Apologies for another in a line of short hiatus on this blog. Once again work and family take priority over my online musings, and the good news is that there are lots of interesting projects underway – I just can’t find the time (except just before midnight) to share much about them.

Other than the 2010 EWBC (have you signed up yet?), my priority at the moment is to do something a little contrary. I am considering splitting off some of my content from this site to a separate ‘home’ on Posterous, so that I can then re-integrate it here, but as a separate area. As someone who (tries to) blog about marketing and wine in the UK, I also get invited out to wine tastings, dinner and trips and I want to find a way to allow readers to select those parts of most interest to them. I also want to find the easiest ways to make sure I get you the fun stuff faster and more effectively, hence using posterous (if you have not checked it out, do!).

After that, I will try to properly integrate other content streams so that this site, or something like it, can bring more of my ramblings together in one place.

So, this place may seem a little quiet for a bit, but if you really miss me, you can check me out at any of the following places:

• Thirstforwine on twitter
• Thirstforwine on posterous
• Thirstforwine on facebook
• Thirstforwine on flickr
• Thirstforwine on linkedin
• Thirstforwine on youtube
• Thirstforwine on twitpic
• Thirstforwine on audioboo
• Thirstforwine on foursquare

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When I asked recently whether I should let you know about interesting opportunities and stories that emerged despite them being as a result of my work (in the wine business), the resounding response was yes, but please disclose it. So here’s the lowdown on the next couple of days.

I first met Fred Siriex, General Manager at Galvin at Windows, through twitter when he was one of the first top London restaurateurs to explore twitter. By coincidence I also began a commercial relationship with his restaurant when he listed the wines from Dinastia Vivanco not long after.

Fred is a mate and he happens to be an incredibly inquisitive guy, looking for new ideas and relationships, so we hit it off early on with LONG discussions about what social media could bring to restaurants and the wine business. We worked on a couple of projects involving food and wine bloggers, but we also discussed the idea of documenting more about the life of a restaurant.

Galvin organises occasional “inspiration trips” to beautiful places in the world to source new ideas for their now Michelin starred menu and restaurant, where the owner, Chris Galvin, chef Andre Garret and some customers have a brief, fun and inspiring road trip for a few days. I agreed to come the most recent trip, a journey to Champagne to visit Pommery, eat at Chateau Les Crayères and generally explore the region.

I hope to learn a little more about the food, wine and history of Champagne, but also understand what inspires Galvin and maybe inspire others to do something similar.

I trust you will enjoy the results, but I have always encouraged others to openness on their blogs, so I thought it worthwhile to make this clear.

Now, I’m off for my breakfast glass of Champagne. A bientot!

(5/2/10: edited for punctuation lost by posting it  from the iPhone orginally)

Simon Majumdar profile

I don’t claim to be a food ‘expert’ in any shape or form – whether as a taster or cook. However, I do enjoy good food when I am offered it, and especially when I have friends with me who know more about it than I do, and help me learn something about it.

I have met Simon Majumdar, one half of the Dos Hermanos crew, on a couple of occasions. Simon puts on what are probably the most stunning events I know of for bloggers such as myself, under the banner of “Dine with Dos Hermanos” (I strongly urge you to join their facebook group and read the blog to stay in touch with them).

… these guys are DEDICATED TO BEEF!

In the process of talking about wine and food matching at these events, Simon invited me to lunch along with another mutual friend, William Leigh – another accomplished foodie and writer.

Lunch was to be at Goodman, an American style steak house not far from Oxford Circus, and what a lunch it was. 4 ENORMOUS steaks of different provenance and different ages, cooked perfectly, and accompanied by a very nice bottle of Cahors from the wine list (Cahors is the home to the Malbec grape whose more recent incarnation as the ’signature’ grape of Argentina is generally considered a great match for steak).

However, what really opened my eyes was when we were given a “behind the scenes” tour of the kitchen by Head Chef John Cadieux. Words are not enough to explain this, so thankfully I remembered to bring along my video camera! Do check out my short summary video as John explained the meat, the ageing, the grill and even the charcoal – these guys are DEDICATED TO BEEF!

The great news is that I can put my new-found expertise to good use in about a week when a group of us will gather in Goodman for “Blokes Eat Beef” – so do expect a lot more posts and photos about the food from others too.

