It is a really busy time, and a great time to taste wine.

Today, and for this weekend, I will be at The Wine Show in the Business Design Centre in London showing off some of the wines I represent in the UK on the Wines from Spain stand (come over to say hello), but also speaking to other exhibitors about what they are doing to reach wine consumers, and about their innovations.

Then it is the turn of the European Wine Bloggers’ Conference taking place in Lisbon from the 30th of October to the 1st of November 2009. There are already 117 confirmed participant bloggers from across Europe but also further afield. I am particularly excited to know that we have so many friends from the US and Canada coming too as I have yet to attend the US version of this event. Plenty of great wine and food will be consumed alongside the more serious conference discussion programme.

Then it is back to the UK to take part in The Wine Gang Christmas Fair on November 7th, 2009. There will be literally hundreds of wines there for you to taste PLUS I’ll be helping to showcase some great food and wine bloggers, recording what we get up to on the day and the impressions of the wines.

After that I skip off to Rioja a few times for the Wine Future conference and then a further couple of trips with wine lovers later in November and December.

Somewhere in there I hope to bring you updates on some of the exciting wine developments I’ve been learning about in packaging, research and even games! (more soon)

This blog is not updated every day, but if you want to stay up-to-date (and until I manage to bring it all back into one place) you can follow me on twitter and on the various sites linked above. I hope that somewhere along the way I can taste some of these wines with you in person.

Stay in touch! I may need your help to remind me where I am at any moment.

Tonight we taste three biodynamic wines from the Berry Bros & Rudd stable:

2007 Mâcon, Les Héretieres du Comte Lafon, Burgundy
2006 Vacqueyras, Garrigues, Domaine Montirius, Rhône
2006 L’As, Coteaux du Languedoc, Mas Conscience

I will be tasting these wines, led by @winematters, with a group in BB&R’s cellars in London and groups around the country. Check below for all the twitter details I know, and leave yours if I’ve missed you out.

We are using the platform at tastelive.com (put together by Bin Ends Wine and still developing all the cool features we need for interactive online tastings) so check it out and register there.

For a bit more information, check this video (apologies it got cut off, but twitvid failed me)

Participants:
BB&R Cellars
@thirstforwine
@winematters
@gastro1
@cowfish
@laissezfare
@oliverthring
@digitalmaverick

London
@wine90
@thewinesleuth

Edinburgh
@madamevin
@whiteandred
@thefinewineman
@lintably

Isle of Wight
@benjamindyer
@MattandCat
@mark32i5b
@wighthandman

Around the country
@loudmouthman
@bigbluemeanie

So what do a top-class restaurant, a wine bar and a designer/bespoke tailor have in common with wine? Well, for the first two it is obvious, but the answer is not quite that simple.

If you follow me on twitter you will have seen me in conversation with @galvinatwindows, @vinoteca and @simonblaqua a fair bit recently, and you might even be forgiven for assuming I was running their PR in some way. I thought it fair, therefore, in the interests of full disclosure which I am so very keen on, to tell you a little bit more about why.

Having ‘evangelised’ about blogs, facebook and now twitter in the wine trade for several years now, it is very exciting to see so many businesses I deal with in my “day job” really beginning to listen to what Social Media can do for them. Now, instead of blank stares or laughs (or worse) when I mention what I do online, people are starting to ask my advice.

I don’t “consult” professionally about these things (although you never know what tomorrow brings) so generally speaking I’m happy to sit down with them and share my thoughts on what they could do. In most cases it is a bit of harmless chat, but in some cases these new friends jump headlong into social media and start to do really exciting things.

@galvinatwindows is the GM of a great restaurant, chic, well regarded and frequented by all sorts of celebrities, rich hotel guests and adventurous London foodies with a head for heights. He doesn’t “need” social media to make a splash, but he has embraced it wholeheartedly and is organising special tours, dinners, cocktail competitions, tastings and menus and promoting them through twitter in particular. Wow!

@vinoteca was recently voted “Wine Bar of the Year 2009″ – they too don’t need more publicity as such, but they too are embracing social media as a way to have better conversations with the kind of people who love their wine concept – which includes me.

