Mind you, this doesn’t even begin to cover the breadth and depth of the wine blogger trade. The North American Wine Bloggers Conference attracted over 300 wine bloggers to their Walla Walla gathering in June, instigating well over 200 articles on the event. This doesn’t even include the vast number of photos of videos produced!

The EWBC will be taking place in Vienna, Austria, on October 22-24th, and if you’re interested in joining, please make sure to put yourself on the wait list, located on the EWBC website.

Gabriella

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Environmental issues are a topical issue in the wine sector at the moment. The challenge is that in this period when the wine sector is having to rely on its capacity to attract new consumers, the prospect of using such a complex topic as a communications tool is akin to trying to attract teenagers to the subject of science through the appeal of winning the Nobel prize. Given that a very small group of consumers would find interest in such an appeal, this webconference has been organised in order to help illustrate the challenges, and just how long it can take the wine sector to develop value in such an obscure association in the mind of the wine consumer.

SIGN UP NOW: https://burgundy.dimdim.com/esc-dijon

Dr Andrew Monk

Dr Andrew Monk has two decades of experience in organic industry auditing, certification and standards setting and commercial interests across the organic supply chain formerly in horticulture and value-adding and currently in the organic waste-resource sector. Andrew has a PhD with a focus on organic production systems and sustainability in Australia.

Andrew consults to both public and private entities across the supply chain on environmental (including organic), issues and management systems, whilst being managing director of an environmental sector services company, Mulching Technologies Pty Ltd. Andrew is a prior CEO and current director of
Biological Farmers of Australia Ltd (BFA) and an adjunct associate professor at the University of New England, Armidale, NSW, School of Business, Economics and Public Policy.

Phil Reedman MW

Phil Reedman MW has long had an interest in the environmental and sustainable aspects of the wine industry as well as society at large. As a retailer with Tesco in the UK Phil was highly involved in the move to bulk shipping and bottling in the UK for many of Tesco’s own-brand wines and made space on their crowded shelves for wines from a number of organic producers.

When Phil established his own international retail and wine consultancy in 2007 he set it up as a certified Carbon Neutral business to offset the impact that his considerable air travel had on greenhouse gas emissions. In partnership with his wife Phil also has an interest in two luxury, award-winning, eco-accredited, carbon neutral holiday cottages in the English Cotswolds.

As a twelve year old school student he wrote to his local MP questioning the UK’s continued reliance on non-renewable energy sources when the UK had abundant and unexploited potential for generating energy from wind, wave power and geothermal sources. Phil is currently working on building an environmentally sustainable house in Adelaide.

James Millton

James Millton was the first certified biodynamic producer in New Zealand. His vineyards are situated in four locations in the Manutuke and Matawhero appellations of New Zealand. Traditional viticulture is practised in all vineyards. No insecticide, herbicide, systemic fungicide or soluble fertilisers are used in the vineyard, with The Millton Vineyard being New Zealand’s first commercial fully certified organic winegrowers. Following the indications given by Dr. Rudolf Steiner in 1924 biodynamic techniques are used in all areas of the production. In 2009 the vineyards have been certified biodynamic with Demeter New Zealand. His website is here: http://www.millton.co.nz/

Logistics of a Webinar

Please be aware that the actual presentation will start at the time indicated when you register. The widget is set-up to show the time it starts, according to your computer’s time settings. So, as long as your clock and time zone is correct for where you are located, you should see when the event will begin. You should also receive a confirmation email of your registration moments after registering. If you have not received such an email within a few minutes, check your ‘junk mail’ folder for an overactive mail filter.

Be aware that you WILL receive an email before the scheduled starting time, telling you that the event has started. Don’t panic, as this email serves two purposes. The first is a reminder that the webconference starts soon. The second purpose is that the presenters need time to upload their presentation materials and to make sure that the sound and video settings are set-up for the event. If you click to enter the videoconference before the scheduled starting time, you will be diverted to a waiting room. The waiting room will then be opened at the scheduled starting time for all of those who clicked to join early. Although it might appear that nothing is happening in the waiting room, you will be added to the videoconference at the scheduled starting time, and not before.

