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A couple years ago I made 8 bold predictions for 2007. I decided to sit last year out after only the most obvious of the eight actually came to pass (increasing direct to consumer wine sales). But some progress was made on the list in 2008 with Tyler Colman, a.k.a Dr. Vino truly “going pro” with the publication of not one, but 2 wine books. Not to mention the entire Gary Vaynerchuk story which played out in a big way since I made that prediction. Some of my other predictions also made some progress toward fulfillment so I’m going to add six more for 2009 today.

The Year of Value - This prediction is really not that much of a stretch since the world economic downturn has made it a lot more challenging for wine producers to sell higher priced wines. Anything above $25 a bottle will be a tough sell in this environment with a lot of competition for consumers in the $10-15 price category. Look for some producers to just lower their pricing while others, such as Cameron Hughes, Mark West and Castle Rock, will be perfectly positioned to gain market share. 2009 is the year of extreme value that might also spark more interest in wine auctions as consumers look to maximize their purchasing power.

Wineries Really Go Direct - More wineries are exploiting direct to consumer sales and I expect to see a lot more growth in this area particularly for higher priced brands. The economics of direct sales and shipping will be a major advantage for wineries who can create enough pull with consumers. With wine tourism down due to the recession, I see the winners being those who create this pull online via ecommerce and, increasingly, a social media presence.

Alternative Packaging - As wine lovers become more concerned about the carbon footprint of their favorite beverage, more will look for wine packaged in bag-in-box or TetraPaks. As I’ve blogged here in the past, I hope to see better quality wines in these packages particularly those wines intended for immediate consumption.

Wine 2.0 Will Produce A Star - I’ve written about the intersection of Web 2.0 and wine for some time now but there has not been a breakout success story yet. This year will produce at least one star who will finally validate this space. My money is on Snooth right now but this could change as the year progresses. Stay tuned for a lot more on this subject here soon.

Wine Media Goes Digital -The traditional glossy wine magazines such as Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast will be forced to rethink their print business model this year and go more digital. I still think there will be the same amount of wine publications produced but the ones that are left will have figured out how to make money from their online presence and not just by print advertising sales. Of all of these magazines, Wine Spectator is the best positioned to flip the switch, open up their subscription site and become supported by their online advertising inventory. But I don’t expect to see them do this because they will see too much short-term risk in their current, but doomed, business model. 2009 will be a great year for new entrants trying to figure out this territory like Mutineer.

Americans Drink Less Wine At Lower Price Points - This prediction is linked with my first one but I think it’s important to note that the wine market in the U.S. will not grow as it has in the past. Not only will consumers drink less wine they will trade down to lower priced selections. With the U.S. dollar increasing in value, this will make imports more attractive especially from the Old World where vineyard land is a long sunk cost.

So there you have it; six bold predictions for 2009. I’ll revisit these in June and again in December to see what really happened.

Which ones do you think are right, dead wrong or what did I miss?

Original post by Tim

As reported by the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, Amazon.com will begin to sell wine in a just few weeks here in the U.S. The announcement came from The Napa Valley Vintners association and not directly from Amazon. Also reported was that New Vine Logisitics will be Amazon’s shipping partner when they go live.

Rumors have been circulating for some time that Amazon would enter the market but most observers thought they would concentrate on high volume brands. But the Amazon head wine buyer was on the floor checking out wines at the recent Family Winemakers of California and I have spoken with several smaller wineries who have been in discussions with them.

As I posted back in March, I think his is the most signifiant development in wine distribution since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. And Amazon’s actions in the past 6 months have validated my hypothesis that medium to small wineries are their target. Their decision to work with regional wine associations is a good one from an industry relations, recruitment and PR point of view. I don’t think it was an accident the announcement came from the Napa Valley Vintners and think we’ll see announcements from other winery associations before Amazon formally launches their wine business later this month or in early October.

This is a great development for both wineries looking for online distribution and for consumers looking for small production, artisan wines. I expect the shipping fees to be reasonable like Amazon does for all their other products but their Prime service will be a must for serious wine lovers. For $79 a year, you get free shipping on all purchases with second day delivery. No word on if that speed will be honored for wine but if it’s just free ground shipping for wine, that will be huge for sales. With increasing fuel costs, shipping is becoming a real problem for wineries as it adds significantly to their customer price. If this is a non-issue, then wineries stand to benefit greatly from what Amazon if offering.

