It feels like there are suddenly a ton of wine merchants that specialize in the Languedoc-Roussillon.  Obviously I’m pretty happy about that, so I’ve made a list of these wine vendors who are focused on the south of France.

I’ve previously mentioned a few of these Languedoc Roussillon wine merchants on Love That Languedoc.  But new ones seem to emerge all the time, and there are also a couple I overlooked in the first rundown.

• Midi Vin blog
• 1907.fr blog
• Vie d’Oc blog
• Cep d’Oc blog
• Terroir Languedoc
• Languedovino
• edit: I just discovered Vinoccita, a Toulouse grossiste specializing in occitan wines.

Interestingly, almost all of them blog.

Thoughts on specialization

I think the Languedoc Roussillon is ready for this sort of specialization.  At least the suppliers are.  We have sooo many high end, small production wines that need this sort of merchant with a strong regional focus to find the best wines at the greatest value.  And the wine-buying public is learning more and more about our region every day.  So eventually, these sites might have the same opportunities as sites that specialize in smaller regions like Bordeaux and Burgundy.

I do wonder if the businesses need to distinguish themselves a little bit more.  Being regional specialists might not be a unique selling proposition, as evidenced by the emergence of sooo many competitors in such a short time.  Maybe this is why so many of them blog.  To give them a personality that separates them from the competition.  Or to get better search engine referencing.  But at the point where they all blog, is that really setting them apart?  Or is it just keeping up with the Jones’s?  And is it effective at all with sorely out of date blogs like Terroir Languedoc’s (last updated in 2009!! Gemma!! Take that off your front page navigation ;D )

Perhaps Midi Vin is doing it right since they’re not JUST blogging.  They’re actively participating in the online and offline wine community.  I see Sylvain and his colleagues at wine fairs and conferences and producers all the time (not to mention they’re sponsoring VinoCamp Languedoc).

I guess a lot of these merchants expect their portfolio to set them apart too.  They can try to be the person who unearths the best quality and hardest to find wines at the lowest prices.  But this is tough.  The only way to judge who is best is for an extremely devoted customer to shop at all six places.  And the chances are that each of these merchants has a couple coups de coeur tucked into their portfolios.

And a last observation, why don’t any of them carry my wine?  I don’t want to pat myself too much on the back, but it seems like it might be a decent idea to contact all the active Languedoc Roussillon winemaker blogs.

But anyway, I’m pleased at their combined enthusiasm.  I hope it works wonderfully for all of them.  And I encourage these regional pioneers to keep on working the local angle.  And innovate new ways to bring our wines to light.

Influence on other businesses

I think it’s safe to say that these businesses are influencing other merchants to adopt more regional focus in their portfolios.  Even our own UK importer, Naked Wines, might be influenced by the practices of these more specialized merchants.  When the site launched, they had hardly any Languedoc.  Now, they now carry a whole range of Languedoc wines and their customer base is becoming more and more familiar with the area.  Which in turn generates interest in finding new wines from the area and drinking even more Languedoc.  Good stuff!

One way of bringing traffic to the website or the vineyard is to be included in lots of regional directories.

Since the New York Times and Stephen Colbert announced the death of the white pages, it might be a good time to talk about the future of information directories and annuaires online.

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sign Off – Demise of the White Pages
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

So with companies refusing to deliver the white pages, let’s look at online alternatives.

Here are a few links to directories that list O’Vineyards.  Notice that they’re all pretty specific.  Deligogo only does food and wine.  Languedoc Midi Info is obviously based on Languedoc and Midi listings.  Best of Carcassonne gets ultra specific and only includes listings around Carcassonne.  Some of these directories charge you to be included.  Others allow anybody to sign up.  I think specific directories like this are cool because (a) they fill the role of the yellow pages so people can find your business and (b) they give you content-specific backlinks which help search engines define and highlight your site.

Deligogo – Local food and wine courses

Languedoc Midi Info – Getting more specific than Deligogo.  Midi-themed.

Best of Carcassonne – Ultra specific, but I can’t promise that the girl in the photo will be here. 🙂

The Born Digital Wine Awards have officially announced their submission guidelines and criteria.

This is a very exciting award, and I’m so happy to see it moving forward at a healthy pace. One of the coolest parts of the BDWA is that it recognizes individual videos and pieces of writing. That means that the awards can go to busy winemakers who have time to do one cool video or post but who don’t have time to run a blog with great content year round.  Furthermore this inaugural year is free.  You can submit entries at no charge.  And there’s a prize.

Now, I was planning on flooding them with submissions from other Languedoc Roussillon producers, but it turns out you have to submit your own work.  So I will have to settle for strongly encouraging you to enter your own work.

I STRONGLY recommend you enter some work.  I would absolutely love to see the Languedoc Roussillon take over the shortlist of finalists and even win one of these categories!

