Archive for the ‘Wine Media’ Category

Aug 5, 2021

How To Become A Professional Wine Writer

How do you create a career for yourself as a wine writer? This was the question a young, ambitious woman asked me on the phone yesterday. She wanted to reach out mainly to say hello in advance of the Wine Media Conference in Eugene, Oregon where both of us will be today. Our conversation turned to wine writing and the question was posed. I am sort of an odd person to ask that question of since I’ve only written a…

Jul 21, 2021

A Wine Conference for the Passionate

I think it must be clear to anyone to cares to take notice that today there is a far greater abundance of wine-related media at our disposal than at any previous time. I’m not talking about wine-related tweets and posts as these generally are devoid of any real substance or are links to or comments upon wine-related stories published elsewhere. I’m talking about the plethora of wine media offered up in the form of wine publications, wine blogs, podcasts, newspapers…

May 9, 2021

The History of Wine Influencers — Part 1

Recently, in the wake of online discussions of “wine influencers” after this story in the San Francisco Chronicle hit, one young wine influencer took issue with my own response to the Chronicle article and took to Twitter to explained to me the history of wine Influencers this way: “The wine Influencer isn’t new – the first ones were old white men without pretty pictures who wrote about wine in inaccessible language meant to stave off the common public- but they…

May 5, 2021

Put-Upon, Underpaid, Disparaged, Victims—The Life of Wine Influencers

Are wine influencers mining the depths and potential of Instagram really just put-upon, underpaid, disparaged journalists working in a new medium that the sexist wine industry is too male and too old to understand or appreciate? As usual, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Esther Mobley provides some fascinating insight into her subject matter, this time looking at “wine influencers” and doing a good job of letting them tell their story without too much interruption. Unfortunately, in “Instagram’s wine influencers started thriving…

Apr 20, 2021

Wine, Mind Share and the Media—A Potent Combo Still

In 1990 I went to work for a wine-oriented PR firm in Santa Rosa, California. I was fresh off the college boat, had never worked in public relations and the only insight I had into how the media works was that I saw newspapers and magazines arrived at my home with relative regularity. I didn’t know any journalists or writers. I read a lot, but the idea of speaking with writers and suggesting topics for them to write about held…