M6 Ran a historical farce short called Kaamelott recently.  Like a French version of Black Adder or Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I just stumbled across this video on the French winemaker blog from Chateau des Bachelards.  Some of these characters seem very familiar to me, blaming the poor quality of their wine on a crise paysane and the terroir.

If you read French, the whole blog is pretty darn good.

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.

This post is going to sound a little strange to people who know me and realize how much time I spend trying to get more and more winemakers online.  But I recently read an article and heard a flurry of tweets that have me thinking about an interesting double standard that exists in a lot of people’s minds.

I was following @vintuition and he linked to this article full of generalizations like “Old World winemakers prefer to stay offline” and “New World winemakers may not tweet much, but they do read wine blogs.”  While parts of the article address a survey of 500+ winemakers and a small congregation of winemakers at an unnamed Moet-Hennessy gathering, most of it feels like a conclusion that the entire old world has flat out rejected social media.

Now a lot of you might be thinking “Ryan, this is exactly what you say all the time.”  But I should clarify.  It’s true that we need more winemakers online.  But you have to admit, there are some winemakers already using social media.  Heck, there are a lot when you stop and think about it.  Winemaking is an agricultural profession so let’s stop and think about how many agriculteurs in general have adopted social media.  How many corn huskers, cereal growers, and catfish farmers are out there tweeting about the daily grind?  On the other hand, you’ve got lots of Languedoc Roussillon winemakers on Facebook, Twitter and Blogs.

I mentioned this on Twitter and @blogyourwine correctly pointed out that winemakers deal with the public much more frequently than those other agricultural fields.  But I guess that’s kind of my point.  Winemakers are already hugely interested in dealing with the public.  And if you say that winemakers don’t deal enough with the public through social media considering how much they sell direct to the public, I think that’s a double standard.  And it’s not just between winemakers and farmers.  Pick another industry that deals direct with consumers like restauration.  What percentage of mom and pop restaurants are on Twitter?  They exclusively deal in direct sales, and yet…

Setting the bar higher for winemakers than for other professions is nothing new.  Nobody walks into an auto shop and asks for a tour or a detailed explanation of how they work on cars.  Or goes to a pharmacy/drug store/chemist and asks to sample the product.  Wine is just different.  And I mean, hey, that’s cool.  I’m glad that wine is generally perceived to be so special.  It is special.  And I do have a certain amount of time to share with other wine lovers whether they drop by the winery unannounced or read this blog.  But I think that when we evaluate the entire profession’s willingness to spend time with its customers, we might remember that winemakers are already some of the most active agricultural producers out there.

Do we need to get more winemakers online? Yes!

Should we let journalists get away with saying things like “Winemakers shun social media”?  No.  It’s demoralizing, generalized and sort of misleading.

I can’t deny that 80% of the winemakers in this study said social media doesn’t matter to them.  Even in an area like the Languedoc Roussillon where we have a lot of people active, these are just a small percentage of the total winemakers.  But at the same time, we can relativize this data and say “Oh hey, winemakers shun social media less than restraunteurs, mechanics, dairy farmers, and so on.”

After the recent france.fr fiasco, a lot of my winemaking peers have been teasing me for France’s total inability to get on with the 21st century.  To summarize, France FINALLY got itself a national website (france.fr) and did a big launch party on Bastille Day.  Maybe they should have picked a less volatile holiday that isn’t about shaking the foundations of well-structured hierarchies, because their servers immediately crashed.

While they initially claimed that the servers had just been overwhelmed by the huge numbers drawn in on the successful launch day, the site stayed down far longer than acceptable.  And the message eventually changed to something like, “uh, sorry we’re experiencing technical difficulties and we have to like check a bunch of stuff…and stuff.”  Their facebook page hasn’t been updated since July 14th when they assured us that the site would be back up in a couple of hours.  And the site is still down as I write this post 2 weeks later.

So of course this feeds all my friends’ relentless teasing.  Yes, France is SO behind on the Internet.

Well let me tell you, that French wine is NOT very far behind.  We certainly started late.  I remember that when Americans were switching from dialup to cable modems, France was just weening itself off the MiniTel and AOL had just launched in France.  So it’s undeniable that France was very late to the game.

But, in specific areas of interest like wine, France has played a good amount of catch-up.  For evidence, I point you to the list of wineries with frequently updated websites, the list of wineries who tweet, and the list of winemakers on facebook (and these lists are only Languedoc-Roussillon producers).

