Conversation among wine industryprofessionals, marketing strategists and wine bloggers this week includes talking about some kind of Wine Blogger Certification, or a standard that ends up with a Seal of Approval in order to quickly and easily provide bloggers access to events, wineries, industry programming and so on. I can see why some business people might seek such a …label, but I wonder about a simplified structure and I have many questions about how, why, wherefore.
The very counter-culture nature of blogging defies this kind of labeling and classification. The bloggoshpere is the untamed frontier and an exciting place to find opinions, stories and recommendations. I have certainly heard people post that “some bloggers just want free (stuff) wine”. But as I have spent some time reading wine blogs and actually spent time with the wine bloggers themselves, it is not an easy (usually unpaid) job to wine blog. Any level of credibility or readership is hard earned and maintained by a level of quality, personality and humor.
I have been a regular advocate for blogger access to the wine industry in the same way we grant access to traditional media and press. Wine bloggers have an outreach that can potentially go deeper and beyond traditional print media…at least in the wine industry. Just recently Hahn Estates hosted the first Bloggers Tasting Forum and ZAP will have a sponsored Bloggers Lounge offering bloggers free access to the 2 day event. So far, these beginnings have suggested tremendous success in blogger/wine industry relationship building. The expectation is that this access will directly benefit not just bloggers and wineries, but the consumers. With greater access to information, recommendations and outreach, we aim to convert more people into wine lovers everywhere.
So, how would you classify bloggers? They are a complex and various group of wineophiles from all over the world. The current count is over 1,000 wine blogs and growing. How would you define which ones get credentials for the wine events and which ones don’t?
- By Readership?
- Quality of writing?
- Their own level of wine education?
And what if the wine blogger…a really great one…isn’t interested in the credential? Most of the wine bloggers I have met are stunningly smart and busy with day jobs, families, hobbies and fully packed lives. And as I have said before, they do their wine blog strictly for the passion of it. The Wine Bloggosphere is better off because of them. I would hate to see them squeezed out by beaucracy or obstacles that have less to do with a passion for wine and more to do with sorting that helps marketers achieve ROI.
What are your thoughts?
Graphic courtesy of Google Images.
Industries that require “credentialing” usually do so to either (1) put up barriers to new entrants (2) to protect the consumer (3) generate income from the credentialing process.
We certainly don’t need to protect consumers from bloggers because as most are unpaid and don’t rely on advertising to stay afloat, we tend to provide purer (while still an opinion) critique of a wine from the consumer’s point of view.
As for generating income from credentialing; there are a number of credentialling groups whose blessing means next to nothing. In the past I worked in higher ed. Our program differentiated itself through accreditation. But soon a number of different accrediting groups sprang up. The public had no idea which was legitimate and which was not — so all the money and time we spent going through the accreditation process offered little ROI. and anyone can crank out a certificate, frame it, and put it up on his wall (or in this case a widget on his or her blog)
For the most part wine blogs are simply editorials giving the bloggers opinion about a wine. Anyone can look up the score on Wine Spectator or Wine Advocate, but we think the average person just wants to know (1) is this a good value (2) is it enjoyable (3) and is it obtainable. And most of that is clearly subjective.
There simply aren’t objective measures to determine whether or not a blog should be “credentialed” because the success of the blog depends upon the goals of the particular blogger.
To the point of getting discounts or S.W.A.G. (free Stuff We All Get), wine industry professional and other bloggers tend to be able to identify those out there who contribute to the industry.
However, it would seem to be to be a small investment for the industry to provide bloggers with discounts or advance access to wines for review. What I always find baffling is that any industry would want to limit what is essentially cheap or next to free publicity and advertising for their product.
Putting up barriers to new entrants simply lowers the overall quality of wine blogs, as does ALL competition in ALL industries. When the media serving an industry starts to become homogenized, consumers are only benefited by new entrants. And it pushes everyone writing about wine to do what he can to set his or her blog apart from the others.
