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.