Also, I thought I’d do a directory of some of the people I met at VinoCamp Paris.  This wine-tech unconference afforded me the opportunity to see a lot of people doing interesting things with wine online.  And so here’s a chance to do some call outs while simultaneously proving that the French know how to use the Internet sometimes.

Starting with the sponsors, media partners and winemakers:

• Regioneo – Delicious regional food merchants online, lots of gift baskets.  Had a big array of riettes from different parts.  Very yummy.
• WineEverybody – Free wine 2.0 aggregator, incorporating twitters, hand-picked blogs, message boards, etc. into a unified and simple interface.  I reviewed an earlier version of the beta a while back.  I also made a query for Languedoc on WineEverybody my homepage so that my dad accidentally reads about the region on his way to espn.com  and he really loves it.  I think it’s a simple alternative to RSS feeds or an enormous influx of emails and it’s simple enough for my tech-illiterate dad to use it.
• vinobest – Web merchant that uses team buying to get group discounts, snazzy video explaining that concept:
  
• iDealwine – Site that links online wine sales and real-life wine auctions where you can buy, sell or estimate value of wines.  I think they authenticate and stuff too.  Lots of different services.  An idealwine video that explains all the varied stuff they do.
• VenteALaPropriete.com – web merchant that tries to assist in pre-ordered direct sales of fine wines
• Vins de Bordeaux – I was going to leave them off the list because I didn’t meet anybody from this group. I think they sponsored the event and sent wines, but they weren’t necessarily there in person. But I didn’t want people thinking that I have some axe to grind. So, in the spirit of wine regions not beating each other up, here they are on the list.  (EDIT:) Benjamin Anseaume was there to talk up Bordeaux wines.  He is their community manager.  … I need to get sud de France to want one of these.
• Vicky Wine – Vicky presented her remarkably robust gamay, a wine crafted at her family’s estate.  But she’s not just a pretty blogger that pours her daddy’s wine.  She is an epic event planner and the driving force in making get togethers like VinoCamp Paris a success.
• Champagne Tarlant – While I had already met Benoit Tarlant on the wine circuit, it was a great pleasure to meet the other Tarlant, Melanie, as she poured a marvelous dry Champagne.  Really up my alley.  It made my dad jealous that he couldn’t be there to try it.  Very strong web presence.  Probably showcases the need for small Champagne producers to differentiate themselves.  While Champagne is a huge share of the French wine business, almost all of that money goes to a few prestigious mass marketed houses.  The rest of the indie producers have to work very hard to promote their personal brand despite the fact that the “Champagne brand” is so strong.
• Champagne Dehu – Benoit Déhu (are all small Champagne dudes with online presences named Benoit?) poured a totally different style of Champagne with a light dosage and maybe a bit more approachable by the uninitiated.  Lots of fun.  This guy is still building his online presence and he’s going to events like this to study how exactly he should go about it.  Not everybody should start a video blog and not everybody really has the mentality required to maintain a successful twitter profile.  So Benoit Déhu is weighing his options and seeing how exactly to embark online.
• O’Vineyards – This guy is a creep. ;D
• La Cantine – While this isn’t strictly an example of French wine online, La Cantine is a business that clearly understands the importance of technology and they do a great job of bridging the gap between the eworld and the real world.  It’s a joint workspace tucked away in a beautiful ruelle in the 9eme arrondissement de Paris.  This has become a real hot spot for reunions, conferences, training camps, etc.  And the place is full of high speed Internet, bean bag chairs, conference rooms, mixing boards, avi cables, and overhead projectors (it’s even got a bar).  It’s like I designed the place.  But I didn’t.  Here is an interview of the man who I think is in charge of stuff over there.  And there’s also some sort of relationship with Silicon Sentier.
• European Wine Bloggers Conference – Coming up in Vienna, Austria this year on October 22nd-24th. Should be a blast. Totally different atmosphere than the American counterpart.
• Bourgogne Live – Amazing duo who maintain a lively, fabulous blog focused on Bourgogne. I’d like to flatter myself by saying that what I do at Love That Languedoc, they do at Bourgogne Live. And there might be a short dissertation in the works about how the differences between our blogs sort of fit the character of our respective regions. Post pending.
• I left one sponsor off the list and I don’t want them to be mad. But I honestly think that posting a link to their website would be sort of embarassing to them.  But once the site is more complete, I will happily link to it.  And I hope they don’t get upset with me.