This is not good news for other online wine retailers who do not have the deep pockets to cover the significant shipping costs or the economies of scale that Amazon has. But I still think there will be a place for niche e-tailers like domaine547 and wine marketing sites like woot and The Wine Spies.

I think this is the biggest wine story of the year and will be blogging about what this means for wine marketing over at my company blog.

Cheers to Amazon and welcome to the wine business.

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Original post by Tim

The current controversy over a group of wine bloggers accepting a wine sample under the condition to write something — good or bad — about that wine has me reflecting over my code of ethics. Since I have commercial interests in the wine trade, I think it is very important to make full disclosures in order to avoid any conflicts of interest. It’s a simple code really… I accept samples but don’t agree to post a review, disclose when samples are provided in the post or podcast and I don’t review wines from producers I work with. It’s been posted on my “about” page for two years now since Alder brought the issue up and posted his own disclosure.

So I was deeply distressed to see two post this week suggesting I was not ethical in my review of Rodney Strong’s “Rockaway” Cabernet as part of a blogging experiment. The first post was by Wine Enthusiast critic Steve Heimoff who thought that we were “manipulated” by the folks at Rodney Strong. This touched off more comments with Mr. Heimoff directly questioning our ethics as wine bloggers. That might be a valid assessment if Mr. Heimoff had done his homework — no journalistic duty — and investigated this story further with those of us involved before posting his thoughts on the matter.

The second post that disturbed me was one from Tom Wark who took Mr. Heimoff’s logic one step further concluding, “I do think, however, that by agreeing to work on behalf of their subject they risk compromising the inherent independence that wine bloggers possess.”

Where did Mr. Wark get his facts for this post? Not from those of us who took part in the Rockaway experiment. Just like Steve Heimoff didn’t. And they are professionals not enthusiasts like many of us involved.

Do you see something wrong here? I do.

Before I get into the ethical implications of a professional journalist and seasoned wine PR professional not doing any investigation before making some serious accusations, let me backup and fully disclose the chain of events that got us here.

On July 30th, Jeff Lefevere of Good Grape contacted six wine bloggers with an invitation to participate in what he called a “blogging experiment”. The bloggers were Dr. Debs from Good Wine Under $20, Tyler from Dr. Vino, Megan from Wannabe Wino, Renee from Feed Me/Drink Me, Kori from the Wine Peeps and myself. Only Tyler declined and Joe from 1WineDude was added. To my knowledge, “several other leading wine bloggers” were not contacted or declined to participate. Robert Larson from Rodney Strong Vineyards was copied on this and all future emails from Jeff about the experiement but did not have any role in the dialogue.

Jeff’s request was pretty specific with the following portion salient to the current controversy:

“Here’s the give to get and this is my suggested execution path, not Rockaways:

* In agreement for receipt of the sample you agree to write a blog post on or around the week of August 18th.  You do not have to write anything favorable, but you do have to write a post with a word count between 300-500 words
* You can choose to write a review on the wine or if you choose not to review it you can write around any number of story angles about the wine/winery/concept, etc.
* I would encourage you, as I will do, to be fully transparent about the sampling.  In fact, I plan doing a lead up with a post or two about my interactions with Robert and the fact that wineries are starting to get wine blogging, take wine bloggers seriously and to engage us with a level of rapport usually reserved for only established media.”

There was no request for review, only a post. And this post could be anything of our choosing including negative reviews or commentary. In short, we had complete editorial freedom. Since my own ethics state that I do not promise a review, I thought that this request was within my personal code as long as I disclosed I received this wine as a trade sample. Yes, I thought is was somewhat of an unusual request but Jeff’s concept was several posts about the same wine happening the same week, so I agreed.

On August 11th, Jeff send out another email to the entire group with Arthur Black added as a guest blogger at Good Grape. Here he made to following request:

” I have committed to Robert [Larson of Rodney Strong Vineyards] that we would post in between next Monday, August 18th and Thursday the 21st.  300 + words is the requested minimum.  The notion here is to do something thoughtful and meaningful.  There is no editorial restriction, but I’d like the piece in whatever form you decide to take it to be something you are proud to stand behind.”

Attached to this email was a variation of the label graphics and a fact sheet. There was no press release or any other coaching. I tasted the wine over three evenings from August 11 without food and not blind, as I taste most wine samples. My notes were recorded into Evernote for future posting here. Over the next few days I did research online made notes and eventually turned this into an outline. At this point I took a vacation from blogging and enjoyed Disneyland with my family for 3 days.