You might be thinking it’s weird that I’m encouraging people to compete against me.  Well.. on the one hand, I’m weird.  On the other hand, through a rather unexpected turn of events, most of my web work doesn’t meet the criteria of eligibility.  Most of the Love That Languedoc videos are longer than 10 minutes.  My book (Wines of Carcassonne: The Cabardes AOC) is longer than 3000 words. Some of my work like the Complete Map of AOC Cabardes aren’t really text or video, and there’s no category for apps or maps this year. And some of my more popular videos were first released before 2010.  So most of what I do can’t even compete.

Despite my initial disappointment about this discovery, it’s probably a good thing. I honestly don’t know how I would have narrowed down my body of work to choose a submission. These criteria actually narrow it down for me to the dirt tasting and the fruit thief. Which are some of the most visited articles posted on this site in 2010 anyway. I should probably take a hint from that!

People like videos under 10 minutes that have almost nothing to do with wine. 😀

So to summarize, please consider entering your own writing and video!  Let’s get some Languedoc Roussillon in the Born Digital Wine Awards.

While writing my book, I had to make a lot of decisions about self-publishing, format, layout, sales channels, imprints, and a lot of stuff that never really occured to me until I was up to my neck in publishing information.  I found one article from Jancis Robinson’s site particularly useful.  It was written by Monty Waldin, who you might know from Channel 4’s Chateau Monty or his extensive reference work for biodynamic wines.

The article describes Monty’s journey through self-publishing (subscribers only) and it really helped inform my decision-making process.  My book is different in many ways but I faced a lot of the same decisions.  Anyway, for other winemakers who are considering writing a book, check out that article.  And also How to publish your own wine book (free for all).

Then I saw that Monty commented about my book.  He said some nice things about me and the book, and I’m flattered that he’s flattered.  But all that fluffy stuff aside, he said some really cool things about wine books being self-published.  Gives you a sort of global perspective of how things are changing.   He recalls the period where wineries would commission wine writers to devote a book to their Domaine.  Off the top of his head, he mentions Chateau Yquem, Chateau Margaux, and Daumas Gassac (Languedoc in the house).

These differ from my book since they are full length and each one is really centered around a single estate.  But back in the day, you would have been crazy to spend the hefty chunk of cash to promote your region generically.   Like buying a thousand billboards and having them just say “Drink wine.”  without any mention of your own estate.

But today  the costs are different.  The metrics have changed.  I can put out a shorter book and make it about the whole appellation and it’s not exorbitantly expensive.

Monty’s comments appeared in the subscribers section, but I imagine nobody minds if I relay his comments here for you to read.

Flattered Ryan O’Connell found my article on e-publishing useful but even more pleased to see a wine-grower like Ryan putting e-pen to paper.

Professional wine writing is in flux at the moment, seen as an extravagance by most newspapers and book publishers.

Since Jancis published my article a well known female wine writer has been in contact to say is doing what Stephen Skelton MW and myself have done, which is to ditch slow- and low paying publishers for fairly risk-free print-on-demand self-publishing using lulu dot com (Stephen’s books are on Viticulture and UK Vineyards, mine on biodynamics). Said wine writer also appears to relish the greater freedom she will have editorially over what is published by going it alone.

In the old days some of the wealthier wine producers commissioned wine writers to write books about them. Off the top of my head such books already exist in English on Chateau Yquem (Olney), Mas de Daumus Gassac (Mackenzie) and Chateau Margaux (Faith) – but all three tomes could perhaps do with a revision having been published in the 1980s (or earlier) and to be published on paper an in e-form.

What Ryan has done is an example of how technology is allowing smaller, lesser known producers to do what only the big boys and girls could do until recently.

For the Francophones out there, this is my presentation at Le Vin 2.0 where I spoke about developing commerce through social networks.  They wanted me to be sort of living proof that independent winemakers could use Internet tools to develop their commerce.

I took the approach that the Internet allows us to publish on any topic and allows us to communicate about things more interesting than our own wines… and if you use the Internet in the way that I describe, you get to make lots of buddies and extend your commercial network.   I think it went pretty well although I had to cut a lot out because of time constraints… hopefully it still packs a punch.

Let me know your thoughts.

I’ll share my thoughts on the entire conference soon and I hope to get more video up… also a big thanks to Vinternet for organizing it and for my fellow panelists for being super-interesting.

(more…)

I noticed that Hervé Bizeul has been on a self-reflective flurry, pontificating on what defines a wine blogger’s philosophical imperatives or something. The point is we all wonder what to blog about at some point or another.

I thought it would be funny to share this pie chart that breaks down the content of most Winemaker Blogs and Newsletters.  Hopefully O’Vineyards blog and newsletters don’t feel like this. ;D

I’m teasing of course.  But there are a lot of newsletters that quite predictably remind you the harvest went great, the wine is available through direct orders, and… well nothing else.