To me credentialing would not provide either bloggers or the industry with any benefits that would outweigh the chilling effect on the growth of wine blogging through the entrance of new bloggers.
Interesting question… From some experience in other areas (“I’ll take College Quiz Bowl politics in the 1990s for $200, Alex”), the only guaranteed result of an official credential program is the establishment of an opposing, competing program.
While I’d be honored and glad to be officially credentialed, I have nothing on paper to prove my wine knowledge. The only thing I have to go on is my writing, but even that’s been ripped off by a number of Chinese websites that have stolen my content and photos (as well as hundreds of other sites). To a credentialing organization, those Chinese thieves and I have identical experience and right to earn credentials.
You can look at the successes and failures of dozens of such endeavors throughout history, from Medieval guilds to modern unions to the Department of Motor Vehicles (stand in line for two hours, submit to a blind tasting of five noble grapes, pay $50, get your Wineblogger License).
If I had to design such a system, I’d improve the Top 100 wine blogs (http://www.alawine.com/wine-blog-rankings.html) listing and then suggest that the Top 10 wine bloggers serve as an advisory council for wineries and other organizations that wanted recommendations. It can be assumed that those Top 10 (which will change over time) know enough about the subject, the scams, and the writers to advise on certification. In this respect it becomes more like a fraternity or sorority than a licensing organization, but while potentially cliquish I think it could be fun and successful.
Wine blogging “certification” would be the death of good wine blogging.
If wine bloggers want better access to the industry, then they need to work harder to get readers, to be recognized, and need to tell their story.
There are not any shortcuts.
Won’t happen. People have talked about credentialing in various fields for years and it never happens. We don’t need credentialing for wine bloggers any more than we need it for graphic designers, web coders, or paperboys.
If it makes bloggers feel better to be credentialed, I hereby deputize myself as the ONLY official wine blogger credentialing authority. Ask me to be credentialed, I’ll grant you said credentials and even send you a graphic for your website.
Are we done with the silliness?
What would be the point of the credential? Who would it help? Do bloggers feel they need to be regulated? Isn’t that what why they blog, to be unregulated?
Credentialing would be extremely helpful to lazy PR people. They could look at the list, create a mass e-mail and press send. Being in the PR industry myself, I would say that there are plenty of us that read the blogs, run our own, and do our best to interact with all forms of media (social or otherwise) without becoming a hinderance.
I seriously doubt that any type of registration would come from bloggers, especially established ones with regular audiences.
Ok, I have to kick in my $.02. With respect Lisa, not every winery or wine PR professional can be expected to put in the kind of work that you have done with wine bloggers. While I sympathize with the commenters here, consider the view from the small winery. Wineries are presented with, as you say, over 1000 wine bloggers. They are short staffed as it is. We all know that margins on wine are much smaller than other industries. Are wineries expected to engage and possibly send wine samples to everyone? That is a lot of wine, especially when you have limited cases to sell. I’m not saying that a credential is the answer, but there needs to be some way for these small wineries to know what the most important blogs are. Rather than discount or avoid the issue, I believe it is up to us Wine PR professionals to discuss and eventually provide a solution to our companies and clients.
I suggest that everyone get credentials so that I can be the outlaw wine blogger who mocks you all mercilessly. Then I will issue my own credentials for anyone else that wants to be an outlaw wine blogger and mock you all mercilessly. After that, someone else will probably start the whole process all over again, and we will all be mocked mercilessly. It will be anarchy, I tell you…ANARCHY!
I’m cool with that.
I’d think it would be far better for a dedicated blogger to get a recognized cert., such as WSET or SWE. That way, when they realize that they can’t make any $$ from blogging, they might be able to get a job in the wine industry!
[...] You hear it in off-the-cuff remarks such as one from Joe Roberts, AKA 1WineDude, who commented on WineDiverGirl’s blog the other day. WineDiverGirl was wondering if some kind of certification for bloggers might be a [...]