When I returned, I flew to San Francisco and then went on to Sonoma where I intended to finish and post my review along with an analysis from a marketing standpoint for my company blog. Where I was staying lost their internet connection and later their power so I was not able to post until Saturday, August 23rd, 2 days after the requested deadline.

And that’s where this story should have ended but Mr. Heimoff, who makes his living tasting wine for Wine Enthusiast, posted his pointed critique on his blog. I think the context is important for everyone to understand here because just a week before the meme in the wine blogosphere was over the Wine Spectator’s giving an award to a fake restaurant exposed by a blogger (well, at least they used a blog to do their sting operation). A firestorm of hatred for all bloggers was unleashed in the Wine Spectator’s apparently unmoderated forums. Even senior editor James Molesworth got into the act calling bloggers, “…lazy journalists.” It was not their finest hour which I will dissect in another post.

I believe both of these events are directly related.

The traditional wine press has not acknowledged wine blogs exist even as they begin to employ the medium. Their business model is challenged by social media and they are starting to feel the pain. It will get a lot worse in coming months and years as the wine buyer increasingly looks for wine recommendations online and are used to finding this information on search engines. And most wine buyers will not find their reviews, published late behind subscription barriers, but they will find reviews on wine blogs. For free. Without advertising from wine brands mixed with the editorial. And fully open for their comments.

I think the traditional wine press is getting concerned about us and are trying to use this blogging experiment to discredit all wine bloggers. But this will not work and the reason why is simple: Disclosure.

Everyone who has taken part in the Rockaway experiment has been totally transparent about the conditions and have made the proper disclosures. But where are the disclosures from Steve Heimoff and Tom Wark? They don’t exist on either of their blogs. How wine ratings are done is not even on Mr. Heimoff’s employers’ website which I would find disturbing if I read that publication.

So the bottom line for me on this whole thing is that Heimoff and Wark did not check their facts. They did not speak with any of the bloggers involved or Rodney Strong Vineyards (yes, I checked). I think they need to reassess their own blogging ethics, post a retraction of erroneous facts and offer an apology.

But that’s just me and my ethics talking. What do you think?

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Original post by Tim

Tonight I finally opened a wine sample I received earlier this year… a 3L box of California Chardonnay. I’m not much of a box wine guy because most I’ve had are really nothing to write about. At best, they are clean, simple wines sold at low prices. And this sample is not plowing that much new ground as it succeeds as a nice $6 wine… but I’m looking for a great $12 wine like the ones I normally drink on weekdays.

Has the time come for a $45 box wine?

Something on the order of an Eric Solomon, Terry Theise or Cameron Hughes selection would do well with wine lovers and I’m hoping to see something like this in the future. The big problem will be one of consumer perception which makes this category a problem sell at much over $25 a box.

So I hope that some enterprising distributor or importer will package their better wines in 1 liter TeraPacks. It’s better for the environment and saves fuel in shipping, a rising problem these days.

Who’s going to innovate here?

Original post by Tim

I get a lot of press releases but don’t often publish them here as I don’t usually find an angle to blog about. But a release this morning by the Center for Wine Origins and Office of Champagne caught my eye for it’s use of a YouTube video:

As a longtime wine lover, I agree with the objectives of this group in protecting their place names but I wonder if the average American consumer really would understand the group’s message. Would consumers buy less Andre or Korbel if those producers were forced to remove the word “champagne” from their labels? Are consumers of American “sherry” or “port” really looking for the real deal from Spain or Portugal?

I doubt it.

Back when American producers were using European place names to label their wine blends there was a clear point of difference between a Napa Valley “burgundy” and Pinot Noir from the French region. Now there is less difference in the bottle outside of a handful of the finest vineyards.

So is this distinction still relevant in today’s market or is it just semantics?

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Original post by Tim

Tom Wark of FERMENTATION has announced the nominations for this year’s American Wine Blog Awards. My work here didn’t rate a nomination this year which didn’t surprise me as my output over the past year has been substandard for such accolades, to be quite honest. So I think that puts me in the position to be somewhat objective and comment on blogging awards in general and these in particular.

