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!

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!

Crush It

Well, I ‘crushed it‘ in one sitting on the plane on the way to Lisbon for the EWBC.

Gary Vaynerchuck’s Crush It! is a book intended for an audience of entrepreneurs ready to take advantage of the opportunities offered by social media. These opportunities are easier to capitalise on in an age of ready-made blog platforms, template fan pages on facebook and free plug-ins to carry out necessary tasks, so I use the term entrepreneur to mean all those interested in starting their own money-making business, even those with minimal investment or risk.

That’s all of us!

The style of the book is very readable, and very “Gary”. You can hear him dictating the book, pacing back and forth in the room, stopping to make a friendly quip, probably about American Football, then launching back into his well-honed routine as if he had not left off. In fact, it is so much in the “Gary Vay-Ner-Chuck” voice that I had to read it at the speed he speaks, so I got through the book in an hour and a half!

As someone who has been following Gary, on and off, from fairly early on in his Wine Library career, including some of his keynote videos and his business site, much of this book is already familiar @garyvee stuff. It is interesting to have the presentation in one place for reference and in a form I can lend to others (even if video is more entertaining, it is harder to use to research and/or prove a specific point of your own).

The point of this book is not to give his existing followers something new, but to bring his message to those that have not yet committed themselves to social media but who think they want to know more. It is for Gary’s “posse” to give to others to explain their addiction, and for some of us, a useful basic checklist to refer back to.

One thing it is not, for the record, is a wine book, but the messages are still relevant to wine businesses.

If you want a highly readable, passionate and credible book on how to approach building your personal brand in, and through, social media, it is worthwhile reading. However, the world is moving apace and even some of this book is already outdated, so read it quick to get you up to speed on yesterday so you can get on with building your own brand today.

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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!

EWBC Petrol Art

It is too early to really be able to take it all in, but I am back from Lisbon and the European Wine Bloggers Conference (EWBC) 2009.

The conference this year was about 3 times the size of last year’s event, with around 120 bloggers and a great number of producers and other wine businesses there to support the event and promote their wines. That is a big change in a year, and makes me wonder about next year.

I have so many things in my head that writing one post seemed incredibly hard, so I thought I’d kick it off with a brief summary and a few notes of thanks to get the flow going, then over time I can post my thoughts on the sessions, the people, the location, the sponsors, the food, the practicalities of running a large conference and more. Wow, so many things to think about.

First, I need to restate my thanks to Ryan and Gabriella Opaz of Catavino. Although all three of us are listed as ‘organisers’ the load of all parts of the conference was not exactly evenly distributed and Gabriella in particular really does deserve an extra reward for making things happen as well as they did – just don’t hand her an open bottle of wine! (photo by eatlikeagirl)

Secondly, as with all conferences of this type, we struggled to keep everyone online so they could email, tweet, blog and generally record their impressions. The hotel network did not, unfortunately, seem up to the task as promised, but the boys from Adegga who are already experts in their own areas (check out their brilliant wine social site) also became our de-facto IT support setting up, monitoring and moving the network for 120 people. Thanks Andre, Andre and Emidio!

I must also mention all those who were at their second EWBC event. They too took on informal roles to support the team, welcoming new friends and encouraging the discussion, and I still think we managed to keep the tone very friendly despite growing the event so considerably. This is down entirely to the community-mindedness of all those involved. Thanks everyone!

So, briefly, what did I learn?

• I really enjoyed Portuguese wine and must buy more of it to learn the key regional differences
• Portuguese food is amazing and deserves a more relaxed enjoyment of it than I was able to devote
• The people of Portugal are very warm and generous. We were always well treated despite being so unusual and being so poor at speaking their language
• That cork is making great efforts and inroads, via people like Amorim, to gain our trust in it again as the best closure for quality wine (more on this very soon)
• That bloggers themselves are still a strong community with an inclination to help others and share, so we need to build on this while we can
• That differences between bloggers on certain issues that might seem important, such as monetisation, are vastly outweighed by what we have in common and we need more opportunities to meet face to face to remember this
• That one of the main barriers to more international cooperation is language differences, something that can be easily, if expensively, overcome, and that otherwise we would benefit a great deal from working together. So, how do we fix this? Certainly not by sticking to our local cliques
• That we still have not yet truly captured the essence of what the consumer is looking for regarding wine in social media, but we are getting closer
• That I have a weakness for 70’s & 80’s dancefloor classics and revivals

All of these deserve a post of their own, so hopefully I’ll be able to raise some of these issues in more detail soon

In summary, if you like writing about wine and you didn’t make it to Lisbon this year, pay close attention to this site and to the event site to grab a place for next year!

