Blogger Readership

If you love wine as much as I do, wine blogs are the best reading out there on the subject… and they are FREE!  The variety, depth of knowlegde, wines tasted and reviewed, wine events, images, humor and scope of topics covered in the nearly 1,000 wine blogs world wide have something to offer everyone.  And the wine blog writers?  They write about wine because they love it.  They have a passion for all things wine.   Wine Bloggers are getting more access to wineries and winemakers, conferences and social sites (thank you Joel Vincent) are growing at breakneck pace.  Then there’s Wine 2.0,  ”the innovator in social networking and events in the wine industry“, Mutineer Magazine, a fascinating, independent publication on all things beverage.  And MANY more wine sites online and beyond.  Is there a local wine bar in your neighborhood?

As this segment of our industry grows and finds their niche, I think their readership will likewise find them in 2009.  But how?  It has to be classic word of mouth.  Fortunately, there’s nothing quite as powerful as word of mouth.  As we all work a little harder and wade through the contraction of our world economy in 2009, it is up to us to share the (free) resources online with our friends and family.  That might include teaching them about RSS feeds, subscribing to a blog, commenting on a blog or even shopping online.  

Mutineer Magazine did a great spread called “Blogs You Should Be Reading” in their latest issue.  Hahn is hosting regular Bloggers Tasting Forums, and other wineries will be doing the same in ‘09.  The Wine Bloggers Conference, after a Sold Out weekend last October, will likely be planning for an even bigger event in ‘09.  And the Wine 2.0 calendar looks poised to make significant connections throughout the wine world and perhaps beyond.  

Whatever series of resources you find to spread the word about your favorite blog (and your own blog as well), reaching beyond todays readership to access tomorrow’s wine blog reader is the next step in our evolultion.  Perhaps wineries will take the risk of posting a wine blog roll?  And maybe the old wine media might reach beyond their top 100 blogs list to find the depth, vitality and diversity in the other 90% of wine blogs written around the world?  And maybe we’ll find the tipping point in readership that the quality and passion of your content deserves.  

Photos courtesy of Russ Beebe: The Wine Hiker.