My main concern with the American Wine Blog Awards is not the name, although I’d prefer something more international, no it’s the voting process. If the Oscars used the same system as these awards, ‘Spider-Man 3′ or ‘Shrek the Third’ would likely win Best Picture as they were the most popular movies last year from their box office receipts. Both are well crafted films but they are not in the same league as ‘No Country for Old Men’ which finished 36th in 2007 ticket sales but took the top Oscar this year.

Why this discrepancy? Because only those in the film industry vote on the nominations and final awards.

So I propose that wine bloggers consider an association that creates an independent awards program modeled after the Motion Picture Academy Awards. As a placeholder, let’s call it the “Wine Bloggers Guild” but we’ll change the name if the discussion warrants. I’ve started a new thread over at Open Wine Consortium for wine bloggers and podcasters to discuss this idea and see if there is consensus for my proposal.

My intention is not to criticize the American Blog Awards, just create an analog to the Oscars to Tom’s People’s Choice Awards. I think there’s room for both. What do you think?

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Original post by Tim

I wonder if you can…

But that probably doesn’t matter as the U. S. wine trade is addicted to the 100-point scoring system as the default method to differentiate and sell wine. Why? Because it makes sense to the American consumer brought up with the same system in school. Everyone, it seems, wants an A in either their term paper or glass of Chardonnay. And retailers feel compelled to sell and promote highly rated wines as they drive traffic to their store.

So that’s what makes this proposal to abolish the 100 point system so interesting to me. No, it’s not from a blogger or consumer but from a wine retailer. Isn’t this cutting off your nose to spite your face, you ask? I hope not but a reading of David Lillie’s proposal makes clear that he wants wine lovers to look beyond just the numbers and concentrate on the enjoyment a wine can bring.

He concludes his argument underscoring that precise scores are not the complete measure of a wine:

“The most important argument against the point system is contained in the dedication and hard work of thousands of producers, mostly European but with a growing number in the US, whose efforts to bring delicious naturally made wines to the consumer cannot possibly be graded with a number.”

This got me thinking about the parallels of wine and film criticism. Before I got into wine, I spend a couple years in film school and remain an avid film buff today. One of the elements that make great movies are the technical aspects along with the story and performances of the actors. When these are in the right balance, magic can happen. There are other times when the intention of the director is to just make an entertaining film. Here the technical aspects are most likely emphasized but there is still room for creativity as viewers of recent works of Michael Bay and Paul Greengrass can attest.

I’ll make my comparison to wine illustrated by a couple examples. I think Sergio Leone’s “Duck, You Sucker” is one of the best films in the Western genre. My wife, on the other hand, thinks it’s a long, boring and strange movie. The opening set piece includes some of the most interesting use of the camera in movie history. I see the homages to other Westerns; my wife sees extreme close-ups of peoples’ mouths while eating. It’s the context of the viewer and knowledge of film that makes all the difference in appreciating this work.

As blogged here recently, Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel is one of my personal favorite wines. But I couldn’t get my mother to drink it because she thinks all red wines, “…smell like dirt!” She can’t imagine how such a wine can taste good if it smells like it does to her. But she is an avid Chardonnay drinker who values Charles Shaw wines that I find lacking. Is she wrong? Of course not, it’s our context and experience with wine that is different. I’ve learned to appreciate the nuances in wine where she just wants something nice to drink with dinner.

So my rating of 92 or 4 stars will not convince my mother to try Ridge Zinfandel and she probably doesn’t care that I rated Charles Shaw Chardonnay an 80. Nor will my wife sit through another Sergio Leone movie when she’s perfectly happy watching “Top Gun” for the 50th time on cable.

The same can be said for wine and too many wine lovers use ratings as a way to select “good” wine when they should let their palate decide. Yes, there are technical aspects that some of us obsess over but the bottom line is the wine should taste good to you no matter what the critics say.

I don’t know David Lillie or his store, Chambers Street Wine in New York. But I’ll bet it’s a lot like Solo Vino where every wine is hand selected not for it’s Parker score but for it’s expression of the variety and region of origin. Scores will be with us for a long time, but it’s voices like Mr. Lillie that have me seriously thinking of not using the 100 point system in my reviews.

Hat tip to Craig at The Wine Camp Blog for Twittering the link this morning.

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Original post by Tim

I wonder if you can…

But that probably doesn’t matter as the U. S. wine trade is addicted to the 100-point scoring system as the default method to differentiate and sell wine. Why? Because it makes sense to the American consumer brought up with the same system in school. Everyone, it seems, wants an A in either their term paper or glass of Chardonnay. And retailers feel compelled to sell and promote highly rated wines as they drive traffic to their store.

