I really hate manifestos.  I think that most of my favorite movements start to die the day they write down what they’re really trying to do… like defining the movement is overly restrictive and dogmatic.  But I was busy writing up a general presentation of Love That Languedoc, and I found myself falling into this militant prose that sounds a ton like a manifesto.  Well, if I go around saying “no manifesto” all the time, then I’m still being just as dogmatic and restrictive as if I had written down my goals.  OH WELL.  Here it is:

I refuse to leave our fate in the hands of the global press who are, at best, mildly curious about our region.  And, at worst, totally oblivious to it.  Aside from a few rare examples, the world’s largest wine producer is also the world’s most ignored beauty.

Well this is the part of the movie where the downtrodden Languedoc takes off her horn-rimmed glasses and lets her hair down and the popular kid (or Henry Higgins, depending on what age you are) suddenly realizes that the coolest girl he knows was there under his nose all along.

Love That Languedoc is my personal project to show the world what it’s missing and now it’s developing a new branch.  I want to teach our winemakers how to communicate (without relying on journalists or  critics or ME) to a world that is ready to hear them.

I guess I’m thankful that the region needs me.  But the day I’m unnecessary will be a great day indeed.  We have an amazing advantage in sheer number of winemakers.  And our wines are distributed globally as both prestigious cult winesand large volume convenience store wines.  So people are already talking about us and our wines.

The next step is responding to that conversation.  We need to start training our winemakers to check email and set up a google alert for every estate in the Languedoc-Roussillon.  If only 1% of our winemakers spoke up every time somebody mentions their wines online, we would flood the Internet with our voices.  We could show our consumers that we appreciate their drinking habits.

And once winemakers start communicating successfully with the consumer, it’s much more likely that they will be willing to adopt more advanced online tools like a blog or a twitter.  And they’ll be much more likely to “get it” because it’s part of an authentic foray into communication and not some contrived business effort with no ROI.

And on that day, I’ll just be a happy little winemaker who runs a video blog for the fun of it.  And who will laugh about the old days when he would accidentally write a manifesto while trying to explain why he blogs.

There.  So I guess the conclusion is nice because it points out why this manifesto is silly.  I only blog because it’s fun.  I’m happy that it’s increasing my exposure and wine sales and I’m definitely finding ways to maximize the synergy between my blog and my website.  But ultimately, the blog is for fun.  And sometimes I get these lofty goals to sign everybody up for Google Alerts or whatever.  But ultimately, even those initiatives are an attempt to make my blog redundant.  One day, when everybody does their own online promotion, I’ll be useless.  And it’ll just be for fun again.

Until then, sign up for a freaking Google Alert.