I've been blocked?

What is twitter etiquette? There was a winery that sent me a bottle of wine. I found the first bottle corked and then did not like the second bottle, so I decided not write about the wines. I told the winemaker via twitter and explained why I did not like the wine.

He accepted my opinion graciously, noting that everyone has the right to what they thing. I recently found out that he then blocked me from his twitter updates (of which he makes many).

To me it is almost a blessing in disguise. Since most of what he does on twitter is talk about his wines, I am removed from the deluge of advertising. Then again, it does not allow me to respond and enter the discussion about his wines with the general populace.

How do you feel about this practice? Is this as bad as "un-friending" someone on facebook?

I am only sort of social

I get a lot of people who meet me in one aspect of social media and then decide to include me in ALL aspects of social media. And then I am faced with the delema of whether or not I want hundreds of thousands of people knowing how I look in a Santa Claus outfit.

The answer, simply, is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Let's go through the sites I am a member of one by one:


Twitter (www.twitter.com/RobBralow)

Twitter is a great place to chat with people and share ideas, events, news, philosophy, etc. If you have a food or wine bend to your profile or if you engage me in discussion, yes I will follow you. I would prefer if you would follow me as well, but for the most part I do not care. I am there to talk to people who like to talk about wine.

I do NOT want a direct message after following you, especially if you are not following me and will not allow me to send a direct message back to you. In fact, there is not much that pisses me off more in the realm of Twitter. I also am not going to pay any attention to you if all I see coming from you are links to your blog/store website/promotional event/press release. I will not click on your link and I will not retweet it so that others can see it. On the other hand, if you and I have had some discussions previously about the topic and then you send me your blog post regarding the topic via Twitter, then yes, I will most likely pass it on for others to see.

That being said, come talk to me! I almost always respond and I really, truly, absolutely love striking up conversations with people I do not know. You never know where they might lead you.


LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/robbralow)

I work for a living. Not too profound a statement, but it is true. As such, you can find me on LinkedIn. If you are in the same business I am, I will happily add you to my network. In fact, I probably will even if you are marginally in the same business I am. Business connections can become invaluable when you or someone you know is looking for information or opportunities. Especially in the current job market, it just does not make sense to limit the number of people you are connected to. Sometimes I need vendors, sometimes I need consultants, sometimes I need... who knows what I will need. But that is the point. You never know where life will take you and it only pays to network.


OpenWine Consortium (www.openwineconsortium.org/profile/RobBralow)

Yes, I am there, but I am not really there, because there is no there there. You can find me, you can friend me, you can message me, you can comment on me, and you can read my blog there. But I am NEVER there. Why? Because I get all of the social networking interaction I need from other places. That is not to say that I do not think the OpenWine Consortium is not valuable. I just find other places to do my interactions. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn being the main ones.


MySpace (www.myspace.com/84438513)

I do not use it. I do not want to use it. The only reason I am posting the link is to see how many people actually go to it. And try and be my friend. I will never speak to those people ever again, ever...


Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbralow)

Before you go and click on the above link, I want you to think about what you are doing. This isreally the crux of what I wanted to talk about, and I really believe that this is somewhat of a generational issue.

Five years ago, you could not find an 'adult' on facebook. Everyone was in college and highschool. Then facebook opened itself up to the world and the at first the world shrugged. Now it is THE place to be, advertisers, marketers, promoters all want to be there and want to be my friend. But so many have jumped in without really understanding what Facebook is, and signed on and have begun to "friend" everyone in sight, and then spamming them with everything under the sun. Now I see everything as someone advertising to me, and I ignore more than I've ever ignored. And I was a really lazy teenager...

Then there is the personal side. There is a lot of me on Facebook. I use it all the time and I update it regularly. I go there to see what my friends are doing. I go there to post photos and events and generally interact with people I like.

It has become common practice for people I meet on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to then friend me on Facebook. And it makes sense. Everyone wants to be able to have their stuff in front of me. That's ok, I get it. However, please understand if I do not give you access to some of the slightly more personal information in my life, such as what I did while in a fraternity at school (I was a Chi Phi by the way). I will definitely not add you as a friend until I meet you face-to-face, and even then I give no assurance that I will let you be my "friend."

Silly, perhaps, but I have found that each of these social communities gives different levels of personal insight. Facebook is as personal as it gets without being someone I do drinks with on a regular basis.

Speaking of which, its time for a drink...

I am really interested in making a new contact and getting to know someone new. Just realize that just because I converse with you in 140 characters at a time does not mean that I will then all you to see more.

Absolutely and totally GEEKED OUT

This past weekend Leah and I went out to Long Island to participate in TasteCamp East 2009, organized by Lenn Thompson of LENNDEVOURS. It was a weekend specifically for bloggers to have a place for us east coasters to meet up as well as learn more about Long Island wines.

You know those kids that played D&D, that turned into teenagers that played magic cards, that then went back to playing D&D in college because it felt retro, who have now found D&D clubs in the towns where they now live?

Yeah, it was kinda like that. But… not as creepy.

Everyone was great, really friendly with a passion for wine. From the moment I arrived I knew that it was going to be a great weekend. Everyone wanted to learn about each other, what everyone does in real life. Some (like me) were part of the gears that keep the wine industry moving. There were a few retailers, a few PR people, and an importer who all let their professional lives spill over onto the Internet. The rest had strong tech backgrounds, from insurance through database management and on to information technology.

And by God, did everyone love to drink.

