Where are the Winery Blogs?
I continue to be astonished at the near total lack of U.S. wineries maintaining blogs. I’ve looked around and I can’t find more than three:
Anomaly Vineyards (Napa Valley) maintain a blog that chronicles the goings on in the vineyards, in the cellar and in the market place of an ultra premium brand. (disclosure: client)
Atelier Winery (Healdsburg) maintains an occasionally updated blog that appears to be aimed at wine club members but has some interesting information nonetheless.
Bradley Cooper’s Wine & Vine BC (British Columbia) is not so much a winery blog as it is a winemaker’s blog, and he does a really great job.
I’m reminded of the time it takes to maintain and continually update a blog when I consider why there are so few winery-relate blogs. But even an ongoing diary of daily events I think would appeal to a substantial number of wine lovers.
Many wine drinkers have a pretty romantic idea of what happens at a winery. Many think it’s a matter of blowing fairy dust upon the vines, getting together a happy clan of pickers to sing and bring in the grapes, then cheerfully stomp the grapes into wine. Meanwhile, in between there’s just a string of fine dinners and tastings to enjoy.
It’s kinda different than that. Maybe the illusion is something best kept in place. Still, this is one PR fella who is convinced that a regularly maintained winery blog would not only be a service but a boost to business.
While its not in “blog” format, as it was started in mid-1998, Dave Coffaro has a Winemaker’s Diary that’s been going for almost seven years: http://www.coffaro.com/diary.html
Cheers,
Dave
Here’s one for you:
http://woodfamilyvineayrds.blogspot.com/
And no, that’s not a typo in the URL. Go figure.
Thanks for the mention, Tom. I think that the blog phenom is not quite mainstream yet. I know there are millions out there but a lot are just not active. As far as blogs and wineries . . . alot of wine people are multi-tasking as it is and to take on a new and unknown task may require some sort of incentive. It will happen, eventually. I’ve had to take this on like an exercise program: I lay out a schedule and proceed to beat myself up if I don’t progress according to the program. This despite the fact I was a professional writer long before I was a wine maker. Latest thing that really works for me: my Sharpreader. I get all I want delivered instantly and I can browse it all on one page. Frankly, if a wine writer is blogging and doesn’t have a feed link there’s not much chance I’m going to frequently visit. Maybe once in awhile but not nearly as much as my feed favourites. (Notice my Canadian spelling?)
Cheers!
Hello!
I’m a french winemaker in Languedoc Roussillon, I have my own blog, on http://www.vinopsis.com.
And I give the opportunity to everybody to rent a row of wines in Roussillon (France), in order to produce wine! the blog is : http://www.mesvignes.com
(in french but soon in english)
Winery Blogs
I’ve been meaning to do this ever since we completed all the site evaluations for The Winery Web Site Report: Our Comprehensive List of Winery BlogsThe list is pretty short, which is unfortunate, since blogs are a great low-effort way