So that’s what makes this proposal to abolish the 100 point system so interesting to me. No, it’s not from a blogger or consumer but from a wine retailer. Isn’t this cutting off your nose to spite your face, you ask? I hope not but a reading of David Lillie’s proposal makes clear that he wants wine lovers to look beyond just the numbers and concentrate on the enjoyment a wine can bring.

He concludes his argument underscoring that precise scores are not the complete measure of a wine:

“The most important argument against the point system is contained in the dedication and hard work of thousands of producers, mostly European but with a growing number in the US, whose efforts to bring delicious naturally made wines to the consumer cannot possibly be graded with a number.”

This got me thinking about the parallels of wine and film criticism. Before I got into wine, I spend a couple years in film school and remain an avid film buff today. One of the elements that make great movies are the technical aspects along with the story and performances of the actors. When these are in the right balance, magic can happen. There are other times when the intention of the director is to just make an entertaining film. Here the technical aspects are most likely emphasized but there is still room for creativity as viewers of recent works of Michael Bay and Paul Greengrass can attest.

I’ll make my comparison to wine illustrated by a couple examples. I think Sergio Leone’s “Duck, You Sucker” is one of the best films in the Western genre. My wife, on the other hand, thinks it’s a long, boring and strange movie. The opening set piece includes some of the most interesting use of the camera in movie history. I see the homages to other Westerns; my wife sees extreme close-ups of peoples’ mouths while eating. It’s the context of the viewer and knowledge of film that makes all the difference in appreciating this work.

As blogged here recently, Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel is one of my personal favorite wines. But I couldn’t get my mother to drink it because she thinks all red wines, “…smell like dirt!” She can’t imagine how such a wine can taste good if it smells like it does to her. But she is an avid Chardonnay drinker who values Charles Shaw wines that I find lacking. Is she wrong? Of course not, it’s our context and experience with wine that is different. I’ve learned to appreciate the nuances in wine where she just wants something nice to drink with dinner.

So my rating of 92 or 4 stars will not convince my mother to try Ridge Zinfandel and she probably doesn’t care that I rated Charles Shaw Chardonnay an 80. Nor will my wife sit through another Sergio Leone movie when she’s perfectly happy watching “Top Gun” for the 50th time on cable.

The same can be said for wine and too many wine lovers use ratings as a way to select “good” wine when they should let their palate decide. Yes, there are technical aspects that some of us obsess over but the bottom line is the wine should taste good to you no matter what the critics say.

I don’t know David Lillie or his store, Chambers Street Wine in New York. But I’ll bet it’s a lot like Solo Vino where every wine is hand selected not for it’s Parker score but for it’s expression of the variety and region of origin. Scores will be with us for a long time, but it’s voices like Mr. Lillie that have me seriously thinking of not using the 100 point system in my reviews.

Hat tip to Craig at The Wine Camp Blog for Twittering the link this morning.

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Original post by Tim

News broke this morning that online retail giant Amazon.com will enter the wine retail business. Since Decanter reported this story as an alliance between wine.com and Amazon, I was not sure if anything was really news since their relationship was announced some three years ago. And it appears the folks at Decanter have realized their error and have removed the story from their website. But the Financial Times pointed to a recent job posting for a “senior wine buyer” at Amazon which seems to me like Amazon is taking wine distribution seriously.

Twitter chatter broke out this afternoon as Steve over at Vinfolio posted a good analysis of Amazon’s opportunities and obstacles to success in the wine business. His conclusion was that Amazon would put pressure on, “…online retailers selling mainstream, high-volume wine brands…”

While I agree with Steve on one hand, I think he missed what we will look back on in 5 years as the most important change in U.S. wine retailing since the repeal of Prohibition:

Amazon will be the the first long tail wine retailer.

For those not acquainted with Chris Anderson’s work on the subject, a short aside. In 2004 he wrote an influential article for Wired magazine which was later turned into a best selling book, The Long Tale: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. Mr. Anderson’s premise is that businesses can exploit inefficient distribution and inventory costs and offer niche products to millions of customers. His hypothesis that 80% of the market — the Long Tail — can be significant to sales for these niche retailers who sell small amounts of goods to many customers is at the core of the Amazon business model and is used as a key case study in his piece.