The knowledge level of everyone there was very good. It was obvious that everyone had a palate that they were comfortable with and were willing to express their own opinions and insights on the wines without making anyone who was not as knowledgeable (like Leah) feel like they were not up to the group’s standards. There was also a great camaraderie. I am not sure if some of that stemmed from the recent hoopla at DrVino, but there was an immediate comfortable atmosphere the moment we walked into the first winery for dinner. Perhaps it was the Sauvignon Blanc that awaited us. More on that to come.

One thing that was a little over the top was all the twitter that happened. People twittered (Twit? Tweeted? Twat?) all the time, during meals, during tastings, during the car ride between one winery and the next, tweeting, twittering, twating, twhatever. Too much twitter where there were other things going on. I certainly cannot blame people for writing blog posts during the weekend, but I have no idea when people had the time.

This was a marathon tasting weekend and I am very much looking forward to finding out who thought what about each winery we visited. There certainly were not as many wines as some of the tastings I have held for critics, for which I am very thankful, but there was more than enough wines for us all to geek out about.

Throughout the next two weeks I am going to be posting reviews of the weekend. I have so many tasting notes that there is no way I will be able to get them all together for another day or two. Stay tuned for more.

A huge thank you for Lenn Thompson who helped organize the weekend, Melissa Dobson who helped organize a taxi service for the even portions of the trip, and all of the wineries and winemakers that hosted us throughout the weekend.

If you would like to check out all of the bloggers that I hung out with, here is the list:

Becky - http://smellslikegrape.blogspot.com/
Bryan - http://www.niagaraescarpment.net/
Dale - http://drinksareonme.net/
Debbie - http://hvwinegoddess.blogspot.com/
Diane - http://www.loveswine.blogspot.com/
Erika - http://www.strumerika.com/
Joe - http://www.1winedude.com/
John - http://anythingwine.wordpress.com/
Lenn - http://lennthompson.typepad.com/
Lyle - http://rockssandfruit.blogspot.com/
Melissa - http://familylovewine.wordpress.com/
Michelle - http://www.wine-girl.net/
Nick - http://homewineschool.com/
Remy - http://winecase.wordpress.com/
Rich - http://passionatefoodie.blogspot.com/
Robbin - http://www.vineyardadventures.com/
Tom - http://ithacork.wordpress.com/

And Leah put up a post too! http://leahhamburg.blogspot.com/

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.

The Art of a Virtual Tasting

Last Friday night at 8 pm I joined a group of other wine geeks to taste wines and compare our notes. We all went through the proper motions: swirl, sniff, sip, swish and swallow (I don’t think anyone spits in this crowd). We were all meticulous in noting the different flavors and aromas that our senses perceived. I might be the only one to admit it, but some of us got a little tipsy. And we did it while we were all hundreds of miles from each other.

We were all participants of a tasting on Twitter Taste Live. On November 19th Lenn Thompson of LENNDEVOURS announced that he was hosting the tasting and that his choice was four wines from Humanitas Winery, a winery owned by Judd Wallenbrock who is also the winemaker. I read Lenn’s blog all the time so I decided to check it out. Judd blogs at Drink Charitably and the concept of his winery is a beautiful one, to make good wine and to give back to charities in local communities where the wines are sold. The profits from the winery go to three primary causes: hunger, affordable housing and illiteracy. They have chosen Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest), Habitat for Humanity, and Reading is Fundamental as their targeting charities, but do not limit the donations to only those. Judd and company are just as likely to donate to local charities that best address these issues in individual communities. One of the best winery missions I have heard to date.

If you’ve never seen or heard of Twitter before, you are not the only one. It might be the latest online craze, but then again it might not. The format of using Twitter Taste Live (TTL) was an interesting one. The notion is that everyone buys the wines and meets at the same time and tweet about them. Yes, that’s the new verb, and no I did not coin it (thank goodness). TTL was created by Craig Drollett, John Hafferty, and Chris Gillis and was originally connected to their retail store Bin Ends. Today TTL has distanced itself from the store and is completely open to the world of the wine industry, especially the consumers. The userbase is currently nearing 500 with participation in 8 countries. Not bad for a site based on tweets.

“The real vision is that this platform is a direct line of communication between consumers and wine makers,” explains Craig. “So far it’s working out very well.”

The tasting itself was very interesting, but turned into a case of the hiccups that won’t go away. I loved being in an online space where there are so many people who love to talk about wine all expressing their opinions of the same wines. The way it works is that as long as your tweet has #ttl included then it will pop up on the live feed. The only problem was that every ten to fifteen minutes or so the live twitter feed (I almost said tweet feed, but that seemed wrong somehow) would cut out. The only thing that really kept everything together was Matt doing a live video feed from his house.

All said and done, it was a good experience. The wines we tasted were:

• Humanitas Sauvignon Blanc 2006, 13.8% ALC, Monterey County, California, USA


• Humanitas Oak Free Chardonnay 2007, 13.8% ALC, Monterey County, California, USA


• Humanitas Gap’s Crown Pinot Noir 2006, 14.6% ALC, Sonoma Coast, California, USA


• Humanitas Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, 14.2% ALC, Paso Robles, California, USA

My clear favorite and that of the two others I tasted with (ok, so it is also nice to taste wine with live people too) was the Chardonnay. It was that classic pear and apple that Chardonnay should produce and had a great balance on the taste. The Cabernet started coming through for me after it sat out a while; I had not expected to need to decant it. When I first tasted the Cab it had huge tannins and was extremely rough. It started to smooth out and find some fruit after about an hour or so. I’ll know better for next time.

You can buy the wines here, and be sure to check out Twitter if you have not done so yet and Twitter Taste Live.