Tag Archive - london

Wineries and Social Media

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.

Wine Conversation 081209

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: wine london)

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.

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An unusual kind of wine tasting

Ember

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!

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And the beat goes on

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.

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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

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