind enough to leave me a note:

Colin Smith; Grapefan
Good luck with your Diploma!

Thank you to all the bloggers for helping to make this a much more interesting, and personal, show. I hope those who stopped to taste with me enjoyed the wines and the chat, and I do hope we can all plan a bigger UK get-together in the near future

I wonder whether we might even create our own, blogger-led tasting for consumers in the near future. What do you think?

UPDATE: Damn! Forgot to mention Olly Smith. His own 'regular'-ish Hot Bottle email seems to be on-hold, but I think Olly should DEFINITELY start his own wine blog as I honestly think he is one of the most genuinely entertaining and funny people in the wine trade at the moment. Olly, we still need to speak about that business about the loo!

Time for a Blog Diet

I didn't mean to post this tonight, and not having planned it, I hope I can make it sound sensible.

I need to go on the blogging equivalent of a diet.

I have been feasting for far too long on all the information, developments, discussions, community-building and social networking that is going on. One appetising plate is presented after another, keeping you busy gorging without realising that the party is getting stale and you are not actually talking to anyone as you are too busy stuffing your face.

I mean that metaphorically of course.

I keep finding new and interesting discussions out there about wine. I currently subscribe to (only) 133 blogs; 48 General & International wine blogs, 27 UK wine blogs, and many more local, food, marketing, news and other topics.

It is simply too much to read and I am only scratching the surface.

I have been busy with work and my family for the last week, and I already have 230 unread items in the feed reader, plus I have hardly posted on my own blogs for weeks.

Enough!

More importantly, I should not be boring you about reading blogs, but in theory discussing wine, wine culture and wine related developments.

A friend of mine jokingly pointed out that the discussions about what wine blogging needed were fewer discussions about wine blogging, and I think he is right to an extent.

Maybe there ought to be two kinds of bloggers - posters and linkers.

I am going to have to go on a blog diet. As well as having to focus on the day job and attend the London Wine Trade Fair, I will stop reading 90% of sites I normally follow regularly - at least until I get back into my stride.

I must stop reading and start thinking and creating interesting content to make it worthwhile for you to keep reading this blog and not turn me off as I am going to have to do (temporarily) to other blogs - assuming you have not already done that.

It did make me think though. I am keen to find out what others think, and join in on their conversations, so I try and read what others I respect have to say. I try and leave my thoughts, and where relevant, post my ideas on my blog too. However, once I spend any available time reading and commenting, there is hardly any time left for any writing of my own.

Maybe there ought to be two kinds of bloggers - posters and linkers. There are always going to be those who want to write something new and original (well, they will try), but there are also those out there who like to dig, delve and find, and they are best at linking people up to relevant content and maybe even find previously unnoticed links between existing content.

If we could leverage both types, then each would benefit the other and we would have better content, and more ways to find it, but at the moment bloggers will continue to grapple with the dichotomy of being producers and consumers of information, and the complications of keeping blogs ticking over.

This week things will be quiet unless something drastic happens at the LIWF, but next week I hope to post in earnest.

Hopefully I shall return leaner and meaner, and ready for the fight.

Now, that kind waiter is heading my way with what looks like a wafer-thin mint and I really do love to finish a meal with a mint.

Meeting wine bloggers

Following on from my day meeting with the authors of food and wine blogs at Spittoon, Cooksister and Interwined, I have just come back from meeting Alastair Bathgate of Confessions of a Wino.

I mentioned in the last post that blogging, in my experience, has been the opposite of the lonely, individualistic pursuit normally associated with this medium, and here is another perfect example of how the stereotype is wrong.

Alastair himself is a high powered enterprise software business person, but his other interests include wine - so he writes about them, and restaurants, on his blog. Why not?

In fact, he is already one of the most visited UK wine blogs and is already on the "press" list of UK retailers. Very impressive for someone who professes only to write what he thinks and to do so in his spare time.

I happened to be in his area for work so I got in touch. In any other medium that would seem weird, but I feel I know something about him by reading his blog and that, never even having spoken to him, we share lots of interests and are almost "friends".