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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!

Despite the lack of updates on this blog, I have actually been working feverishly on interesting wine-blog-related projects over the last few weeks, so much so that I have rather neglected this place. Here are just a few of those projects – they are a lot of fun, but I also think that the participants, including myself, and the wine business, are learning a lot from them too.

L’Anima wine challenge

I’ve been working with this amazing Italian restaurant to help shed a little light on Italian wines, grape varieties and also into the process of adding wines to a wine list. For more details, check out the wine social media site I put together for the #lanima project with Gal Zohar, sommelier at L’Anima and Dan Coward from Bibendum.

Tesco Wine Fair

Working with video is fun and useful, but this is a very different medium and experience makes a big difference – both in front of and behind the camera. I am working with a friend of mine at double-barrelled.tv to learn more about this. This week we made our first attempt on behalf of Castillo San Lorenzo for a Tesco Wine Fair promotion.

European Wine Bloggers Conference & #ddmsummit (Drinks and Digital Marketing Summit)

Lots of developments in the planning of the EWBC, a project I am VERY excited about this year, but in part because of this, I have now also been invited to share my thoughts on the influence and potential of social media (or Digital Marketing) for the WHOLE drinks industry, not just wine, at the #ddmsummit being put together by Cube and The Drinks Business. More on this soon.

I think this must be my third, or possibly fourth, London Wine Trade Fair (LIWF) since I started writing this blog. As a “Trade Only” show, it might not be of interest to many of you, so I don’t talk about it much unless I come across an interesting story or two. This year might be a little different.

The main reason is that the European Wine Bloggers Conference for 2009 has been announced, and the interest in it is such that Ryan and Gabriella Opaz from Catavino.net (my fellow organisers) and I have been invited to talk about the intersection of the wine business and Social Media. We will be speaking in one of the London Wine Trade Fair’s official ‘Briefing’ slots, on Wednesday the 13th of May at 13:00. Our topic is: “Wine and the Web: the Business of Getting Social“. I look forward to sharing a platform with Ryan Opaz and Dan Coward from Bibendum who are sponsoring this talk.

If you are in the wine trade and you can make it on Wednesday, come along to the talk (RSVP here) – we already have lots of wineries, agents, importers, PR and journalists coming along but there is still space left. We want to keep a good proportion of the time for questions, so come prepared, we’ll try to do the same!

The other exciting news from the London Wine Trade Fair this year is that they have begun to recognise wine bloggers as “Press” just as they do for journalists from traditional media. You get a Press badge, access to the Press Centre, WiFi, and a seat! You do have to have some track record of writing about wine on your blog to qualify, which I think that’s fair (I can imagine there are a lot of people who’d like to be able to come along to the biggest wine tasting in the UK), but otherwise, they are keen to give bloggers access to the world’s top wines. If you are not already on the list and you want to know more, leave me a comment here or email me (thirstforwine AT gmail DOT com) and I’ll pass on the details.

If you read this blog you will find me either on Bibendum’s stand (D30) or on the EWBC booth which has been generously organised by ViniPortugal on their stand (B20).

I’ll certainly be sending some thoughts and pictures from the show floor on twitter. If you want to check it out, make sure you follow me on twitter (I’m @thirstforwine)

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Tomorrow (or today when you are probably reading this) a group of intrepid wine lovers in London are joining a global event linked to the Hospice Du Rhone event that supports the varieties and wines of the Rhone region.

Like some past “Twitter Taste Live” events I’ve been involved with, such as the Hugel dinner and the Bibendum trade event, this is an online tasting of wines that allows participants from around the globe to share their experiences.