@simonblaqua is a clothing designer who works with performers like Alabama 3 and has also designed things for rock royalty (I’m sworn to secrecy, so you’ll have to ask him). I was simply a customer, until I used his bespoke tailoring skills to create my Moocket shirt. Now he too is excited about starting a bespoke tailoring conversation with customers and those with interests in bespoke design. I will be supporting this by helping to host an evening of wine & design on 13 March (more soon) – but mainly because I’m getting excited about the idea as a consumer, not for “business” reasons.

There is a blurred line here, I admit. Some of these people I meet because I work in the wine business, and they might even be current or future customers, but I write about them now because I think that what they are doing is very brave, very exciting, and hopefully interesting – and tangentially related to wine culture for a variety of reasons specific to each one.

I hope to keep bringing you stories like these as I explore what is happening with the people and businesses I come across, and I trust you’ll find these interesting enough to bear with me here and on twitter.

If you have any interesting stories of bars, restaurants or designers using social media (bonus points for making it relevant to wine culture), please leave me a comment.

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• Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media – London, 1 April (prblogger.com)
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I’m off to Twestival tomorrow. There will be 700 of us in London, and thousands around the world, doing the same thing on the same day; networking, having fun, drinking wine, and raising money for Charity:Water

This post is not about that though. If you want to read about the great work being done by the Twestival organisers and the charity, click on the links above, and if you want to know why I helped to have the wine sponsored in London, read my post here.

This is about doing something a little different with my blog – getting out from behind the screen and meeting lots of interesting people who currently have no interest in reading my blogs, but who just might. Networking events like this, and those promoted on sites like Meetup.com are a great strategy for getting new ideas, new readers and new partnerships.

This is part of my approach:

Becoming known as a blogger takes effort, and not all of it needs to be online. Sometimes bloggers get so caught up in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Google Ranks, etc. that they forget that one of the most important things about writing a blog, and using twitter, is the possibility it offers to connect with REAL people.

Having a blog gives me a reason to network with other bloggers, and have something in common with them from the start. We can then explore whether there are any other ways we can cooperate – and maybe get them to read, interact and contribute to my blog, and vice versa.

Tomorrow night I’ll be doing just that, and I’m using the combined efforts of a shirt designer (Blaqua), a printer with great social equity (moo) and a little ingenuity.

I’ve had my friend add a small, unobtrusive pocket to this shirt so I can carry around my Mini Moo cards and always have them on hand to share with interesting contacts.

A bit of fun, and a bit of social media marketing in the offline world

[UPDATE 13/2/09: the event last night went extremely well, and the shirt went down a storm. I met SO many wonderful people and I'm glad to report at least some recognised me just form the shirt. Job done! Also, Moo.com liked the idea so much they'll be writing about it in their newsletter. If you've come from there, leave me a comment.

I'll be writing a follow up post with details of where & how you might get one of these limited edition shirts very soon, so subscribe to my feed and stay in touch]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Twestival (osocio.org)
• Donating To Twestival from Twitter (blogs.msdn.com)
• London Social Media Camp (open.ac.uk)

This to be filed under: “It seemed like a good idea at the time …”

What wine bloggers do when they get together

When preparing for the sponsorship of the London Bloggers Christmas Networking meetup I contacted my wine blogging friends with a challenge:

“As you probably cannot make it in person to the tasting, how about making a SHORT video, say 2 minutes maximum, explaining a little about you, your blog and your wines, so that the London Bloggers can learn a bit more about the people behind the blogs?”

Of course, it is a good idea, but despite the fact that some of us have been blogging for ages, and the multimedia capabilities of the blogging platforms and our computers, most of us are firmly wedded to our keyboards. I have never produced a proper film (with editing) before, and nor had anyone else I think.

However, everyone was up for the challenge and we got an amazing reaction and variety of presentations.

My absolute favourite is below, but rather than load them all on this page, please follow the links below to the videos on YouTube – and if you were at the tasting, why not check out the producer of your favourite wine from the night?

