Ember

I hadn’t intended to write about this quite yet (I only just posted my first post for ages last night) but the London Blogger Meet-up Group has just announced an exciting event for Christmas which I need to tell you about now if you want a chance to come along (as I write, 45 of the 80 places are already booked, and that in less than 2 hours since it was announced).

[UPDATE 16:45 - unfortunately the event is ALREADY booked out - 80 acceptances in under 8 hours. How exciting! Keep an eye on this site just in case we can make arrangements for a few more, you never know.]

I’ve been in contact with Andy Bargery from Marketing Blagger for some time as he was the one who set up an excellent networking event for London Bloggers of any subject – in fact it was through this that I won my wonderful trip on the Stella Artois Airship a few months ago. That event inspired me to volunteer to “sponsor” a future event, to also give something back to my blogging peers, and that is what I plan to do on December 9th, 2008 at Ember, opposite Farringdon Tube Station.

I will give you more details on this site and on the meet-up page soon, but I plan on talking briefly about Wine Blogging - who we are, why we do it, and specifically what benefits it has brought to my winemaking friends. I hope to have many different wines to taste and I also hope to show you some videos from these bloggers presenting themselves and their wines. I bet they LOVE that challenge!

The wines to taste will be courtesy of: Winzerblog, Poggio Argentiera, Tintoralba, Quevedo Port, Cortes de Cima, Casa de las Vides, La Gramiere (although this is a long-shot) and, of course, my own efforts with Dinastia Vivanco.

(EDIT: through the power of Twitter my friend Justin will also be trying to locate some sherry to try!)

I will also be looking to hook-up with bloggers who do not write about wine to participate in my campaign to “reach out from the wine bubble” – be warned! I’m in search of your views on wine.

There will also be some money behind the bar for some free drinks, and I might even chuck in a Christmas present or two!

If you want a chance to join in, Be Quick! Sign up to the event.

See you there!

Image by Ryan Opaz via Flickr It has been a little quiet around here, and that isn’t JUST because it took me a while to recover from twittering about wine until 2 am on Friday.

Firstly, I’ve been working on some thoughts on monetisation for wine bloggers which are being posted on the European Wine Bloggers Conference site (part 1 is live now, the next parts go up over the next day or two) as are part 2 and part 3 – part 4 is our discussion at the conference which I will report on after the event.

Secondly, the conference takes place this weekend in Rioja, in both Logroño and Briones (at the Dinastia Vivanco Museum of the Culture of Wine) from where we hope to be able to bring you some Live Blogging!

Unfortunately our internet connection will probably not support live audio/video streaming, but our friends from Vinus TV will be putting the materials recorded during the day live as soon as possible (I do hope Gema comes to the conference!)

A few of us will be trying to keep you updated through the use of Cover It Live, but as it will be my first chance to use it, I have NO IDEA how effective it will be, but head on over to the EWBC site and check it out if you can on Saturday.

I may be offline for a day or two, but hope to keep you updated here, or on the EWBC site, as to the build-up of the event, some of the wonderful wines we taste and the new friends I make.

Wish me luck!

Well, that’s a headline guaranteed to bring in the masses!

In fact it is just a tease. I’m working on an article on this topic as part of the UNconference over at the European Wine Bloggers Conference.

I have a few ideas of HOW it could happen, but I wondered if anyone had any ideas of IF this has happened?

If anyone has any concrete examples of promotions going on out there (past, present or future), I’d love to hear about them as I hope the article will act as a major discussion point for a good while.

If anyone has a blog out there who has made money, or a service they want them to know about, get in touch.

I recently came across this example from Berocca which I thought was pretty cool, even if it doesn’t pay the rent, and of course there are networks like FoodBuzz and VinoClic.

But are any wine brands, of food brands, spending their marketing budgets and arranging media placement on wine blogs?

Please let me know in the comments or by email: thirstforwine@gmail.com

(oh, and I’m trying to keep this a Stormhoek-free discussion – we’ve all read about that one already)

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?

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.”

