We (as in bloggers and whom ever wishes to join us), are hosting conversations. Some of those topics include wine preferences, wine making practices, sustainability, sales & marketing, industry trends, Web 2.0 wine start-ups, …you get the idea. The scope of topics and writers run far and wide. The blogs I’ve read are pretty clear who they are, what they are about and where they are coming from. I appreciate transparency. For example, I work for Hahn Family Wines as the New Media Marketing Director. And this blog is NOT part of that purview. Is there overlap, yes. But ultimately, I say exactly what I think, believe and know to be true from my perspective to engage and have a conversation. The purpose of this conversation is to connect bloggers, wineries and consumers in new, beneficial ways for all wine lovers. (ok, fine, I live in my own little wine-soaked utopia, cheers.)
I love this blog: 2 Days Per Bottle. Just the wooden man, pics, review policy and music make me smile. But my favorite is his recommendation for Thanksgiving wine: “ Step One- DRINK WHAT YOU LIKE AND STOP MAKING SUCH A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT!!! FOR PETE’S SAKE, IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!!!“ Yup. So you know when people start getting too serious about this stuff they either need to take a step back or find a good shag. Honestly, it’s wine.
So what? So I’m interested in bring new ideas, engaging experiments and thoughtful progress to the conversation. Currently I think most of the printed establishment on wine is stilted, overly serious and pompous. Let’s put it this way: Most Wine Bloggers are not press or journalists (let’s go with in the traditional sense). Wine bloggers journal their OWN perspective. There’s nothing objective about it. Ok, some try to offer objectivity, but you’ll have to figure out what that means to each individual blogger, IF that’s important to you. Some have clearly defined policies or ethics guidelines. Great, it is always valuable to know where people are coming from and what they’re about when you engage them in the conversation. There are some great winery blogs as well. So SOME bloggers are press/journalists from before the era of blogging. Some bloggers consider themselves journalists online and adhere to the same ethics as traditional print/TV journalists, and some bloggers are “*other*” as 1WineDude says.
So my point is that there is no one point. Bloggers, wine-bloggers are basically wineophile anarchist writers. They have passion, brains, joie de vivre, and a direction if not a calling to talk to people about this passion via their blog, but they are not a homogenized bunch. And they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to. That independence is a beautiful thing. Applause for the wild, forward thinking, experimental, wine loving population and all their drive to journal, blog and post about it. They add value to the conversation, the wine world, and to wine consumers savvy enough to find their unique voices.
Not all of my ideas are great, but idea generating is essential. I’m going out on a limb and agreeing with Seth Godin on this one. Ideas=fuel for the conversation. Glad to have you all part of it. Particularly if you can add something.
Wooden Men image courtesy of 2 Days Per Bottle
Wine Sherpa image courtesy of The Winehiker: Russ Beebe
I want to find something to spark a conversation about this post but can’t. I agree. However, there are some old wine media types who are trying to impose their discipline on the blogosphere and we can have a good time poking holes in their comments.
Steve Heimoff – keep coming at us! Every time you do it forces us to really think and understand ourselves.
- jim
I agree that healthy conversations about wine and food are needed. Everyone should drink what they like regardless of what the wine media says. I welcome all of these conversations because at the end of the day more people are drinking wine. The conversations that have started via online media, social networks or blogging are important and have generated some great interest in lesser known products with less of a marketing budget but I still have a problem with some bloggers expecting the full media treatment or automatic access to media and trade events simply because they write a blog.
“Ideas=fuel for the conversation.” Exactly. And people will make up their own minds. What a concept!
Will Sherpa For Wine! Fuel, indeed.
Right on the money! “They have passion, brains, joie de vivre, and a direction if not a calling to talk to people about this passion via their blog,…. That independence is a beautiful thing. ” This is one of the ingridients in my reasoning to begin my Argentine Wine Importing business (www.argca.com) and my blog. The satisfaction of divulging ones own passions to the eyes and ears of others is an emotion you must feed off to make it worth your wild.
Keep it comin!!!
Pablo
http://malbecmadness.blogspot.com/
Aw shucks (blush).
Thanks.
I don’t know how I missed it before, but I added you to the 2 Days per Bottle blogroll. Are you part of The 89 Project yet? If not, DM me a real email on Twitter and I will send an invitation.
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[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onBloggers=Anarchist Wineophiles « California Life: Better Than …Here’s a quick excerptSome of those topics include wine preferences, wine making practices, sustainability, sales & marketing, industry trends, Web 2.0 wine start-ups, …you get the idea. The scope of topics and writers run far and wide. … [...]
[...] to voice our opinions. Or, as Lisa at WineDiverGirl put it so well, wine bloggers are a bunch of anarchist wineophiles. The traditional media types are right, we really are the barbarians at the gate. Some of us wear [...]
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