Thomas Lippert – Winzerblog.de

[Make sure you check out the credits to this video regarding "Beckham" & "Gascoigne"!]

BTW, this is a picture of Thomas

The other bloggers and their videos (click on the name for the video):

Robert McIntosh :: thirstforrioja.co.uk
My first video (this is take 15 or so!)

Javier Navarro :: tintoralba.com
Javier and some photos of the Cooperative winery near Alicante

Gianpaolo Paglia :: poggioargentiera.com
Gianpaolo, one of the top Italian winery bloggers but now based in the UK, gives us an overview of his wines

Emilio Saez Van Eerd :: casavides.com
Lots of photos of many different aspects of the business and some tunes to keep us humming along (!)

Jose Eduardo J Silva :: cortesdecima.com
Get everyone involved. Vineyards look a little wintry, but these are the guys behind the wonderful Syrah we tasted

Jan Pettersen from Fernando de Castilla talking to Justin Roberts :: jerez-xerez-sherry.blogspot.com (who also writes about sherry here)
Justin cheated (!) and interviewed the guy who made the sherry so we never get to see him, but a nice introduction to this sherry bodega and a wonderful wine

Oscar Quevedo :: Quevedoportwine.com
Uber-youthful Oscar and his mountain bike in the vineyards of the Douro.

Thank you so much to the London Bloggers for the enthusiastic response to last night’s experience and experiment. Presenting wine from wineries that have a blog to fellow bloggers must qualify as some sort of world first, shouldn’t it? [some photos here]

In any case, I want to thank all those who came along, and especially those winery bloggers that sent us the wines to taste and videos to watch. One of my key objectives was to get my fellow London Bloggers to look at wine in a slightly different way, and I think we succeeded.

I will try to upload the video of my brief talk from last night along with a summary of the main points to accompany the slides I’ve already posted at a later date (YouTube rejected my upload this morning!).

I will also give you a link later today to the videos from each of the participating winery bloggers.

However, I did want to post a few thoughts on your reactions to the wines and to wine blogging today and remind you of the competition (see details below).

By far the most controversial must have been the sherry, but sherry is used to it! Some of you bravely tried sherry for the first time which is wonderful. There were a handful who loved it (including me I admit) but 20 year old dry oloroso sherry might be a little like jumping in a the deep end when learning to swim – it is an overwhelming experience!

With the whites, there was an interesting split between those who liked the drier style of the Riesling Kabinett and Vivanco Viura/Malvasia (predominantly the men) and those who liked the richer, fruitier Auslese Riesling (many more of the women).

When it comes to the reds we had clear differences in people’s palates. A number of you came up to tell me that they found the lighter, “peppery” style of the Higueruela wine, made from the unusual all-red Garnacha Tintorera, amazing, whilst others found it wasn’t full-bodied enough for them. What more demonstration do we need that we all like different wines and catch-all recommendations are useless?

I found several fans of Italian wines who were surprised to find a Morellino di Scansano on the list as it is a rare sight still in the UK, but the wine (as well as the bottle and lovely label) was tasting really good.

To be honest, the votes on “favourite red” were quite evenly spilt between the Casa de las Vides CVP (and its unusual bottle), the Dinastia Vivanco Crianza and the Cortes de Cima Syrah. It seems that the cold weather has converted many of us to “red season” and the richer styles were very popular.

Finally, I only had a small taste of the Quevedo Reserva Tawny Port – at one stage I turned around and found a couple struggling to taste the last drops whilst trying to avoid the sediment. Draining a bottle is always a good sign!!

Basically there wasn’t a wine there that did not have a big fan which is great, and a great testament to the diversity of wine and of everyone’s palates.

I have a long list of cards of people I will be in touch with, but please do leave me a comment with your views on your favourite wines as I’m sure the wineries would love to hear it from you directly.

Finally, don’t forget to get in touch so we can chat about wine and your own experiences. I’d love to interview and reach out of the wine bubble to make what we write about more relevant to more of you.