Leave it to 1WineDude to come up with the best answer I’ve heard so far. Good one Joe.
Wow…well, certainly a lively conversation. Can I say I agree with you all? Ok, also lame. Let me put it this way: as a wine blogger advocate, and one who preaches inclusive-ness, I’m not interested in certification, personally. Just like credibility, I think your readership will “certify” you. And I don’t think a list of the top 100 wine blogs is enough. There are too many categories and niche wine blogs that will appeal to a great variety of readership.
I’m not sure exactly how the WBC filtered for (wine) blogger attendance, but it seems like they asked in their application “What is your blog link” …and if you had one, you were in. Can we make that the certification process?
Do you have a wine blog? Then you’re in.
Ok, we may still “mercilessly” mock (as my friend Joe suggests) the lame bloggers who aren’t interested in wine or have any level of quality or anything of value to contribute…but that’s the cool thing about the internet, no?
It’s the wild, wild, web.
I agree with Joe, but aren’t we all taking things too seriously? I have always felt that blogging was to be more personal, and share ideas and experiences with the general public, which, in your words, going deeper than traditional print media does. Journalism is a more clinical pursuit, giving unbiased information (or that’s the way it’s suppose to be anyway), yet blogging, in my mind, is more expressive, and more impassioned. To seek out a blogging certification I think would diminish the whole intent behind blogging.
That’s an excellent suggestion, 1winedude.
As for a top 100 list, most of those use Google ranking, at least to some degree, to determine popularity, and they should, imo. However, someone like me can probably get any site somewhere near the top 20, and a niche site in the top 10, in less than a years time. That doesn’t make me a good blogger, it makes me a very experienced geek.
There are some very good ideas and suggestions in the responses here, but I think WineDiverGirl’s last post sums it all up pretty neatly.
Sure – I’ll weight in! Certification does not translate into qualification and the more regulation we have translates into strangulation of communication.
And besides, is there some kind of winemaking certification system of which I am unaware?
Great point Judd!! Wineries are “certified” by having people purchase their wines.
I’ve been watching this string of comments develop, and I was disappointed to see it stop. There’s lots of good thoughts here. Hopefully that won’t stop in the next sentence.
You can be a Sommelier without a certification (I was one). You can be a winemaker without an enology degree (I employ one). You can be a chef without going to cooking school (we’ve all eaten “THERE”). AND, as we all know, everyone has an opinion and the right to voice it. I think what it comes down to is the goal of the blogger. Is he looking for free samples? Is she expecting a tour and tasting at the winery? Is he selling ads on his blog? Or, does she just like writing and talking about wine? If is money or samples then some outside certification, as Joe suggested, would add to their credibility. But let’s not stifle the passions of anyone for the sake of a few.
The best wines I’ve had come through the suggestions of friends whose opinions I trust and respect. I’m sure given a little more time, people will gravitate to one person or another (I hear that Gary V guys is getting a bit of a following) and their insightfulness, writing quality and palette will be all the certification they need.
Every comment above including Lisa’s post is way off the mark from my original proposal. Why are all of you immediately associating a proposal to credential wine bloggers with what you have already experienced – what you currently know? This thought process kills innovation and is a major block to human progress.
Winery tasting room staff are struggling to qualify tasters who claim they are in wine media. Some tasters are making up biz cards and presenting them so the tasting room staff will give them discounts and waive tasting fees.
Many wineries are reacting by not treating all wine bloggers as “in the trade”. Is this what all of you want? It appears from the hundreds of tasting rooms I visit each year to be a growing issue.
Credentialing is easy and will slow or prevent this fraud. Just set up a basic PHP script on a server to test if wine bloggers are posting at least say 3 times a month with something like a 3 month look-back. If they are then they get a star next to their name on a Web list. The script can report the number of posts. A star rating for the number of posts could be developed – think eBay’s.
Tasting room staff can do whatever they want with the info. They can set their own standards with this information. The wine blogger can simply mention that they are listed on this site – something like a restaurant with a “Zagat Rated” sign by the front door.