It turns out he is almost exactly as I pictured him (only a little younger and slimmer!) and we had a great conversation about wine rating, blogging, Pinot Noir, and loads of other stuff I don't really recall having consumed the last bottle a little too fast.

I think I will set myself the target to meet every blogger on my list of UK wine blogs as soon as possible so that we can start to work together to raise the profile of wine blogging in the UK, and also dispel the idea that we are either too amateur or unreliable to bother listening to. Everyone I have met so far is a real character with a very interesting point of view and totally committed to wine, and to encouraging others to enjoy it too.

If you are a UK wine blogger, please get in touch so we might plan getting together either in London or locally to you. If you read other blogs, check out the list here and make sure your favourites are included so I know who else is out there making a difference.

Vivat Spittoon and Cooksister

Just a quick post to tell you to look elsewhere, specifically here, on Andrew Barrow's Spittoon site, for a review of a lovely evening of wine, food, photography and blogging (well, I think we talked about it anyway).

Andrew has very graciously used my photos from that evening on his site, a particular honour as his site is the my main reference for the best wine photography.

Nice to meet cooksister too. I have yet to get properly immersed in the world of food blogs, but I shall certainly be following her site from now on.

This, to me anyway, is a great riposte to those who look down on the 'antisocial' aspect of blogging - writing away on your own, usually late at night. Blogging has introduced me to lots of great people I would not have met otherwise, and for that I am very grateful, particularly to those who read this site and comment, and keep me going.

Multiple Personality Issues

I'll announce the details about the actual project in due course, but I am starting a new blog elsewhere so that I can cover some of the topics that I expressly forbade myself from covering on this blog.

My intention here was always just to "talk wine", not drink it, sell it or even make money from it. There were few places to get some of these thoughts and I believed that I could have some fun putting my own point of view out there to see what happened.

I never expected it to get all that far, and really it was as much an experiment that would allow me to join the "blogging conversation" as much as it was my contribution to the "wine conversation".

Now, I feel well and truly captivate by blogging. It makes a major difference to my life, where I make plans according to the time available for blog reading and posting. It opens doors to conversations with wine professionals in the UK and around the world. It even gives me excuses to plan exciting events.

I have always had more than one blog, having started a local interest blog right at the beginning of the adventure (now largely untouched), and also contributing to several others.

However, I will now have two personal wine blogs, both of which are important to me. The question is whether I will have to develop a full blown multiple personality trait to allow me to separate one from the other, or whether one will eventually win out over the other?

I will have to wait and see. I hope both turn out to have a role to play, however small. I trust you will forgive me if I split my attention between the two, and also stick with me while I find my feet blogging "over there" about things I have tried hard not to cover here in the time (almost 2 years) that this blog has been going.

More details soon.

List of Irish Wine Blogs

You may have noticed that among the updates to the blogroll I made a few days ago I also separated out the wine blogs that are written in Ireland.

The list is as comprehensive as I can make it (for the blogs anyway, plenty of retail sites), which is saying something as it only contains 4 entries [updated; there are now a few more; check below for the latest list]

• Bubble Brothers


• Irish Wine Contemplations


• Irish Wine Course


• On the Grapevine


• Robert Francis Wine


• Simon Tyrrell


• Sour Grapes

Simon Tyrrell's blog seems to be fairly intermittent and I only started following it recently, but I do recommend you check out the others that are all in my feed reader already.

If you know of any more out there, please do let me know as Ireland does need more blogs like these to develop and nurture the Irish wine culture.

Last updated: 22/07/2008

List of UK Wine Blogs

I have updated this list a lot from the time this page was published.

For the latest list of UK Wine Blogs, visit The Wine Conversation UK Wine Blog List

Your views on Wine Experts

Andrew Jefford has issued a request for views regarding:

"whether the palates of professional wine buyers, sommeliers and wine critics are ‘too developed’."

This is for an article in Decanter, so get on down to his site and leave him some thoughts on the world of wine reviews, wine buying and even wine service.

