Can social media be used as tool to drive sales for wine retailers, distributors, and importers?

Yes, I’m seriously asking that question.  Stop laughing, okay?

Despite the fact that even well-attended and publicized retail events don’t seem to be moving umpteen cases of wine, the consensus answer seems to be “Yes – with caveats,” based on a panel discussion I took part in recently in New York.

The title of the thirty-minute sessions was Wine Marketing in the Digital Age – I shared the table with with Jody Rones from Thrillist.com (a daily email marketing blast with a ridiculous number of subscribers), Lindsey Johnson from wine PR mavens Lush Life Productions, and Gregory Dal Piaz of Snooth.com (Editor in Chief for the one of the largest wine websites in the world – he chaired the session).  The panel was part of a sponsored event by Wines of Chile, who concurrently put on a pretty kick-ass grand tasting of something like 300 Chilean wines, of which I had time to taste about twelve before having to hoof it to Penn Station to catch a train back to the ol’ dancin’ waters of Philly.

Thirty minutes isn’t a lot of time to cover such a potentially diverse and broad topic, but it won’t surprise 1WD readers that I said “screw it, I’ll try it anyway!”…

Read the rest of this stuff »

For those of you who’ve missed (what will certainly seem like) the last several thousand posts here on 1WineDude.com, I recently spoke at the 2010 Wines of Portugal International Conference as a panelist on the topic of how the Internet and Social Media are impacting the world of wine and how that will impact the Portuguese wine industry.

Among my fellow panelists was the talented Neal Martin, who writes for eRobertParker.com covering Bordeaux.  In some ways, Neal proved the counterbalance to the messages being offered by me and the other panelists, in that he has a rather skeptical approach to the power of social media in the wine world. During the course of the panel, Neal raised several points about social media’s place in the context of wine criticism that I and the other panelists did not address directly – not because we’re without opinion on those points, but because we felt they weren’t relevant to the topic of how wine producers (the largest contingent of our panel audience) could leverage the power of social media online to help their business.

In my case, it certainly did NOT mean that I agreed with those points, as will become clear to anyone in the course of reading this article, in which I will address what I took as the primary (or, if not primary, at least relatively important) points raised or hinted at by Neal about social media’s place in wine criticism – and try to refute them.

I should note that I enjoy Neal’s company, respect his work, and marvel at his writing abilities. But I found many of his views on social media so profoundly off-base that I felt they needed comment.  It’s not that Neal sees no value in social media, but I got the impression that his view is looking backward, not forward – and thinking ahead is absolutely key in understanding what social media can do for you, and the place that it is very likely to take in the future in terms of wine criticism.

Let’s take a look at the contrarian views that are all too often espoused when applying social media to wine, and go from there.  I’ve grouped them below roughly in a group of three, and summarized each as a hypothetical quite or argument. It’s worth noting that I’m not quoting anyone in particular but am paraphrasing and, while it might be tempting to anoint someone like Neal as a sort of dark arts saint of an anti-social-media satanic church, life is rarely that simple and it’s certainly not my intention here.

In this case, Neal’s comments during our panel were simply the catalyst for a sort of… manifesto that took shape in my (twisted) mind.  The kind of thing you’re compelled to write because you have to (and because you’re a bit tired of preaching the same gospel over and over, and would like to have a handy place to keep it so you can refer others to it again… and again… and again…). I will warn you, it’s long and probably not appropriately “scannable” for blog reading, but f–k it I’m posting it anyway.

As always, your comments / criticisms / points / love / hate are all welcome!…

Read the rest of this stuff »

Hopefully it will be the last time, as well.

[ Also, please be forewarned that this post contains several references to the concept of poop. ]

By now, the more on-line socially active of you (sounds sexy!) will have not only heard about the kerfuckle over at Blake Gray’s excellent blog The Gray Market Report between some the blog’s Anonymous commenters and K Vintners winemaker Charles Smith.

Since the announcement of the lawsuit (which, in a nutshell, centers on a complaint of libel that the Anonymous commenters on the original GMR post), lots of blogs have reacted to various aspects of the suit.

I’m not going to talk about any of that.

I’m going to talk about my reaction to what I consider a totally frivolous lawsuit, the primary purpose of which, as far as a I can discern, is to stimulate economic recovery for the law industry while causing headaches for Blake Gray, Google, and anyone else involved.

My reaction: K Vintners will never again be mentioned in the virtual pages of 1WineDude.com, unless Charles Smith and K publicly take a different approach in all of this, and quickly. The primary reasons for such a drastic measure?

1. I don’t want 1WineDude.com readers having to worry about being wrapped up in lawsuits.
2. I won’t have 1WineDude.com readers treated like they have the brains of poop-flinging monkeys – which is essentially what Smith and K are doing by filing this type of lawsuit; they’re sort of telling you that you are unable to discern a smarmy, anonymous comment from the reasonable musings and opinions of an intelligent blog reader.

I sincerely hope this is the only time I will ever have to do something like this; but for now, Smith can stick with the many accolades for his wines from the traditional press, where he can feel safe and secure that people can’t respond anywhere near as quickly; and, presumably, let his ego grow to monstrous proportions in the meantime…

Read the rest of this stuff »

Last week, Vino 2010 (self-described as “the biggest Italian wine event ever held outside of Italy”) officially touched down in NYC.

One of the most anticipated discussions of Vino 2010, at least in the eyes of PR, media, and wine writers, was the panel “Blogging on Wine and Social Networking: New Tools in reaching Consumers of Italian Wine” moderated by Anthony Dias Blue.  1WineDude.com readers will already know that I was a bit concerned when I’d heard that Dias Blue would be moderating, as I felt that he was too publicly anti-blogging based on quite negative statements he’d made about wine bloggers last year.

That was before I learned of the panel members, who included some very pro-blogging (and very, very talented) friends of mine (blogger Alder Yarrow, PR wiz Steven Raye, and search guru Duog Cook), and the very public and open way in which the panel would be held.

The panel result is freely viewable on the Vino 2010 website, and has been included below in its entirety.  All 2+ hours of it.  If you care at all about wine PR, wine writing, wine blogging, and how to engage them all in the changing wine marketplace, then Id say all 2 hours are required viewing – and this is coming from a guy who normally cannot watch more than 3 consecutive minutes of video at any one time.

Why?  Because the panel members offer advice on how to engage wine writers in the new decade that is so spot-on it might as well be a blueprint for how it should be done.

Why is that important?  Because wine brands need to get into the engagement game if they have any prayer of truly understanding (and ultimately influencing) the conversations happening about their brands.

And I know of what I (virtually) speak here, because last week I started getting a firsthand lesson in brand-awareness…

Read the rest of this stuff »