Sensing revolution at the Wine Bloggers Conference
I just returned from Santa Rosa where I had the fortune to witness the beginning of a revolution (code jockeys would call it an emergent property) at North America’s first Wine Bloggers Conference. The name does not seem to suggest anarchy or shifting tectonic plates, but the people and companies at last weekend’s conference are starting a revolution in the wine industry.
On its surface, the Wine Bloggers Conference was a group of hobbyist and industrial folks getting together to drink wine and exchange ideas, but the whole is often larger than the sum of its parts. During the conference, I met many wonderful people and had a great time, but what impressed me the most were the love, knowledge, and respect the attendees showed for wine.
A new alternative to wine criticism
The depth of the knowledge and the acuity of the collective palate in the wine blogging community offers a new way for the wine world to share reviews and information that will compete with or replace traditional wine reporting. I do not expect Wine Spectator to stop the presses anytime soon, but I believe that their approach to providing wine reviews and wine information is going to be replaced eventually.
The collective base of information and reviews found on wine blogs, many of which were represented at the conference, is a kind of well-educated “Zagat” survey. Aggregating the knowledge of this community provides a clear and compelling alternative to main stream wine media.
Sites like CellarTracker and Snooth bring this information together and let the end user see what lots of people think about a particular wine, not just a few industry insiders. When you add to this wealth of information search services like AbleGrape, you begin to see the emergence of a different way for wine information to be presented to end users that gives bloggers an important role.
We don’t all need to be at the top to have a voice
The interesting thing about this movement is that it does not require all bloggers to reach the heights of Wine Library TV, Vinography, Fermentation, Alice Feiring, or Good Wine Under $20. Doing a little search engine optimization, exchanging some links and supporting each other as we continue to blog is all that is needed to give the entire wine blogging community the online presence it needs to reach the general wine public and have our collective voices heard.
Like all revolutions it is not easy to say where this will lead the wine blogging community, but I am sure looking forward to finding out.
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Wine has relied so heavily on traditional media and the handful of critics, that this shift is a major decentralization of information. Some traditional voices will stay loud, some get softer, but 1,000’s of new ones are being heard.
Yes! Speaking of which, I think I need to add you to my blogroll!
Dirty,
I think you are absolutely correct. The impact that bloggers have will continue to grow. What role each individual blogger will play depends on a number of elements, but the role that the community will play seems to be quite clear. The traditional media will continue to tell us that Screaming Eagle is a great American Cab or that the First Growths produced outstanding wines in ‘05 but I don’t really need them to tell me that. Tell me something about the less well known 10,000 American wine labels or help me learn more about the condition of the grapes as they are harvested in all the wine regions of the world. Only a social medium like blogging can supply that kind of breadth, insight and real time information.
Individuals bloggers and the technology they employ will come and go, but the impact of the overall community is here to stay and will only get larger.
I think your blog is great and I admire your road worthiness.
Cheers,
Neil
Taster B,
That would be great, but I do not think I can top your Halloween video and I know I will never top the Gary Vaynerchuk spoof at the Wine Blogger’s Conference.
Cheers,
Neil
Wine info of the people, by the people and for the people, ….democracy now!
Russ Kane
We are all the secret weapons in the wine revolution. Right now, only a handful of wine industry folks truly ‘get’ the radical shift in the way consumers are deciding on their wine purchases. Bloggers are an integral componet of that shift. The trad media gets it because they have to…we are stealing their market share, especially younger consumers.
Neil, well put. Sorry we didn’t hang out at the WBC. Am a Texas girl myself.
Russ,
While I agree with you that the blogging community is more democratic than having one guy or gal tell everyone what to drink, there is a ranking among bloggers and some are more influential than others. The main differences are that bloggers get to vote all the time on who they read and believe and bloggers can talk back. The traditional media doesn’t really allow for that feedback from the consumer.
Good luck with Vintage Texas.
Cheers,
Neil
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