Now, for the competition for those who made it to the tasting last night. There are 6 bottles of Dinastia Vivanco Crianza (delivered to you) available for a lucky blogger who posts thoughts about one or more of the wines we tasted. For every mention of a wine, and link to the winery blog, I’ll allocate you a virtual draw ticket (don’t forget to ping me on this blog so I know you have done it). I’ll make the draw on 21st December so you have a few days to get something up and have a chance of winning.

Here are a few more details on the talk I will be giving tonight for London Bloggers at Ember. I am probably not going to show these slides, they are more for my reference, but they might jog some memories after the fact! I will post the text of the presentation after the event.

Below you will also find a list of the wines we will be tasting, and the links to the winery blogs that supplied them for you to taste.

There is an added incentive to come along. There will be wine bottles to win for those who dip a toe in the wine conversation! Read on.

The wines we will taste tonight are:

1. Vivanco Viura/Malvasia 2007, Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco – courtesy of thirstforrioja.co.uk
2. Riesling Kabinett Trocken 2007, Weingut Clauer (and if you are really nice to me, a taste of Riesling Auslese 2003, Weingut Clauer) – courtesy of winzerblog.de
3. Higueruela 2007, from Sta. Quiteria – courtesy of tintoralba.com
4. Dinastia Vivanco Crianza 2004, Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco – courtesy of thirstforrioja.co.uk
5. Bellamarsilia 2007, Poggio Argentiera – courtesy of poggioargentiera.com
6. CVP 2007, La Casa de las Vides – courtesy of casavides.com
7. Syrah 2004, Cortes de Cima – courtesy of cortesdecima.com
8. Antique Oloroso Sherry from Fernando de Castilla – courtesy of jerez-xerez-sherry.blogspot.com (who also writes about sherry here)
9. Special Reserve Tawny Port, Quevedo Port – courtesy of Quevedoportwine.com

And stay tuned for a series of videos we will be showing on the night. I shall link them up here tomorrow for you all to enjoy.

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!

It has been an embarrassingly long break between posts recently for someone who helped to organise a Bloggers’ Conference, but that’s the price you pay for getting involved in so many exciting projects.

In fact there are so many, I’m finding it hard to focus on all the opportunities out there, so let me give you a little run down of what is afoot:

1. Tonight (18 September, 2008 for future reference) is the 3rd edition of Twitter Taste Live, the coordinated tasting of wines by wine lovers across the world. Unfortunately this month is a little less coordinated due to the sad reality that we do not all have access to the same wines as everyone else. Tonight the event celebrates the wines of Michel-Schlumberger that are unfortunately rarely exported, so those of us not in the US will merely be peeking in the window of tonight’s event …

2. Which brings me to the next project which is to create a version of this event more suited to the UK and European audience, possibly involving starting earlier and maybe even different wines. I am in talks with some very exciting potential partners, so sign up to the event site and keep an eye on this site

3. Another good reason for the delay in posting is that I’m working on the transfer (at last) of this blog to a new platform. This will inevitably mean headaches for me, broken links for you, and tumbling technorati ratings, but I hope to keep these all to a minimum with help from my friends’ blog marketing expertise. However, the result will be a more exciting blog with the flexibility to put in place even more features. Did I mention you need to keep an eye on this blog?

4. I’m off to spend a few weeks in Rioja for vintage, and hope to have LOTS of information on the vintage there, and ideas from the people I meet. This time you can keep an eye on this blog AND my Rioja specific blog (sadly neglected of late too)

5. Later in the year I will be helping to run a series of wine tasting events … with a social media twist. I have made some very interesting new friends in the last few months that have opened up my eyes to quite how many exciting things are happening online in London and around the UK (check out Qype, Unchained Guide, TrustedPlaces and more) – and things we can probably take around the world too, so my head is buzzing with ideas. Erm, … check this blog!

6. Some older friends of mine (sorry guys, I mean I’ve know you longer) have just launched an exciting new site called The Wine Gang. I want to give it a proper review and share my thoughts on it, … you know what’s coming next, so I’ll not bother saying it again.

I could go on, but I’ve probably lost you by now anyway as you know you’ll just be coming back again soon anyway.

Exciting, and busy times.

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