June 22 2008
The 1st Annual Wine Blogger Conference commences October 24th in Sonoma. Organized by the Open Wine Consortium, led by Joel Vincent with a big helping hand from Tom Wark, and co-hosted by Zephyr Wine Adventures, the three-day event should prove to be a valuable educational and networking event for all participants. And, here’s hoping that material progress comes out of the event, as well—particularly around brainstorming ways to enhance progress.
The elephant in the room in regards to wine blogging is the two-headed monster called “credible monetization.” This, not so coincidentally, is also the area where the most material progress is necessary. Simply, most people that engage in wine blogging want more credibility and they would not mind making a little money from the time spent blogging.
But, let us face it, despite the occasional wine sample, free books from publishers, a paltry Google Adsense check, and the ‘once in a blue moon’ paid ad, the rewards from writing a wine site are much more deeply personal than they are financial.
For whatever reason, wine blogging, unlike other niches like product affinity groups (ex: iPod) and politics (ex: Huffington Post), has not seen the progress forward to legitimacy that is necessary to make wine blogging a truly dynamic force in the marketplace.
I hope that the Wine Blogger Conference is a step forward in making progress towards the goal of creating an influence mechanism that can take on the power wielded by traditional media.
20th century social critic and philosopher Eric Hoffer said, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Wine blogging is ready to become a business and hopefully never degenerates into a racket.
In order to do so, it will not be pretty. There is a deeply rooted philosophical bent towards full disclosure and integrity, two noble notions that are not always simpatico with capitalism, and what makes business such a racket sometimes. This does not even begin to mention and acknowledge the iconoclasm that is inherent to blogging. Wine bloggers are a collaborative and helpful lot, but there are not a whole lot of people willing to take a backseat to another.
This is the Achilles heel of making progress: wine blogger ethos + wine blogger pathos.
Secondarily, the bloody truth of wine blogging is that wine journalism as a niche is controlled like the Third Reich—pick your dictator: Wine Spectator or the Wine Advocate. Neither is going to give any help to the friendly competition anytime soon. In fact, given that Parker started with Ralph Nader as an influence, I think he probably understands the competitive opportunity that blogs wield.
Whether wine bloggers like it or not, I do not anticipate a day in the near future where respect and legitimacy is conferred, therefore, we must make and take our respect. Similar to what Parker did in bucking convention.
I have an idea that I would like to explore in the “Unconference” portion of the event that I think will create a coalition of legitimacy.
Have you ever wondered what value “The Wines of Austria” get out of ads in Wine Spectator? Me, too.
With ad rates north of $30K for a full page and in the $15K range for a 1/3 page ad, do you think that money can be better spent elsewhere, amongst real influencers?
Yes!
Here is the sketch of the idea. Lenn from Lenndevours has done a terrific job with his Wine Blogging Wednesday thematic tasting collective. I would like to see something very similar, but organized like a commerce-oriented cooperative.
Wine Blogging Review Coalition (WBRC)
• Founders of the WBRC invite bloggers with participation limited to 20 bloggers in the first year
• Every participant must complete some form of education by the end of the first year of their participation—either the Introductory Master Sommelier course or Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW)
- A portion of first year blogger earnings are held in escrow and paid upon completion of training at which point the money can be paid to tuition for training by the blogger
• Solicited sponsorship from US-based International wine organizations (and domestic wine associations and wineries, as well)—Wines of Australia, Wines of New Zealand, Wines of Spain, Wines of Austria, etc. to a Wine Blogging Review Coalition web site. Includes advertising on the WBRC site and the blogger tasting participants in addition to participation grants to writers
• Wine reviews are coordinated as frequently as necessary based on specific wine samples from the sponsoring organization. Additional sponsorship fees go into the cooperative fund for the writer participation grants
• All bloggers participating write a review with some common standards for narrative structure and reviewing format (i.e. stars, points, etc.)
• Wine blogger participants are held to no guidelines for the content of their review—they are free to write as glowingly or critically frank of the wine as they deem appropriate.
• All content is published on the blog writer’s blog, the Wine Blogging Review Coalition blog and provided back to the international wine organization for their re-use and re-purpose with some copyright reserved to the author. POS materials are also created for the sponsoring organization’s use.
Really, this takes the core of Wine Blogging Wednesday and enhances it with fair collaboration and monetization in mind. It addresses integrity, it addresses the competence of reviews with the educational component, it creates an organized central body, and it addresses the ability to leverage the review for marketing purposes with the client.
Wineries participating get ready access to influencers, they get wine reviews for PR purposes and they get POS materials to use in the channel.
So, this is what I hope to discuss at the Wine Bloggers Conference, in addition to meeting many friends and peers.
If you have an enhancement idea for the Wine Blogging Review Coalition, which is admittedly only version .5 in development, please feel free to leave a comment for all to see.
Posted in, Free Run: Field Notes From a Wine Life. Permalink | Comments (16) |
Very interesting and very well thought-out, but I’m not sure it achieves anything. I’ve done a ton of blogging, mostly political, and have been fairly successful building a political cartoon site. Blogs become successful by being good and being visible.
First, your examples are not good ones. Huffington Post is a poor example of a successful blog. Ariana Huffington was big first, THEN she built a blog. A better example is Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com), which is actually bigger than Huffington anyway. It got big by being very good, very visible, and cross-posting like mad.