I have left my initial thoughts on his site (still pending comment moderation at this time), and I think readers of this blog, many of you bloggers and trade professionals yourselves, will have your own views. Why not have them published in Decanter?

Refreshing the idea gene pool

Any group can become insular and cliquey without outside ideas and influences.

I have seen it in all sorts of parts of my life, particularly in small businesses growing rapidly. At first the "entrepreneurs" just get on with the many tasks in hand, ploughing their own furrow. Eventually there is a social bond between the founders that keeps the business really successful, ... but it also difficult for newcomers to join the inner circle.

It isn't planned that way, but those who have been involved from the start have a shared history, language and experience (and in-jokes) that newcomers don't 'get', and so feel/are excluded.

With all the 'cooperation' activity going on, is it possible that wine blogging is heading the same way at the moment?

I really don't think so, but it is easy to fall into the trap of talking too much to each other and not to the average wine consumer/reader out there. It is certainly a charge levelled at us by some in the traditional Press, so we must address this in some way.

One problem is that it is in the nature of wine bloggers in particular to be cooperative, after all we are not competing for business, we are actually, really and willingly working together to "float all boats". Our readers can easily subscribe to a number of blogs as they only need to read one article per visit and then move away to the others, following links or some other RSS feeds.

We must remember that bloggers are as much consumers of information as producers. Most importantly, we don't need to keep readers trapped and clicking all around the place like certain sites.

Wine/Web 2.0 is supposed to be about interaction, two-way communication and conversations between publishers and readers, but, to coin a phrase, not all readers are created equal.

Bloggers read and link to each other a lot. It means we are very familiar with the personalities on these other blogs and also with the software, the etiquette and the writer's need for interaction, so it is actually bloggers that are the most frequent commenters on other blogs.

Once you add in social networking on facebook, Open Wine Consortium, Twitter, etc. we end up spending a great deal of time talking to each other. We even have shared activities such as Wine Blog Awards, Wine Blogging Wednesday and, dare I say it, Wine Conferences (and even wine blogging lampoons)

In themselves these are not bad things as there are lots of benefits to us cooperating and sharing best practice, technical and moral support and also growing the awareness of blogging. But wine bloggers need to ensure that the key audience, the blog reading consumer looking for information on what wines to buy, why and where, does not feel excluded.

Ryan at Catavino (see, I did it again!) recently pointed out that even well educated, well informed readers are uneasy and uncomfortable joining the conversation. We need to ask ourselves why?!

This blog is a major offender, but then my subject is to blog about things like blogging in wine after all rather than provide information on specific wines. I'd guess that the vast majority of my regular readers are bloggers themselves. I'd be glad to be proven wrong - if so, leave me a comment and let me know what brings you here.

So I have a suggestion and a request:

Bloggers, we must do more to incorporate comments into our posts. Many blog templates (including this one) relegate comments to secondary pages making a conversation very hard. Can anyone suggest a better way to do this?*

Readers; leave a comment! Anything will do. Any extra information you can provide is likely to be very gratefully received, but even a simple "thanks" or "that's not right" will do. Not only that, but suggestions and questions are the germs of ideas for future posts and discussions. If these are on things that matter to you the site will be even more interesting and valuable, and the gene pool of ideas will be that much more varied and healthy.


* I will be making changes to this blog very soon to try and put some of this into practice myself.

Great new wine reading resource

A few other bloggers out there have already mentioned this, so you may have come across it, but there is a new list of "Top" wine blogs and sites for your perusal.

Check out wine.alltop.com

I won't brag about my inclusion as I admit I sent a begging letter to have my site added (no shame!), nor will I mention where you can find me as the list moves about as more sites are added.

However, as a place to start your exploration of wine content online you could definitely learn a lot from this list of sites (and a pretty cool layout, too).

What awards are we talking about?

If you have read my blog for a while then you'll have seen some posts on the American Wine Blog Awards and know that for one reason or another I think that they could be improved (in particular that there are plenty of other blogs out there that are not American).

However, the reaction in the wine blogging fraternity to the list of finalists has been rather negative (except for those who qualified, of course!) and concentrating a little more on who DIDN'T qualify rather than who DID.