I’m increasingly aware that wine, a job, multiple social media channels, regular wine trade events PLUS events spawned by the creative well of my social media friends, as well as a real commitment to building a community around wine online, … plus a young family, … are not compatible with writing this blog regularly. At least not for me.

I’m sorry for those who feel I am not keeping up with this blog (I’ve had a few comments)

I do have a number of articles on the go (the draft folder is bulging) and SO many things I’d love to talk about, I just need an extra pair of hands, a few extra hours in the day, … and, increasingly, some help with the various media channels and daily tasks.

Of course, I’m HEAVILY involved in all sorts of social media every day so you can still hear my ramblings and make any comments you wish, but I thought I had better post SOMETHING to say that it is all ticking along. Honest!

I was told about a clever new application for the iPhone that has just been released by Tesco in the Apple iTunes Store: Tesco Wine Finder

I recorded a brief video of my first trials – see what you think.

Seems pretty clever use of technology to me – combining label recognition (to save retyping details), social aspects such as sharing your review of the wine, and online shopping.

I will have a more in-depth trial of it, but at first glance this seems like a good way of encouraging consumers to look at what they are drinking a little more closely and recording the wines they liked for future purchase.

Disclosure: the application only works for wines listed by Tesco and I only had a couple readily to hand, so I have used one that I am involved in supplying to them, the Castillo San Lorenzo Fincas, for demonstration.

… or “How I will do my bit for the economy of this country via the wine aisle”

For the last few years, pretty much since I started blogging, I’ve had something to say about the underhand way that the government uses Duty on wine to line their coffers, usually at the expense of the consumer, but by implication also affecting everyone else in the chain, from retailer to producer.

I have tried to argue that our Duty system, with high taxes on EVERY bottle of wine, no matter how good (or poor), have little impact on whether consumers drink to excess, which is supposed to be one of the reasons to raise the price.

I have tried to argue that lowering taxes would enable producers to invest more in the quality of the product and their communication/marketing, educating consumers to drink better, and drink more responsibly.

To no avail, of course.

Earlier this year, the Treasury admitted in a letter (during a campaign by Le Beast wines, Harpers, Drinks Business and Off Licence News) that:

“…alcohol duty is an important revenue stream for the government”

and

“The alcohol duty increases announced at Budget were not designed to tackle problem drinking but they will play their part in ensuring we can continue to fund the Government’s spending priorities.”

It seems that the anti-alcohol lobby and politicians are allowed to use these as justifications for putting Duty up, but when they get the money, they can then spend it on whatever they wish.

So, I’m changing tack.

Let’s be realistic: If the government needs money to shore up our economy and get people back to work (or keep them in work), then they will be forced to raise taxes. They could*:

• tax me harder on my income, thus making me have to work longer/harder
• tax me more on stuff I buy (VAT), thus discouraging me from buying that ’stuff’ and thus not making money OR,
• raise money from me while I am enjoying one of life’s real pleasures; drinking wine

To be honest, thinking about it like this (as I did when I went to sleep last night), I would rather be paying them extra dosh while I have fun, not while I work (of course, in my case I’m doing both).

So, Mr Chancellor (or simply Darling as we will now call him), I’m not excusing you. You could still do A LOT more to support wine businesses, producers, retailers, consumers and the health of this country, but as you do not seem to be prepared to do this, I guess I will just have to do my bit for the economy of this country via the wine aisle.

I hope you appreciate it!

And, Darling, when we start to emerge from this fiscal black hole you have helped to get us into, I trust you will do the decent thing and engage in a proper dialogue about what is actually good for the many responsible drinkers in this country.

Now, I’m off to pay some taxes, … by the glass.

* Of course, I suspect they’ll do all 3 of course! Watch out for 20% VAT, higher income tax and increases on Duty as a triple-whammy

Blogs and the future of wine writing

I want to get a post up about my experiences of the Wine Future conference, but before I do that, I want to address something that has bothered me since the final session.

In that final session, Jancis Robinson said, in answer to a question about the future influence of blogs:

“… (there is a) huge generation of people … who are dying to communicate about wine and are very frustrated that dinosaurs like me, and my colleagues who write columns in the National Press, in Britain anyway, refuse to move out of our ’slots’ and make room for them, so this is a natural place for a new wave of wine enthusiasm to communicate itself.” – Jancis Robinson, Wine Future 2009 (see mins 3:09 – 3:38 on the Vinus.tv video)

Someone else said pretty much the same thing to me at the EWBC.

