Everyone has to have their say

I have been reading wine blogs for what I consider to be a very short time, but there is something that has occurred to me that I think is well worth remembering: Everyone gets to have their say.


Yesterday, I read a blog post by Steve Heimoff. Steve is one of my favorite bloggers to read. His position as a journalist for the Wine Enthusiast gives him access to wine and information that many wine bloggers (or at least the ones blogging for their own fame and fortune) dream about. He called me out on his blog for mistaking his feelings towards bloggers (rightfully so), and is very much an advocate for thoughtful discussion on the Internet.

Steve writes:

In their eagerness to topple the old order the bloggers sometimes
over-react, sensing blood in the water and moving in for the kill. But reactions
should be judicious; the punishment should fit the crime.

After reading the full blog post (which I would suggest), I think the issue Steve is bringing up is not that the articles now streaming the Internet's twitter, flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. byways are unjustified. There are just so many of them and there seems to be no end to the number of people chiming in on the subject.

To fill in my readers that do not know what is going on, there has been a particularly intense round of navel gazing happening on wine blogs in the past month, due to the issues surrounding Robert Parker at the Wine Advocate. Then there was an intense round of anti-navel gazing. Now there are people who are just fed up with the whole idea of a navel, but I digress.

I think what some bloggers do not realize is that just because 3,000,000 other people have written about a subject, taken it to their cellar, beaten it to death, performed a mighty two footed jump on its lifeless body, does not mean that one more blogger will not take it into their mind to give the corpse one more go round with the paddle.

This is the blogosphere, where there are no rules (yet), no editor, no grammar, no spellcheck, and certainly no end to the number of times a subject can be written about. Everyone gets to have their say and there is nothing anyone can do to stop them.

But that is what makes the blogosphere so powerful! It is a wine marketer's dream to be able to have all 700+ wine blogs (or any blogs!) all writing about their client all at the same time. But there is no way to ask all 700+ people to do that. That is not the way it works. At best you will have a handful of people writing about a wine within a month. And that's only if you have done your research, made relationships with the bloggers, and understood what it is they write about and why.

This works for all subjects, not just wine. If we could get everyone to agree to write on a deadline, then we could move on to the next subject without a problem. However, bloggers all read each other's blogs (or so I have found), which means that a blogger might read a story about the ethics issue 700+ times in four weeks. It is understandable that one would get tired of reading about the issue, but such is the nature of the beast (blogging that is).

My suggestion: stop worrying about it. People will get it out of their system, just give it time. Go back to doing whatever type of blogging you were doing before these shenanigans started. The 700+ people reading your blog will appreciate it.

On a completely different note, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my girlfriend Leah on graduating from medical school. Leave her a comment on here blog here: Pets, Posts and Other Medical Mysteries

Read 465 blog posts today…

I haven’t posted in about a week, mostly because of a combination of on vacation and focused on dragging my lazy butt out of bed, and a bit of illness. I hate being sick and unable to do what I want my body to do…

Last week, Steve Heimoff wrote on his blog that he wanted to clarify something that I wrote about him in one of my earlier posts. No I doubt that Steve is a regular reader, I bet he has a google alert set up with his name. Steve does not hate bloggers. I do not know what Steve hates; he may post about that in a later post. I think I have made amends in my explanation of my post on the comment section of his post. And keeping track of what post is being posted where is getting to me. Maybe time for an aspirin…

So much is happening in the wine world right now. I just got the new research numbers (Gomberg – Fredrikson, 2008 through October) and it is pretty staggering. A quick breakdown:

Shipments to the US – up 1% (lower that the last two years, but still climbing for now)
California – up 3%
Imported Bottled wine – down 6%
Italy – down 6%
Australia – down 8%
France – down 9%
Spain – even
Chile – up 2% (sweet)
Germany – down 5%
New Zealand – down 6%
Argentina – up 33% (WHOA!)
Portugal – up 11% (really? Cool!)
South Africa – down 15%

Looks like Spanish/Portuguese language countries are doing best.

Then there is the Michigan direct shipping law changes; Tom Wark at Fermentation has been following it closely so you might want to just read his blog for more info.

New York’s retail laws are changing, being turned upside-down, chopped up, and thrown out. I’ll let Debbie Lessner-Gioquindo at Wine Goddess tell you about that one.

Each state is currently taking a look at their budgets and seeing where they can squeeze another couple million dollars. The answer is of course going to be alcohol, so stock up on the ridiculous deals going on right now and fill your cellar up for the tough times coming.

It takes all types...

I was searching around Twitter tonight, following people in the wine world. PR people, marketing people (yes, there is a difference), wine makers, importers, retailers, bloggers, enthusiasts, drunks, winos, college kids... ok, maybe not college kids. My point is that while I was looking around at what people do and say and think in the 140 character description they are allowed to have I found this:

"I hate wine bloggers!"

It was so interesting! This is probably the first person I have seen on the vast empty space they call the internet that hates wine bloggers. Of course, some very important and professional write reviews and writers do not particular care for bloggers (Steve Heimoff for example), but they do not hate them. From reading Steve's blog I do not think he does not like blogs and their bloggers. He makes the point that he does not think that blogs will be the next grand moving force of the wine industry as the occurance of Robert Parker for instance. I agree with him for the most part, but I think there will be a small minority of bloggers (which may be quite a few since there are SO MANY BLOGS) that become as important if not more important than print reviewing media outlets.

But that subject has been beaten to death by the wine blogging community, so let me turn to what interested me: http://wine-ing20.blogspot.com/

When I saw this I cracked up. It is a wine blog which has the professed purpose of annoying and insulting other wine blogs. It is written by Over Oaked, Over Extracted, and Flabby Chard, or at least it was at one point in time. Does not seem that anyone is keeping up with the writing.

But it does make one laugh doesn't it? The anti wine blog wine blog? Makes me wonder how many more there are out there.