Here are some reactions:

Jill at Domaine547
Tim at Winecast
EnoBytes

I just wanted to put it on the record that despite my misgivings about the US centric nature of the awards, I think they are a good idea and will help to introduce quality new blogs to a wider audience. I've been doing this for some time now and I hadn't heard of a great percentage of these finalists before.

There is already talk of creating a new award, one that would be broader in scope (not just bloggers) and reach (not just Americans around the world). I applaud the idea, but let's not take away from the PR efforts Tom Wark at Fermentation is doing and maybe keep those discussions for later?

If you haven't voted, I do urge you to take a look at the site as there are some very interesting sites in the running and you too might discover a new gem.

All of which reminds me that I MUST update the blog roll with all sorts of new sites and blogs I read regularly. I am still thinking about how I might organise it so any suggestions of sites that should be included (yours?) are still welcome.

Late night post (updated)

It is already late, but I thought I'd keep the site ticking along with a quick post to thank Bodegas Tintoralba for hosting a very nice evening with their wines and some good food.

Many may imagine that working in the wine trade is an endless series of wine & cheese parties, or raucous Bacchanalian soirees, but it isn't the case (not really anyway). It is both much better and not nearly as exciting as that.

I have often been to events in a professional capacity (either hosting events to promote wines I am working on, or being targeted by those who might hope for me to sell their wines). However, I can't recall any event before this where I was invited because I was a wine blogger.

I do not review wines, and I am not about to start on this occasion, but I would like to thank this winery for having the open-mindedness and confidence to organise an event almost exclusively for food and wine bloggers. I met lots of people this evening whose sites I have read or have come across in the various social networks I have mentioned before. That alone was worth trekking around Barcelona for, and good wine on top made it even better.

It has certainly made me want to explore the interesting world of "tintorera" (teinturier) grapes in a bit more detail. I must say that the name Alicante Bouschet comes up regularly (for WSET Advanced and Diploma students anyway) on this subject and I had not realised that it was the same as the variety used for some of the more interesting wines from this winery, but here called "Garnacha Tintorera".

More information on the evening including some of the other bloggers who attended, and on Alimentaria itself too, in the near future.

[UPDATE: One great thing about blogging is if you find interesting and relevant content you can just link to it. Rather than me researching the list of attendees to the event I can send you to Catavino's post instead. Thanks Gabriella!]

[more photos from the evening here]

The "its really about drinking wine" conference

OK, the cat is now out of the proverbial bag.

Ryan and Gabriella over at Catavino have just posted news of some discussions that have been going on for a few months about a Wine Bloggers' Conference in Europe.

A few months ago a group for wine bloggers on facebook suddenly exploded with creative energy and all sorts of stuff was discussed. Conferences, dinners, tastings, "pimp my blog", "am I sexy or not?" (OK maybe not the last one). But, just like most facebook groups, very little came of it, but at least the doors were opened.

One of the most interesting ideas was that Wine Bloggers should get together to share ideas, drink some wine, meet their peers and generally have a good time. Unfortunately we are not a rich bunch, and on top of that, there is a great difference between the state of blogging in the US and the rest of the world.

While our American cousins imagined exhibition stands, multi-track conferences, discussions on alternative platforms, revenue-generation, wine2.0, etc. those of us in Europe preferred to start with a dinner with lots of wine and friendly conversation, and maybe go from there (which I think is what is also now happening in the US).

Ryan, Gabriella and I took it upon ourselves to see that something would happen, however small, in Europe in 2008.

So, here we are. Do you blog? What are you doing the weekend of August 29-31, 2008?

Our plan is to gather in Rioja for that dinner, wine and conversation and maybe take the opportunity to visit this famous area and some of its wineries (in the interests of transparency and disclosure I would point out that I work for Dinastia Vivanco in the UK). Lots more details can be found here.

If you fancy joining us, or getting involved in any way, get in touch with me here or on Catavino.net. Although we will probably focus on European issues, this event is open to anyone who blogs about wine, however peripherally, and in whatever language.

Come and join us, it'll be fun!