I know of no other industry with a more inefficient distribution system than the U.S. wine business. In the 1980’s and ’90’s, I worked in the publishing industry and watched what Amazon did to that inefficient business, particularly in book distribution. I think they will repeat this again with wine.

But it will be quite a bit more difficult for Amazon to operate with all the entrenched special interests and government regulators who control the sale of wine, beer and spirits here in the U.S. While the book market is not nearly as regulated, with only differing tax rates as an annoyance, the wine business is far more complex with diverse shipping costs throughout the country and differing state and local taxes. Not to mention the burden of compliance record keeping and reporting and various shipping laws. In short, it’s a mess, but I think Amazon stands a fighting chance of changing the status quo which will only be good for consumers.

And I don’t think that just the high-volume brands will benefit from Amazon’s move but nearly every brand looking for distribution. The irony is that smaller wineries need more distribution help but often can’t afford it due to the costs of supporting the distributor. And vice-versa the larger brands, who do have feet on the street with distributors, get the majority of distributor attention but probably don’t need as much. This gap in the market is what I think Amazon will capitalize on and many smaller producers will find an efficient way to sell their wine online. Amazon will sell millions of customers small amounts of wine and literally make it up in volume. It’s their way as consumers can often find bestselling books cheaper at Costco or Wal-Mart while more obscure fare is often only available via Amazon.

This will be a very interesting story to follow and I truly hope that Amazon, along with Costco, will change the U.S. wine distribution business for the better.

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Original post by Tim

I’m researching a post about Stormhoek and I came across this podcast with Jason Korman I had not yet heard. During this discussion Jason asserts that terroir applies to all wines wherever they are produced making terroir, “…a meaningless argument…” from a marketing standpoint.

On one hand, I agree with Jason that terroir is too often the de-facto marketing strategy for too many wineries. On the other, I’ve tasted different blocks of the same vineyard and found each wine quite different. So there’s something to this notion of terroir.

But the real learning from this podcast is that those of us who write about wine are too often obscuring the true enjoyment of the beverage with jargon and a learning curve that most people will not invest the time to learn. Perhaps that’s really at the center of the argument that most wine blogs are boring.

So I’m going to make an effort to change the way I talk about wine here and on my podcast to make the content easier to understand for the non wine geek.

I’m also hoping to tell the real story of what happened at Stormhoek in coming days.

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Original post by Tim

I’m researching a post about Stormhoek and I came across this podcast with Jason Korman I had not yet heard. During this discussion Jason asserts that terroir applies to all wines wherever they are produced making terroir, “…a meaningless argument…” from a marketing standpoint.

On one hand, I agree with Jason that terroir is too often the de-facto marketing strategy for too many wineries. On the other, I’ve tasted different blocks of the same vineyard and found each wine quite different. So there’s something to this notion of terroir.

But the real learning from this podcast is that those of us who write about wine are too often obscuring the true enjoyment of the beverage with jargon and a learning curve that most people will not invest the time to learn. Perhaps that’s really at the center of the argument that most wine blogs are boring.

So I’m going to make an effort to change the way I talk about wine here and on my podcast to make the content easier to understand for the non wine geek.

I’m also hoping to tell the real story of what happened at Stormhoek in coming days.

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Original post by Tim

There was a little bit of discussion in the wine Twitterverse this evening about a post over on PBS’ MediaShirft blog. In a rundown on video podcasts, writer Jennifer Woodard Maderazo described most wine blogs as having, “…content dull enough to bore an enthusiast like me.” Not sure which wine blogs she is referring to but I thought it was a pretty interesting comment from a fellow blogger.

Sure, many of us are not as zany as the folks at Ask a Ninja, entertaining as Gary Vaynerchuk or as quirky as Rocketboom but I’d hardly call “most” wine bloggers boring. Many of us try to inform, educate and feature wines most people might like and write in not the same way as the established wine press (well, most times anyway). There is a camaraderie among wine bloggers that I don’t see in other parts of the blogosphere that is far from pedantic. Whilst we might be seen as somewhat geeky for our language and devotion to all things vino, I wouldn’t characterize the majority of wine bloggers’ work as “boring.”

But I’m biased. What do you think?

