On the tail of posting the “winemaker drinks dirt” video, I’ve been having lots of conversations about how I choose my content.  Between O’Vineyards and Love That Languedoc, I’ve done very silly videos, very informative videos, straight documentary, and very casual “slice of life” videos. And people weigh in all over the place.   Some think that I should only do the goofy stuff that goes viral. Other people think that it’s demeaning and that I would be better off focusing on serious things.  Some people think I should do more tastings, and some other people think I should avoid becoming “the French Gary Vaynerchuk” or “the French other-famous-wine-guy”.

I think that a fair amount of wine blogs tend to focus on vineyard/weather updates or promotional stuff that the winery is participating in.  There are some local event posts.  I want to have all of that too.  After all, my readers are here for a vineyard blog (not a personal blog).  You’re not here to read about my pet dog’s eating habits or my relationship status.

So there are a lot of choices on blog subjects and I have to decide what to post.

How do I decide what to post?!

I really don’t know.  I guess it’s a careful balance of entertainment, education, and narcissism. Ya.  To some extent, I want to entertain you.  To a great extent I want to entertain myself.  And I’m a huge nerd so I need things to be hyper-referential and very well-informed.  Even my goofy gag videos like dirt-drinking are super-nerdy. Or maybe I’m flattering myself (but that just proves how important a part narcissism plays).

Anyway, if I only wanted to make the greatest number of people laugh, I should run a generic meme blog that just links to videos of kittens sneezing and babies biting their siblings.  But I think I’d be bored out of my mind and sort of ashamed of that blog. I really like wine and I have a lot of access to wine-related content so I blog about wine.  If I get an idea/opportunity, regardless of how silly or serious it is, I try to pursue it.  And there you have it.  That’s my process.

The less I obsess over what to include and what to exclude, the closer I get to just being myself.  Thankfully, it seems people really appreciate that.  Thanks for following all of our adventures at O’Vineyards regardless of how silly or serious they get.