I’d like to dispel that myth.

The vast majority of wine bloggers are not writing blogs because they are waiting, biding their time until they are “called” to take on the mantle of Wine Writer at the FT, Guardian, Sunday Times, etc.

There is a generation of wine lovers who are using the power of social media, through blogs, twitter, facebook, youtube, etc. to communicate their love of wine and their personal take on it. Some content is definitely better than others, and a very small percentage may be doing this with the goal of taking their place in the Circle of Wine Writers (as it exists today), but that is not what frustrates most of us.

I would argue that the frustration comes from the fact that we realise that there are lots of wine stories out there, whether from a consumer, producer or trade point of view, that the traditional media (mainly in printed formats) is incapable, or unwilling, to share. Instead of helping the wine industry, those respected, established writers who continue to make ‘old media’ their main/key/only platform, ensure that wineries and brands who might get involved with more creative, and arguably more effective, channels, are instead still wasting their money and effort on dead-end advertising.

Jancis, for the record, no-one I know thinks you are a dinosaur – quite the contrary! You are showing how it is possible for a wine writer to use the internet to VASTLY increase the number of wines and wineries you cover, whilst also building a business and a brand you can benefit from financially. We’d be ecstatic if more of your colleagues did the same, increasing the quality of online content, and giving consumers a greater chance to learn to love wine and wine culture.

We don’t want your job, we want you to want OUR jobs!

I’m busy live-blogging the Wine Future Conference in La Rioja. You can follow along too, and see what we feel was coming out of the event:

I’ve only just returned from the European Wine Bloggers Conference (EWBC) in Lisbon, but instead of collecting my thoughts and writing them up, I was straight into the next project which was to be the voice in social media of The Wine Gang at their first wine tasting.

The Wine Gang (Olly Smith, Tim Atkin, Joanna Simon, Anthony Rose & Tom Cannavan) asked me to help share information about the event they were planning with the world. It is interesting that more and more of the wine trade are recognising the possibilities of Social Media not just to do traditional things, such as get visitors to a show, but just to raise the profile of the participants (organisers, exhibitors, brands and even visitors). However, getting started is not easy, so I offered to help get the process started with The Wine Gang Live blog and even a twitter account @winegang – let’s see where these go from here!

Check out one visitor’s reaction to the event and how they learned about it:

The event took place last Saturday at Vinopolis and was a great success I believe. The exhibiting wine importers and retailers seemed happy with the orders and feedback they were getting, and the consumers learned a lot and tasted some EXCELLENT wines (Corney & Barrow had an excellent Nerello Mascalese called Passopisciaro – thx for the tip goes to Tim Atikin). It all means that The Wine Gang are likely to do this again next year, so keep an eye on their wine subscription site (I think there is lots more news to come there) as well as their blog.

I enjoyed meeting so many people I know in the trade, and to bring along some fellow bloggers. I also really enjoyed meeting some of my twitter friends in person (IRL as it seems to have become known). I have lots of video to edit and photos to sort through, BUT …

Tomorrow I’m off to Rioja for Wine Future conference with Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson, Gary Vaynerchuck and Ryan Opaz! (oh, and a few other speakers too). It will be an INCREDIBLY busy trip, but I will be live blogging the event with Gabriella Opaz so look out for lots of content about what these industry leaders make of the future of wine!

Yes, you will see that ‘code’ a lot over the next few days.

#EWBC is the twitter tag for all content related to the European Wine Bloggers Conference which takes place this weekend in Lisbon. If you need to know more about it at this stage, head over to the European Wine Bloggers site.

I will be up at 4am, in a tax before 5am and flying at around 7am, so I doubt I’ll be fully functioning tomorrow, but hope to be better rested for the event kicking off on Friday. However, you can still reach me on twitter (@thirstforwine) and via email (thirstforwine AT Google’s Mail Service)

I am really looking forward to catching up with the wonderful friends I made during the first event last year, and meeting a whole range of new people this year. Our ultimate goal is to create a strong network of friends around Europe, and the rest of the world, so we can do even better, more useful and creative things to do with wine. If you want to help, then join in!

There are almost 120 people coming to the European edition, and some 250 made it to the US version. The enthusiasm for meeting face-to-face is increased and facilitated by social media, despite our critics. Let’s show them some of what they are missing out on by not joining in enthusiastically!

See you in Lisbon!