There is nothing about content although we could test to see if “wine” is included in the content.
Exactly what is so terrible about this? It could open access to the trade for people who are actually wine blogging and help T/R staff weed out the frauds.
By the way, my wine media application for ZAP was never approved, or at least the organization never emailed me it was. With over half a million invested in WineQuesters.com and an active wine blogger with a WordPress blog and on Twitter and Facebook daily I guess I don’t meet their high standards. I won’t attend.
- jim
Wow, this just seems like a bad idea to me. I’ve been doing the wine blogging thing for over 3 years for one reason – I love wine and like to get my thoughts down. Do I need or want a certification to validate that? Not so much.
As for participation in events as a member of the media, I’ve had good success at that and always make a point to cover the event in the same casual style I do with wine. I love them both and I hope that shows.
I know that what I put down helps some people buy wine. That and the fact that it’s essentially my online wine journal is enough for me.
And Jim it appears your frame of reference is entirely based on YOUR experiences. Lisa brought up a great discussion and got lots of different views. Good for her!
Give it a rest man, you can’t be right and everyone else be wrong all the time.
No one needs to “qualify” wine tasters — tasting rooms just need to implement a universal policy until they develop a relationship with a particular blogger. Like any OTHER industry would do with innovative media.
If some tasting room doesn’t want to give you free tastings, not that anyone should expect them to, pay the 5 bucks and pretend that it was your credentialing fee.
Btw, if the tasting room staff has the time to look at some web site to see if I am listed, then they have the time to pull up the URL on my business card.
WoW! I love the diversity and opinions voiced above. Like I said, I guess as long as I’M NOT the one having to say who gets in n who doesn’t I can see a point. But if the bloggers don’t want or respect the cert. it will definitely backfire.
I’m more interested in blogger access to information, people, wineries, and yes, wine. The variety of free samples given away in our industry goes WAY beyond just traditional media samples. I think bloggers still have the passion, desire to share and talk about these great wines…which may be more than can be said for some of the tired, perhaps, jaded wine media.
I just found in my wallet my SPJ (Society of Professional Journalists) membership card. There! I’m credentialed! But since it has expired, I am no longer one of the tired, jaded media. Voila!
I just read Jim’s commentary again. If I am reading through the lines with my former consultant’s goggles, and perhaps I am not; it looks like he wants to set up, operate and benefit monetarily from a blogger credentialling system.
If true, this tends to change the point from which one for a credentialling system is advocating, and perhaps makes its advocacy a little less objective.
WineWonkette – How you see a biz model in my suggestion is beyond me. My suggestion lacks any details about the implementation. Could be private non-profit like a professional association. Could be Wine Institute. Could be an ad revenue model. Whatever. I definitely don’t need another project. I’m offended by your insinuation.
I could develop a simple Web app to give tasting room staff the information they need if enough of them want it. I really don’t need anyone to agree. I’ll see what T/R managers would like when I’m in discussions with them.
One site with this information would be MUCH better than expecting staff to research each blogger’s site.
I always appreciate Lisa’s interest in bringing up diverse topics. I’m disappointed in the quality of the reader responses. Not brainstorming types it appears. Not willing to test premises and ask for clarification.
One even suggested “giving it a rest” as if that blogger had a complete handle on the issue already. Sad.
- jim
WHISTLE! Ok, everyone out of the pool!
Again, fascinating debate…but now my readers in general get slammed …”I’m disappointed in the quality of the reader responses. Not brainstorming types it appears. Not willing to test premises and ask for clarification.”
Um…perhaps we need a review of blogger/commentary ettiquette? All views, clear, obfuscated, bent, humorous and otherwise are MOST welcome. They are all part of the wine drinking gene-pool…
Again, ALL opinions welcome…let’s maintain healthy debate tone, please? Seems reasonable, no!
