An Audience With ... Me

I was invited by a friend and ex-colleague to talk to her Wine Business and Wine Production class at Plumpton College yesterday where I met a very interesting and diverse bunch of people. I wish them lots of luck with their future careers in wine.

The subject of the talk was me (jokingly referred to as "An Audience With ..."). More specifically, it was about my experience in the wine business, how I got (stumbled) into it, what I have done, and any suggestions I may have for those trying to do the same.

I will skip the vast majority of the content as it is irrelevant (and not all that interesting really), but I thought I would post a couple of the closing thoughts I had for them as they may be relevant to others, whether you are in the trade or looking to get into it.

1. Help solve a problem.

It isn't good enough to turn up to interviews with a bunch of skills but no idea what is going on in the trade. There are some key issues facing the wine trade today, what do you think they are, and what do you think your prospective employer could do (with you) to address these (profitably)?

My own, very quick, list was:

• How do we sell better wine? (upselling)
  
• How can we reach more (new) consumers?
  
• How do we grow our business responsibly?
• How do we educate consumers?

No-one expects you to answer these questions fully (and if you can, set up your own business!), but if you have thought about them and about how you can help the prospective employer put this into practice, you've got a lot more to offer than other candidates.

2. Blog!

The wine trade (in the UK) may not believe it at the moment, but I am convinced that blogging / self-publishing / consumer driven content / whatever you want to call it, will become a major influence in wine purchasing in the very near future. If nothing else, as wine retail develops online and more consumers purchase a greater range of products online, the need for recommendations and suggestions will increase. Blogging, and Wine 2.0 in general, also has the opportunity to change how we source information on wine wherever the consumer decides to buy it.

If you want to be in wine marketing in the next few years you really have to be familiar with this new trend. All it takes is to sign up to a few blogs, read them, contribute comments and share the conversation.

[I am particularly intrigued to know what they make of Wine Library TV (if anyone of you drops by, please leave me a comment) which I pointed them to as only 1 had heard of it before]

Even better, get involved and start your own. Blogging encourages you to put your own thoughts in order and encourages you to do a little more research (well, I did say a little). If you want to communicate about wine in the future day job, why not start now?

Also, the more there are of us providing interesting content, the better the general knowledge archive will be. Blog posts are permanent records, however well or badly they are written, and a well-meaning post, properly researched, might turn out to be invaluable to others

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A Final Thought

We need more people to join the wine trade not just because they love wine, but because they have something to offer to improve the business. If you can find a way to tap into consumers needs and ways of thinking, then there will be lots of people willing to give you that dream job you are looking for!

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.

Are you serious?

I'm almost afraid to post something today in case it is taken to be a joke, being April Fools Day and all, so I'll risk making a few statements today about some ongoing discussions about wine. I will go on to explore them in more detail when, hopefully, I might be taken more seriously (but I doubt it):

1. The results of the American Wine Blog Awards have been announced

2. Kids should be allowed to explore alcohol at home with the family

3. We need to keep refreshing the wine blogging gene pool with more readers' comments

4. Bloggers need to refocus on the consumer or risk being distracted by the cool toys

5. And while we are at it, how is Gary like Oz & James?

Wine Rating and Dating

I have touched on this once before in The Conversation Starter, but wine and dating are a good match (excuse the pun).

At the time Nicolla Greaves was organising occasional evenings on behalf of the WSET and they certainly caught some people's attention.

Nicolla is still with the WSET but has obviously decided that there is a future in matching wine tastings & education with the proper business of finding a soul mate (at least one who will hopefully understand your obsessional wine buying habits in years to come).

She and Nigel Littlewood, with a background in running bars, have set up an events company dedicated to this new aspect of the wine business (or is it a new aspect of the love business?).

I must say that the idea of a speed dating event terrifies me, but then being happily married (and maybe even above the usual age profile) I am not the target market. However I may have 1 or 2 young, single readers out there looking to put their hard won knowledge of wine to good use [and if it works out, do let me know in the comments]. I think the idea of having a topic of conversation like wine to kick off your first meeting is a good idea. Wine is a topic that says something about a person, whether they consider themselves a 'wine geek' (not that I expect ANYONE to use that term on the night) or 'novice', you can still have a view.

So, if you fancy it (!), why not check out their site and go along to one of their events (first one is on the 7th of April).

Oh, and if you've bought one of those wine notebooks it could easily double up for taking down his/her number or email address!

Good luck! After all, as they say, "it is all a matter of taste"

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.

Portable Wine Tasting Device (no batteries required)

Sometimes, wine bloggers have been known to lack inspiration, wondering what to talk about next and hoping that an idea might just walk up to them, tap them on the shoulder and say, "Hi! I bet people would like to read about me".

Unfortunately, most of the time that doesn't happen.

But, like that dodgy chat-up line that fails 99% of the time, you can always dream that this time will be the 1% "pay-off".

Thank goodness for Steve De Long!

I was casually getting on with my day job recently when all of a sudden a rather charming man walks up to me and says "Hi!" (he forgot to mention the bit about the "I bet people would like to read about me", but I think he can be forgiven this time.)

It so happens that Steve is one of those virtual friends I mentioned recently, someone I met through the OpenWine Consortium.

Having mentioned I would be attending the Wines from Spain tasting in London in a comment, Steve, who happened to be visiting the same event, came round to introduce himself. We chatted about various things, he showed me an exciting project he is working on (which may be secret so I will not mention it) and left me a parting gift.

Now, it being a day job sort of day I was rather distracted, so I waited until I got home to investigate the gift.

To my surprise it was a very useful booklet which he has put together (with his wife I believe) that any aspiring wine enthusiast ought to have. The booklet is a 60-page wine tasting note archive where each page has all the reminders and key terms you might need to start the habit of taking tasting notes on the wines you drink.

It allows you to easily keep names and key details of the wines and highlight characteristics of colour, aroma and taste (using your own words or easily circling the pre-printed options).

Anyone starting out in wine will tell you that keeping track of what you taste can be daunting, and remembering all the different things you are supposed to judge can be tricky, so it is great to see it in a handy booklet that is also easy to keep on you for 'emergencies".

Best of all, there is even a cheat sheet in the back with lists of possible smells (aromas), useful terms and even faults.

I know I shall be buying a few for my relatives (sorry for spoiling the surprise if you are reading this) and in terms of the Wine Conversation, I applaud the goal of making it easy for anyone starting out on a wine tasting journey to track their progress.

One of the drawbacks of such a fragmented market for wines, where supermarkets can carry 600+ wines each and every restaurant has a different list, is that it is hard to remember what you have tried, and liked, before. This I imagine could be great tool (if used regularly - but isn't that the same for any tool?) for those of us with dodgy memories.

So, thanks Steve! I appreciate the gift and if anyone feels they too might be interested in tracking the wines they drink I recommend you check out www.delongwine.com