If bloggers want to support each other they should start by cross-linking their sites. Blogger has a very cool new feature that will link every blog on your list with the most recent new update first, with the subject line. If everybody used this, the most prolific wine bloggers would get loads of visibility.
Next, good tags. Make sure if somebody who never heard the words “wine blog” googled “wine review” they got your site.
Also, learn about Digg, and Buzz It, and similar sites, that direct people to your site.
Next, find ways to send other people to your site. If you’re also interested in politics, write something political on a big political site, mention your blog (or even better, put it in your signature line) with a link. Do it on your college football team’s fan website. Email it to your friends and family.
Gasp,
Could someone else beides me be suggesting consolidation AND formal wine training?!?!?!
Dave,
I would add one thing to the top of your list of “Must Dos”:
“Write good, robust and accurate content.”
Sorry, maybe I don’t see the entire vision, but what I think I am understanding isn’t floating my boat.
I support building cred. via education & certification (as a WSET and SWE cert. holder), because the wine industry values it.
Having said that, it shouldn’t matter a jot about my certs. if I can hold my own with the local Philly sommeliers & wine directors (I’d argue that I could).
So cred. on-line comes from a few things: good content, knowing your subject, maybe some certs. to back it all up, and finally - and most importantly - popularity (eyeballs)...
But, Joe (1WineDude), popularity is not always a mark of quality or credibility.
Case in point: Eric Asimov’s piece on pinot noit.
Quite right - popularity is not always an indicator of quality; but it is taken for credibility in the on-line world nonetheless.
Joe,
With the American wine culture at stake, don’t you think somehting should be done about it?
Arthur, you’re right. Step one is writing good content.
As a newbie wine blogger, I am pretty happy with the way things are. I would not be interested in getting the sort of training or certification Jeff suggests, for the reasons Dr. Debs cited. My credibility is based on 20-plus years of hard work in the wine industry and whatever trustworthiness I’ve built up, not on passing some exam. I think over time the best blogs will rise to the top. Finally, I wouldn’t be in favor of “common standards for narrative structure and reviewing format.” Every reviewer has his or her own format and that’s part of the fun of it.
Hi Arthur,
I didn’t suggest that nothing should be done 
. I’m just not convinced that a coalition of a limited number of wine bloggers collectively seeking certifications is the best thing to be done about it.
I have generally opposed (publicly) those initiatives that seek to group a small number of wine bloggers together for the purpose of trying to set a standard or other directional objective for the entire wine blogging community.
And that’s because I think those things are limiting and do not really leverage the beautiful diversity of the larger community.
Just my $0.02 worth, really.
Excellent idea, Jeff. I’m really glad that you’ve put this out there and look forward to discussing it further at the conference.
I see from the previous comments that one issue for some is the education requirement. However, I agree with you that the education requirement is an important element in our efforts to gain credibility as a group. In fact, I would take it a step further and suggest that the first 20 bloggers selected should already hold some certification/credential. Whether we all like it or not, credentials do carry some weight in the industry at least to get a good first look. After that, the content and quality must certainly be there for someone to give us a second look.
If we decide to go forward with something like this, I’d welcome the opportunity to participate.
All,
I love (LOVE) all of the comments. There are several points of clarification I would like to make, but I’m going to do so in a follow-up post tonight. I’ll cite appropriate comments and try to flesh out a little deeper. I think this is great dialogue!
I’m with Steve,
Cream always rises to the top.
Joe,
I’m sorry if it sounds like I didn’t think you were suggesting a concrete path.
I was trying to push the discussion along towards more ideas.
Kori,
I had proposed that the members of the OWC compise such a curriculum and strive to make it affordable.
Jo,
For the most part that addage is right, but other things float to the top, too.
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An interesting idea, Jeff. I’m sure that there will be a lot of people interested in it, and I think that it’s a creative way to think about collaboration.
I don’t feel I lack credibility—and I don’t get paid. So, I’m not sure what this offers. There are people paid to review wine who aren’t credible, and people paid to review wine who are. Similarly, there are people who aren’t paid that are hacks, and people who aren’t paid that are really quite good. Also, some people get paid for a newspaper/mag column, but blog for personal reasons somewhere else. Do they lose credibility when they write online?
This may have been a big issue once, but I think it is not a big issue anymore—maybe a medium sized one.
As for the money itself, taking those courses is expensive and time consuming. No matter how much $ this group of 20 gets, are they going to be able to quit their job and do it full time? If not, I think the educational requirement is a bit puzzling. Do we really think that’s what’s necessary to win credibility?
I think the best way to get credibility is to work consistently at something and to do it with integrity. Doing it well also helps. I haven’t had a single winemaker, vineyard owner, PR person, or media rep ask what courses I took to learn about wine. I think they can tell after talking to me for 5 minutes I know enough to be competent.
Don’t get me wrong—I think education is a wonderful thing. And I think credibility is important. I just don’t think a course and a paycheck automatically make you credible. But that’s probably just me.
I think the collaboration idea is a terrific one, however, and think that some kind of panel of blogging reviewers could actually be a very powerful voice—provided they could be consistent and produce good reviews on a regular basis.
If so then all the other things would fall into place.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but you really got me thinking here. Looking forward to seeing you in October in Sonoma.