There will be 2 other major tastings on the same night in the US (With 1winedude in the East and Estate-Sonoma on the West coast) as well as 3 UK events – London, Oxford and Oxted (Surrey). While the US events will focus largely on single varietal wines, and mainly from California, we in the UK are looking at the originals – the blends from France. We want to show that blends can be even more exciting than single varietals, and Gareth Groves from Bibendum (who supplies these wines) will help us out with some expert knowledge.

As of this moment, the best place to read more information on this event is on the existing TTL site here, but tomorrow morning I hope to see the launch of the NEW & IMPROVED TasteLive.com – so I’ll add the link here when I can.

The UK tastings will take place on Friday 17th April, starting at 7pm and probably last just over an hour. We will be tasting:

We have chosen these wines to reflect different regions within the Rhone, and to select wines that showcase blends of the indigenous varieties of the Rhone, because this really sets many of them apart from the rest of the world.

One of the great thing about these tastings is that you can combine the face-to-face tasting with friends in a pub (as each group is doing) with the power of Social Media to bring these groups together AND share it with all those who are interested but couldn’t make it. Hopefully, some of those who don’t take part this time will be inspired to do so next time (leave me a comment here or follow me on twitter and I’ll try and keep updated).

I will be with a group of around 10 other ‘twitterers’ in The Lansdowne Pub on Gloucester Avenue in Primrose Hill, a pub with a lovely informal atmosphere and great wines (including, I must admit for full disclosure, some of mine – but we are not tasting those). There is WiFi, so we are all bringing laptops, iPhones, PDAs, etc. so you can expect a great deal of twittering, photos, and maybe even some video.

The Lansdowne is laying on a special menu to accompany these wines which I am REALLY looking forward to:

The other groups taking part are being led by @surf4wine in Oxford and @bigbluemeanie in Oxted, Surrey.

If this sounds interesting, follow the event as it unfolds in the UK from 7pm onwards. If you are already on twitter, follow me (@thirstforwine) but even if you are not, you can watch the comments as they stream in on the homepage of http://tastelive.com

* Photo: Courtesty of The Lansdowne Pub, Primrose Hill, London

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This post follows neatly, although it wasn’t planned that way, from the last one.

A wine region in Spain wants to invite a select group of influential bloggers to visit their region, possibly in June, to learn about the wines, about the local food it matches with, and a little about the region itself as a tourist destination.

The first port of call, in Social Media, would be wine bloggers in key markets like the UK, … but why just wine bloggers?

I’ve said before that if we want to make wine more relevant and less threatening to more people, we need to “reach beyond the wine bubble” and talk to others who also influence consumers interest in wine, such as foodies, event organisers and travel bloggers. If this group felt comfortable discussing and recommending wines, the Wine Conversation would be transformed!

So, I’ve offered to put together a list of interested UK bloggers, but also of those active in other forms of Social Media, so that this wine region might decide to invite a broader selection of them and thus have lots of different people learn more about it.

Disclaimer bit: this is nothing to do with the wines or wine regions I represent, it is on behalf of a friend who is working with the wine region in question, and who asked me to reach out to my UK followers.

Why these categories, and why bloggers in particular?

The cost of the trip will not be insignificant for the wine region (few wine regions have big budgets) and they hope to have those who come write about their experiences and share them with their audiences. This is easiest where writing about the trip will be ‘in context’ for those bloggers. For example, it might not be that easy for a tech blogger to suddenly switch to writing about great wines from Spain (although I accept that depends on the blogger).

Also, why bloggers? All can be considered, but from the region’s perspective, they’d obviously love to have the kind of content, reach and permanent record offered by blogs (and I mean written word, photography and video). Remember, this is a BIG step for a wine region only used to talking to wine journalists working with established media.

Finally, I’m afraid they cannot bring everyone. I believe the trip will be for 5 or so people, so I’m afraid quite a few of you will be disappointed, but I promise to let everyone know if more such trips arise, so it’s worth getting involved anyway. I have no idea what criteria they might use to select a group, beyond making this a fun, influential and eclectic mix to see what an investment in Social Media might deliver for them.

I already have a pretty good list of foodies and some events people, as well as a few unusual requests that could be very interesting too, but if you want to throw your hat in the ring, you can do it publicly by leaving me a comment here, sending me a Direct Message on twitter, or an email at: thirstforwine AT gmail DOT com – and if you were to say WHY they should choose you, that might help