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Original post by Tim

There was a little bit of discussion in the wine Twitterverse this evening about a post over on PBS’ MediaShift blog. In a rundown on video podcasts, writer Jennifer Woodard Maderazo described most wine blogs as having, “…content dull enough to bore an enthusiast like me.” Not sure which wine blogs she is referring to but I thought it was a pretty interesting comment from a fellow blogger.

Sure, many of us are not as zany as the folks at Ask a Ninja, entertaining as Gary Vaynerchuk or as quirky as Rocketboom but I’d hardly call “most” wine bloggers boring. Many of us try to inform, educate and feature wines most people might like and write in not the same way as the established wine press (well, most times anyway). There is a camaraderie among wine bloggers that I don’t see in other parts of the blogosphere that is far from pedantic. Whilst we might be seen as somewhat geeky for our language and devotion to all things vino, I wouldn’t characterize the majority of wine bloggers’ work as “boring.”

But I’m biased. What do you think?

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Original post by Tim

One of the announcements at last month’s Macworld Expo was Apple TV Take 2, an update — rethinking really — of the unsuccessful media player released a year ago. Apple CEO Steve Jobs featured the new iTunes movie rental service as the killer new feature of this update but I think video podcasts will be the real winner here. That’s because for the first time it will be easy to consume this content on your TV and not the exclusive domain of the computer or ipod.

I think this development has profound implications on wine podcasters, particularly video podcasters like standard-bearer Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV. This is not lost on Mr. Vaynerchuk as he is putting up 5 Apple TV’s as prizes for a contest he is running right now (BTW, Gary, subscribed). And I fully expect the circulation of Wine Library TV to double as a result of the improvements to Apple TV.

This will provide the first platform for cross-over of niche content to a larger audience outside the digerati. I might even dust off my video podcasting skills and produce a Tony Bourdain influenced wine show if I can raise enough money to do it properly. Plenty of others in the growing Wine 2.0 movement will also jump on board and I expect to see another surge of interest in wine podcasting.

So if you have ever wanted to be on TV, now is the time to get started.

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Original post by Tim

Before I post about the wine trends I see for 2008, I thought I would take a look back at my predictions made last year. Overall, I didn’t score too well but what I did get right was interesting.

So here are my predictions for 2007 with what actually happened:

Online Wine Communities Go Mainstream - This time last year I was fascinated with Web 2.0 and wine. I remain bullish on this category but resigned to the fact that none of these communities will go mainstream any time soon. This one was a complete miss.

The Old World Strikes Back - Although the full data has yet been published, imported wine sales in the U.S. increased in 2007 with Italy edging out Australia for the top spot. I’m not convinced this was due to a preference for more balanced, food-friendly wines but I’ll chalk this one down in the success column; at least for now.

Direct To Consumer Sales Soar - This didn’t seem to be much of a risky prediction as I expected the trend from 2006 to continue. But there were also legal challenges which made it more difficult for wineries to sell directly to consumers in some states. Although I have yet to see definitive numbers for 2007, I sense that this prediction came true.

There Will Be Another Stormhoek - I fully expected there would be another wine brand who would follow the social media route to success like Stormhoek did in 2005-06. But no wine brand did this. As close as we got was from my friends at Sacre Bleu but they are still way under the radar. Another miss for me.

Pinots Come Back To Earth - I expected to see a slight pull-back in the popularity of Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio in 2007 and was half right. Pinot Noir seems to have slowed down in growth while Pinot Grigio continues it’s assent. It was good to see Riesling also increase but all the other varietals I mentioned didn’t seem to change. Overall, a miss as a prediction.

South Africa Emerges - I expected to see the wines of South Africa emerge in a big way in 2007 and they really didn’t. Perhaps I was a year early? Another miss.

Flights Replace Wine By The Glass - Of all my predictions, this one was the most aspirational; it was also totally off the mark. Although I have noticed a few restaurants add flights to their by-the-glass programs, they have in no way replaced them. We can hope to see this someday but I doubt it.

At Least One Wine Blogger ‘Goes Pro’ - Alder’s April Fool’s Day post aside, we did actually see wine bloggers go pro in 2007. Both Tyler Colman and Gary Vaynerchuk crossed over into the mainstream media in 2007. I expect to see more of this in 2008 as wine blogging becomes more accepted by the public and the traditional wine press looks for writers with an audience.

So three correct and five wrong or 60%. That would earn me a D- in school so I’ll think about my 2008 predictions for a few more days before posting. I know I can do better…

 

Original post by Tim