Once in, you should be able to hear the presenter(s), see the presentation welcome page and be able to send text chats in the dialogue box, as shown on the right-hand side of the page. The presentation will begin and then progress from one presenter to the next. Based on the first event in May, we decided to allow more time for questions for this event. As such, we will have almost 30 minutes to answer your questions at the end. So please post your questions in the text box as they come to mind. We will be addressing each question in the order it is presented, and if this event progresses like the last one, we won’t have time to answer every question.

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• 10 Things I’ve Learned So Far at the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference
• Twenty-four Theses
• On Wine Blogging Shop Talk and Presentations …
• Head filled, heart too after WBC10
• 2010 Wine Blogger Award Winners Announced

Fine wine and wine gift baskets: Buy 6 or more bottles and get 50% off shipping with coupon code “wblog46″

For now though check out our wrap up from the fair!

Ryan and Gabrellia Opaz sum up the LIWF 2010 from ryan and gabriella opaz on Vimeo.

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• Small Ripples Can Make Waves in Wine Media
• Is wine quality objective or subjective in nature?
• Stop H.R. 5034—The Anti-Consumer Wine Bill
• LIWF 2010: “The Access Zone” a Place to Talk about Wine Online – Call for Papers!!
• Competition for Young, Innovative Winemakers! But Where are the Spanish and Portuguese?!!
• Twitter, how do I use thee? Let me list away
• TasteCamp East is happening very soon!!!
• Wine Blog Awards

If you have a link you want to share send it to links@wineblogger.info and we’ll make sure to check it out!

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Editor’s Note: Palate Press is an online magazine that features wine writers from all walks of life. From citizen bloggers to big wig writers, it’s packed with stories from wines across the globe. What’s unique about PP is its editorial process. Bloggers are an independent bunch and tend to stay clear from someone telling them what stays or goes before publication. Therefore, the mere hint of an editor is typically shunned before the 3 syllables escape one’s lips. Yet PP has thrived with its editorial review, allowing any writer to submit their article as long as they’re open to editorial criticism.

We want to congratulate founder, David Honig, and his crew for putting in the hard work, sweat and elbow grease it’s taken to get this project successfully up and running!! Below is an interview we conducted with David last week. If you have any further questions for him, please don’t hesitate to place them in the comments below.

Why did you think you could create what it turns out is quite an ambitious project?

In retrospect, an interesting question. I think the simple answers are (a) I didn’t think “I” could, but thought perhaps “we” could, and (b) I had no idea it would be as big as it is, so “ambitious” is only apparent looking back. But that’s too simple, so in a bit greater depth…

Palate Press: The online wine magazine, in retrospect seems quite ambitious, but I don’t think anybody anticipated it would be what it is as quite so quickly. Instead, we, and I must emphasize “we,” for it was from the beginning a group effort, really had no idea if it would work. We approached it, not as a project, but as an experiment in the next generation of wine blogging. We looked around and saw just how much great content there was out there, how hard it was to separate the wheat from the chaff, and wondered if there were a way to turn the best of it into something valuable.

I only began to suspect it might work when amazing people, people like WR Tish, Jeff Lefevere, Gabriella Opaz, and others said “yes, I’ll give it a shot.” It was always the team of people, as writers and as editors, that made success possible.

What have you learned in doing it?

I was an infant, and now I feel like a wobbly toddler. Walking and talking are tremendous achievements, but running and conversing are skills to be honed. I could barely begin to list all the things I have learned, but I will offer the first ones that come to mind, that I struggle with or enjoy daily:

For every ten people who enthusiastically volunteer to work on a project without compensation, one will actually do the work, and for every ten that actually do the work, only one will do so consistently and over an extended period of time.