In between posts on this site and my new Rioja blog at thirstforrioja.co.uk, I am also working hard with Ryan and Gabriella behind the scenes for the European Wine Bloggers’ Conference.

One of the great things we have managed to do already is get all sorts of different bloggers, 80% of which you have probably never heard about despite them having around 100,000 monthly unique readers between them, to write a short biography on the site.

If you read nothing else, check out some of the biographies here and get to know a little more about the kinds of people that create wine blogs.

There are plenty more to come between now and the event, and hopefully we will have everyone covered before the big day so we all have a chance to recognise each other at the event.

You can read the latest post here, which happens to be about me (including a nice photo taken by my wife yesterday of yours truly having ignored the razor – again).

We’ve been here before, about 6 months ago, when Facebook rather exploded onto the scene (for me) and there seemed to be a collective & feverish drive to make new friends and contacts, discuss big ideas and make grand plans. It got so busy I spent ages on Facebook joining groups for Wine Bloggers, Wine 2.0, Sherry Lovers, Beards of the World United (that was just for me) and more.

The result was that I got to know a lot of new people and link up with some really interesting friends. We talked and talked and emailed and posted and … nothing really came of it.

The problem with Facebook is that it is a virtual “freshers fair”. It is like that first week at school/college/university, where all new arrivals feel equal and can shake off the social shackles accumulated over years at their previous school. These fresh faces desperately try to make a new circle of friends and create a new persona, meeting as many others as possible and “becoming friends”. Unfortunately it never stays that way, and by week 2 you will probably never see half those people again and you discover that the creepy guy who seemed seemed so mysterious is actually just creepy.

Facebook is good for showing your face (!) and getting snippets of information, even gathering into groups, but it does not offer the tools for in-depth discussions and planning. The serious business of making proper friendships doesn’t happen at the Freshers Fair, it happens later.

And that is what is happening right now.

At one time is seemed that all that time & effort seemed destined to be wasted, but thankfully I continued to have email conversations with Ryan and Gabriella Opaz at Catavino.net, and through them also began discussions with Joel Vincent of Wine Life Today.

This group is much more driven, and instead of just talking, we’ve started projects on the European Wine Bloggers Conference, the Open Wine Consortium and a few more things in the pipeline too exciting and confidential to mention just yet. These are some great tools for exploring and developing the Wine Conversation.

I have also met or am planning to meet up with several of these virtual friends, including Steve De Long, Emilio Saez, Jacob Gaffney as well as Ryan and Gabriella.

So, thanks Facebook for the party, I’ll be back again, but the place to hang out with friends is elsewhere.

* Photo Courtesy of Richard.H

Rather than duplicate them, I have posted some thoughts and comments on the idea of the European Wine Bloggers Conference (or Jamboree) on the new site.

I think in future I will leave most of my thoughts on that subject on that blog and just post links from here, but feel free to leave me comments on this site if you prefer.

One more quick post.

Ryan at Catavino is also planning a bloggers dinner during Alimentaria Barcelona, Spain’s biggest and best food & wine show (March 10-14, 2008).

If you are a blogger, not matter what you blog about, I gather you are invited to a dinner being sponsored by Bodegas Tintoralba.

I will definitely be at the show and hope to go along to the dinner on Tuesday 11th of March. If you are planning on being there too let me know so we might hook up.

The European Wine Bloggers Conference, or EWBC, 2008 now has its own site – as any self-respecting Wine2.0 related event should have, of course.

Come and take a look at: http://ewbc2008.wineblogger.info

Thanks to Ryan at Catavino for setting it up, to include a blog, a forum for discussions, places to discuss topics for consideration, wines to taste, and more.

So far there have been lots of interested comments from many different locations (including UK, France, Italy and Spain). It would be good to hear from those of you who are keen to come, even if you have not committed 100%, so that we can put together a clearer picture of the event so waverers might decide whether it was worth investing the time and money to come.

I do understand that this is a big commitment for most of us, but I do think this has the potential to change the role of the Wine Blogger in Europe dramatically, so it will be worth it.