Wine Sediments

If you are reading these words, chances are you are either in the Food and Wine industry or you have extraordinary interest in wine as an avocation. Either way, you are one of a growing number of people who have found the New Wine Media.

Whether or not you are excited about this rush of new wine writing found on the net, you have to ask yourself, “What’s it really worth”?

That’s what this post is about. It’s about wine blogs that are providing the kind of information you either had to pay dearly for in years past, had to be an insider to get your hands on, or had to look through some of the most obscure printed media to find.

This post is about wine blogs that demonstrate the power of the New Wine Media to change the way we think about wine. It’s about the best and most important wine blogs on the Internet

LENDEVOURS
At LennDevours you find a blog devoted almost exclusively to wines of New York. And Lenn is writing about these wines on a daily basis. The ease of publishing means now, if you are a fan of these wines, you can read about them and learn about them on a daily basis…something that simple was not available five years ago. Blogs are making “other wine regions far more accessible.

The REthink Wine Blog
REthink Wine Blog is devoted exclusively to teaching its readers how to sell more wine…direct. It’s a very generous approach to both marketing and branding. And while the audience for this kind of blogging is smaller than a blog simply about wine, REthink Wine Blog demonstrates an essential truth about the New Wine Media. Never before has so much professional expertise been available for free. Yes, I know, “You get what you pay for” is what you are thinking. But that’s not the case with this and other blogs that specialize in offering advice to the industry. In fact, what’s available is more than what many paid consultants a great deal for only five years ago. (disclosure: Wark Communications works with Inertia Beverage Group on a consulting basis)

PinotBlogger
No, it’s not a site devoted to Pinot Noir. It’s a blog written by a winery owner devoted to Pinot Noir. The emergence of blogs written by winery owners is an update of the traditional Newsletter that wineries have been sending out for years. The key here is update. Being able to update a blog on a daily basis allows a winery owner to be much more intimate with its audience and customers. Meaning, if you are so inclined to really care about the wine business and wine making lifestyle chances are a winery blog is going to give you far more than what you are used to getting in the normal newsletter that comes out twice a year.

These are the important blogs not merely because they are very good wine blogs but because of what they represent. There is wholesale change in the way wine information is presented and the way wine lovers are accessing it. We are in the very beginnings of this changeover. But in a decade, when we look back and survey the amazing change that has occurred, these blogs will stand out for what they represented: The New Wine Media.