People will ALWAYS surprise you. They will surprise you in good ways and bad. They will surprise you with their lack of follow-through or with their amazing dedication. They will surprise you with the quality of their writing, from poorer than you expected to astounding talent. The lesson to take from this, when dealing with a large group of people, is to be careful not to rely on your assumptions about them, but to let their personalities play out over long periods of time, until each individual settles comfortably into their own role, rather than trying to force them into the role you expect them to play.

It doesn’t hurt to ask. The question I got more than any other in the first few months of Palate Press was, “how did you convince Tish to join?” The answer was, “I asked.” I never expected him to say yes, but it cost little more than free email and we had the cornerstone of our launch.

It doesn’t hurt to beg, either. That is really a subset of “it doesn’t hurt to ask,” but really means “don’t take no for an answer.” Several of our greatest talents said “no” when first approached. They lacked time. They had their own website and did not see why they should cannibalize their writing for another. They did not see where the project was going. I suspect a few just didn’t like me, and that’s okay, too. So I begged. I became so annoying, for those I deemed essential to success, that it eventually became easier to just say yes (this is the same method I used to persuade my wife to marry me, by the way). Some saw the project as a success and stuck around. It was worth the effort.

Great content is not enough. I truly believe Palate Press has the best content about wine anywhere, but that means nothing if nobody saw it. It took press releases, cross-posting, Twitter, Facebook, and a constant effort to say “HERE WE ARE, LOOK AT US!” for people to notice.

Social media is the beginning, not the end. Wine blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Open Wine Consortium, etc., are a great way to jump-start an idea, but not the end. Eventually, you capture the few thousand people actively participating and just talking to each other. Success online will only come when you break out of that limited circle into the internet in general. That, in turn, means you have to think outside the blogger’s “what will make other bloggers think I’m great” mindset, and into “what do wine lovers want to read”? It also means formatting content for the general public, not other bloggers.

Editing makes everybody better. At first, we had a lot of push-back against editors, each blogger used to publishing their own content with the push of a button. Some stayed away, or left, because of it. But the ones who stayed all said the same thing, “editing made me better.” Of course it did. Yes, we have made errors as editors, but overall, and certainly in the long run, editors make writers better. Additionally, we have seen an interesting phenomenon. When people send stories to Palate Press, they send their very best. Almost universally, what people send in has obviously been more carefully written, and re-written, than something they would post on their own site. Whether it is the knowledge they would be edited or understanding that we have multiple stories to choose from, we get everybody’s best work. One interesting question is whether they go back and put similar effort into their own sites and if Palate Press helps increase the quality of content across the whole wine blogosphere.

What is the reception you’ve had to the ad network?

Shock and excitement. People inside the blogosphere forget how small a minority we are. People outside the blogosphere are just starting to figure out how the internet works. It is a revelation to a local wine store owner to learn that the local wine blogger might get 80% of his page views from thousands of miles away, but that through geo-targeting he can focus on-line advertising. Bigger advertisers appreciate the ability to focus on such a tight niche, wine, with such great economic demographics. Right now on-line advertising is down across the board, but as advertisers pull out of the doldrums they are looking for ways to believe on-line advertising can work, and a very large niche-network seems to be a model they are willing to try.

From the bloggers, it has been equally enthusiastic. Until now, most wine bloggers either did not bother with advertising or just took a few pennies from Google advertising. No single blog was ever big enough to justify a sales force. By collecting so many blogs together, now we can justify a sales force.

Perhaps most interesting, the bloggers in the Ad Network are also enthusiastically buying into the concept behind the magazine, understanding not just that the ads they run fuel the magazine, but that the magazine anchors the network. They also see, and I think are excited, that the magazine provides a venue where they can be professional writers, selling their content if they produce the very best. Our advertising partners have become a source of many of our new stories.

Where do you hope to be one year from now as a site and an ad network?

