13 Years of Learning About Wine Blogging

Posted by Tom Wark on Nov 30, 2017

On this date, 13 years ago, this wine blog was born. That comes out to exactly 3,100 posts, 22,800 comments and more than 2.4 million trapped spam comments.

In reviewing what I’ve learned in those 13 years of blogging about the wine business, wine politics, wine culture and wine PR I can list the following with a high degree of confidence:

1. All wine blogging is wine writing, but not all wine writing is wine blogging
2. Write and blog with a strong, identifiable and confident voice
3. Only bite the hand that feeds you if they take away your silverware
4. Pictures Help
5. Write like everyone is reading you, but know that relatively few will
6. It takes an effort to comment on a blog so…respect that.
7. I could make money at this, but simultaneously at little else
8. There are worse things than writing for other bloggers and writers
9. If you want to be a better blogger, read better writers
10. The more you write, the more will read you.
11. A commitment to consistency is really hard to maintain
12. Repeating yourself isn’t a sin. Chances are you didn’t get it right the 1st time
13. If it takes you longer than 30 minutes to write a 500-word post, you don’t have it yet

Finally, on the occasion of my 13th anniversary blogging here at FERMENTATION: The Daily Wine Blog, I am waiving all subscription fees for readers. Happy Fermentation Day.