While more introspective winemakers like Hervé and me wonder if we should burden people with our daily chores, tales of the stuff that breaks down, worried scribbles about the weird mole on our backs… …. The most important thing is just to have fun and be yourself.  As long as you’re not treating your audience like a bunch of mindless wine-buying automatons, you’re doing a good job.

Here’s a more detailed version of the pie chart that includes a few more options:

• Best harvest ever
• Buy my wine
• Sorry I haven’t been updating
• It is hot
• It is cold
• The grapes changed color
• I’m at an overpriced wine fair
• I was mentioned in a magazine you don’t read

I know I talk a lot about how awesome Languedoc Roussillon bloggers are.  But today, I’m gonna link to some folks outside of the region.  Other young winemakers who use video effectively.

Herrenhof – A small family vineyard.  Blogging in German and English.  I feel like this guy is as involved in day to day work as my dad and me.  That’s sort of the magic of video.  It conveys so much without explicitly saying anything.  Watch for yourself and I’m sure you’ll agree that this dude is very passionate about his grapes.

Quevedo – Oscar of Oscar’s Wine fame blogs in English and Portuguese. He does a lot of video too. He makes a mistake in this one, but it conveys the point that he is a dude who does videos in the vines. Maybe I just like people who go out and film outdoors.

La Gramiere – Young couple in the southeast of France with some very earnest videos.

Looking at these choices, it strikes me that I really like outdoors episodes. Maybe I should do more myself. It’s just that darned wind! Great for grapes but terrible for my microphone. 😀

A lot of you probably don’t know this, but my internet handle is mroconnell.  Like Mister O’Connell.  This is an old nickname that goes back to when I was a teenager.  A lot of my friends teased me for acting like an 80 year old man so often.  I had business meetings, taxes, crazy stories about my adventurous youth, and I had a tendency to fall asleep really early.

🙂

So shortly after discovering that Google released GMail and Odeo released Twitter, I was there with my handle “mroconnell“.  In some ways, it was a crappy choice. Most people don’t read it as MISTER and that makes it hard to remember.  A lot of people type oconnell with one L.  Anyway, I could have made a better choice.  But I don’t mind it horribly.  And it would be silly to try to start a new account now that I’ve entered the community as mroconnell.

So what do I do about all the mistypes?  Well I have two suggestions.

Get additional twitter names.  It costs just a couple minutes to expand your Twitter realestate.  Just make a new account and claim the name with the typo.  I just started up @mroconnel where I can politely redirect folks to the correct spelling.  If people consistently mistype your name on twitter, try to reserve the alternate spellings.

The second bit of advice is to post your twitter name clearly in places that people might look for it.    I used to have a link on this page that said Tweeeet.  While humorous, it was pretty inconvenient for folks who wanted to find my twitter name.  They had to see that link and click it.  I’ve now replaced it with a @mroconnell which is much more recognizable to twitter users.  Saving them some precious seconds and also catching their eyes more easily.  Or so I hope.

I guess my point is that you don’t need to have a PERFECT twitter name.  But you should try to make life easy for people who want to talk to you on twitter.  That goes for any site you’re fond of.

A success  and many great compliments  adressed to Ryan by the net readers, the tweeter and facebook users……and more.

The article signed irishherault says it all.

“ViniSud 2010
Or take a young winemaker based just north of Carcassonne in the Aude, called Ryan O’Connell. On Thursday Ryan posted another new video to one of his sites (yes, he has several), Love That Languedoc.
It was about a presentation he gave at ViniSud 2010, about the first steps winemakers can take to get into Vin 2.0.

Ryan’s talk came at the end of the annual show in Montpellier, and while he didn’t get much of a crowd on the day, his presentation lives on through this video (isn’t the Internet great!), and it is now doing the rounds of wine blogs and finding a much wider audience.
He also sent a message out on his Twitter feed yesterday.

It’s a great little call to arms. As he puts it, we can OWN the Internet (or “this interweb thing” as us old-timers still call it).

As Vinternet.net puts it, “Ryan est un pragmatique, il sait communiquer son enthousiasme et ça lui réussit.”

Ryan is very young – less than half our age. The two of us are old enough to be his parents. He’s American, and moved over to the Languedoc in 2005 with his mum and dad when he was only 19.

Yet he has a fantastic command of French that has us green with envy. He is enthusiastic and prolific and has the adventurousness, courage and sheer neck of youth to question the old ways and get out there and do things rather differently in the Vin 2.0 era.

It will be an uphill struggle, step by step, and there’s no point in getting seduced by apparently instant results, but this is where it’s all going.

Vin 2.0 is the new rock ‘n’ roll, with wonderful new tales being told by people like Ryan”…………