Wow, thought we killed this 2 years ago. Guess it needs to recycle every so often, and hopefully this is the last time we hear of it in 2009. I’ll schedule the next round for early 2010.
Now etiquette…we could get that one going again too! I think it’s been a year or so.
Simple: Cream rises – so do good bloggers
Moral: Write more about wine, become a better wine blogger, end of debate.
Lisa, you are so right. Thanks for getting us back on track.
I’d like to see some comments from the tasting rooms and wineries on this issue. Does Hahn have an issue with new media credibility? Or “fake bloggers” trying to get free wine?
What about some of the other wineries? Perhaps a scientific survey of all the wineries who have tasting rooms or send samples by a non-biased entitity?
Might even make a good masters thesis?
Maybe even a project for vintank! Calling vintank!
Why do we wine bloggers have to be anything more than ourselves? I’ve been involved in the wine business for 20 years, from restaurant to retail. Does that make me any more or less reputable? Everyone who has participated in this thread of debate has a valid right to express his or her views on wine or any other subject, because ultimately, wine, like anything else in this world, is an experience. It’s no different than watching sunsets, the Super Bowl or Presidential Inaugurations. It’s a perspective unique to an individual, and in the 21st Century, thanks to the Internet, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc., those perspectives can be shared in an instant. Should we require certifications for experiences? I’ve got to thank Lisa for hosting such a fierce debate, and to all who have participated, this has definitely been good. But seriously, take a deep breath, and remember, it’s not a crisis – it’s not a pandemic – it’s only wine.
Hmm, offended that someone would suggest that he might want to build what he is proposing, but then goes on to say that he was going to talk to tasting rooms about doing just that. That’s some funny stuff!
Seriously, Ryan and Kevin each had a line that, if put together, pretty much sums it up.
Simple: Cream rises – so do good bloggers
and
Why do we wine bloggers have to be anything more than ourselves?
As Ryan also says, “end of debate.”
Simple answer- “no.”
Before you identify the solution, you have to identify the question. What is the question?
Is it “how do we identify the REAL wine bloggers?” The answer is easy. People who blog about wine. Okay, too simple.
Is the question “how do we identify the GOOD wine bloggers?” Again, easy, read them. If you find yourself nodding your head, laughing, smiling, looking for a wine the recommend, or bookmarking them, well, you found a good wine blogger. Is that still too simple?
How about “how do we identify the INFLUENTAL wine bloggers?” Influental to whom? Wine drinkers, wine makers, or other wine bloggers? You can identify blogs influential to other bloggers, or at least of interest to other bloggers, by cross-links. Wine drinkers are harder, because each post can effect somebody, can make them write something down and take it to the wine store on Saturday, and we will never know it. Wine makers? If a wine maker is changing their product based upon what a blogger, or an other critic, writes, well, I don’t want their wine.
Or is the question really “is this guy or gal IMPORTANT enough to get free wine?” Is that really what it comes down to? Is that what this is all about? Frankly, it is a bad question. Why? Because there are so many blogs out there. If you have a great wine and you bring it in under the $20 price point, well, Dr. Debs is the blogger for you. Are you making a phenomenal riesling that would trick anybody into thinking it is from Germany, but it really comes from the Finger Lakes? Lenndevours is your guy. Is your wine made to last, does it need cellar time or a lot of decanting to show its promise? Will it get judged unfairly by people who pop and sip instead of giving it some time in the air? Try 2 Day per Bottle. Do you repeatedly get the dreaded “89″ rating, and do you suspect it is because you are in Idaho, instead of Oregon? Try The 89 Project. There are good, well written, well followed blogs for every type of wine.
“Certification” is a way of saying “I’m in, you’re out.” It is anathema to blogging. It is the internet version of closing the door once you get through it. And it is unnecessary. Nobody I know of is asking for free samples. If we get them, it is a pleasant surprise. Frankly, anybody who tries to work their blogging into “give me free stuff I’m a journalist” should be laughed at, loudly and publicly, then charged double for the worst bottle in the inventory.