As a site, we would like to continue to grow in readership. I regularly hear we have the best wine content anywhere, and we need to work hard to keep that impression with those who have it, and give it to those who don’t have it yet. One big change we hope to put into effect by the end of the year is to be able to pay for every story we run, to truly turn into the site where everybody everywhere writing about wine turns to publish their work. We have been watching what is happening to newspapers, where wine columnist are losing their jobs. We want to hire everybody, one story at a time, and publish the best available content every day.

For the network, we want to be the place anybody advertising about wine turns. We want to be the place bloggers turn to if they want to “monetize” their blog. We want to reach the point where a person who googles “wine” sees our ads within three clicks. If we can do that, the advertisers and the bloggers will come to us.

Finally how can bloggers get involved? Can they submit stories, to Palate Press? How do they sign up for the ad network? Any restrictions?

We accept story submissions from anybody, anywhere, any time. Send a story idea, just title, lead, and a sentence or two of explanation, to submissions@palatepress.com. We review every story individually. Ideally, every time a blogger says to themselves, “I have a great one this time,” their next thought will be “this is something I should send to Palate Press.” Our only restrictions on stories are that we ask for an exclusive on stories we run, that they be original, and that they not expose us to potential litigation (no defamation or copyright violations).

Anybody with a wine or food site can apply to be part of the ad network. Just send a note that says you’re interested to dhonig@palatepress.com. We will accept anybody with a wine or food site with a reasonable amount of traffic, assuming there is not something obviously offensive about the site. We are thrilled to add “WhatIDrankLastNight.com,” but have not interest in “Porn&Wine.com.” We have network members with just a few hundred page views a month, and some with hundreds of thousands of page views a month. We also have sites in other languages and want more. We can create geo-targeted ad campaigns anywhere in the world and are not restricted to English ads.

Thanks again David, and again, please don’t hesitate to put your questions in the comments below!!

This international program, still young in its inception, was created to not only help preserve and promote the culture of wine, but also, help discourage abuse of alcohol. As wine bloggers have become one of the main channels for wine education, we felt it was important to help promote dialogue as to whether you would like to support the program.

Below are questions we posed to George Sandeman, one of the major spokesmen for the Wine in Moderation program, as to why bloggers should be interested in the WIM program.

If you have any questions for George, please don’t hesitate to place them in the comments. If you are interested in registering for the program, go here. And if you’re interested in reading a more comprehensive version of the interview, please go here.

Why is there a need for this initiative (Wine in Moderation was it – WIM)?

Over the last 20 years there has been both an increase in sensitivity and pressure on the need to reduce alcohol related harm. The various sectors of alcoholic beverages have taken up the challenge to ensure responsible marketing and to work with national and regional authorities to achieve this objective.
Wine in Moderation (WIM) is the program developed and in implementation by the European Wine sector.

After your speech at the EWBC, many wine bloggers mentioned that they had never heard of the project and were a little skeptical of its potential success. In your opinion, why should bloggers care?

Due to Wine in Moderation being in the early stage of implementation, it is quite natural that many wine bloggers who are not focused on the Alcohol & Health dossier would not be familiar with the project. It is natural to be sceptical of “new projects”, but in the case of WIM it is important to register that its success of depends on the weight and commitment of the entire EU Wine filière.

As socially responsible people, and linked to wine, bloggers should have the same concerns as other citizens.

There has been loads of debate as to how wine blogging is an effective medium to educate the masses about wine. Add this to the fact that bloggers are generally talking about quality wines, rather than about drinks that cause health problems, where do you see a blogger’s role in disseminating the “moderation” message?

For WIM there is no doubt that the support of wine bloggers is important in spreading the word about “wine in moderation” – especially because the consumers of quality wines are the cultural example to which we so often refer.

Where can bloggers garner more information and is there someone they can talk to directly about the project?

There is information regarding Wine in Moderation at www.wineinmoderation-eu as well as through the national organization responsible for implementing the WIM project in each country.

For a personal intervention, bloggers can contact the secretariat of Comité Vin – CEEV (ceev@ceev.eu) and depending on the type of information required (ie political or scientific) someone will be designated.