The rest of the gang:

• Grégoire Japiot – community manager and all around moving force. How awesome is it that his twitter handle is just like one of the most common names in France?
• Philippe Hugon and Marie Tieulie – Vinternet and Wine Everybody.  [edit: forgot that Philippe assembled this list of attendees who tweeet]
• MySocialWinery – Pierrick is a savvy business kid who wants to help get more French winemakers online.  He’s focusing on winemakers who are present in the US, where he has some work experience.   He just visited O’Vineyards the other day and I can’t wait to see his various projects around France.
• Emmanuel Delmas [link edited]- Sommelier and blogger are two titles that often carry a lot of pejorative baggage, but Emmanuel is downright awesome. A nice, charming guy who is approachable and easy to talk to despite the intimidating amount of wine knowledge he has.
• Vineolia – Benoit and Marc’s new wine tasting notes site.
• Les Mois du Vin – Olivier Suremain’s wine of the month club. You might recall that he was present at the Love That Languedoc Paris Tasting organized by Miss Vicky.
• Vodka & Co., one of the seminal wine and SPIRITS French sites.
• VinoGusto – Marc Roisin’s wine-based social network.
• Vinblog – A guy blogging about wine, almost exclusively about Alsace
• Oenos – Young wine bloggers in the Loire – should get together with Jim Budd.
• Cédric Ringenbach – Board game developer using the Internet to promote
• Vindicateur – Like an online (and therefore potentially much larger and more complete) wine guide
• MesVignes.com – more involved than “rent a vine” programs, but less ownership and lower cost than a crushpad-style custom crush.  Represented by Ludovic Roif at vinocamp
• Veronique Barretto – blogger who I hear will be working with Catavino in the upcoming future.
• Tag de Vin – Elise is part of the Nantes team that puts QR codes on wine bottles
• BKWine (not to be confused with BK Wine! :D)- Per Karlsson and his wife Britt are wine travel guides who have a big online video presence
• SoWine – Finally met Marie Mascré who is behind Sowine consulting agency and blog
• MonVino Show – I think I met Thomas and maybe I saw his counterpart Patrick too.  Cool new video blog about wine in French.
• Musique et Vin – Pauline Boet orchestrates the social media and online presence of Musique et Vin events and programming that are built around the combination of music and wine.
• Atie Cartographie – Thierry Aumeunier showed us the BETA of his wine mapping software that is exceptionally detailed and cool but kind of TMI for the average consumer. BUT I LOVE IT.
• L’Actu du Vin – Marthe Henry runs a wine news blog.
• Monogramme Marketing – This guy was nice and I had no idea that he was heading up some projects in Beaune until I came back home and checked out the site.
• Christophe Ducamp – I have no idea what xtof means. Might be an xkcd joke. ;D  No but I think I recognize this guy. He spoke up in panels if I recall correctly.
• MarcWines – I’m not sure what Marc does but we were in all the same sessions so I remember him! 😀  Based out of Geneva, he seems to be a swiss army knife of wine websites offering tours, wine clubs, retail(?), and anything else you might need.
• Mandarine – Translates between French and Mandarin, specifically focused on wine marketing.
• Augmented Reality blog – Olivier and Gregory were around to share insight about how augmented reality and other stuff can be applied to wine.

So this list shows that there are lots of interesting wine-related tech start ups.  And stop telling me that France is allergic to the Internet.  There is a generation of people bringing French wine online.  And once there’s wine, the rest of France will follow.

Oh and maybe a small post script.  Please don’t get upset, but this needs to be said.  Vinogusto, vinblog, vindicateur, vineolia, vinternet, vinobest, vindiesel and vinanybodyelse: it is super hard to remember which of you is which.  Actually, vinternet and vindicateur make a lot of sense to me thematically, and they’re both puns. So I remember them.  But the rest of you and anybody out there thinking about starting a French wine site… consider that there are a lot of vinsuffixes out there already.

When I first heard about Cabernet Day, my immediate reaction was to jump on board.  And I kind of assumed that everybody would follow me unquestioningly… but there have been some questions, rightfully posed, as to why exactly I’m hosting a Cab Day event in the Languedoc.  I want to take a moment to explain what Cabernet Day is and why I want lots of people to participate.

Here is the facebook event page for Cabernet Day at O’Vineyards

What the heck is Cab Day?

On September 2nd, a bunch of people around the world will drink Cabernet Sauvignon and talk about it online.  A lot of the talking will happen in real life too at special events organized in wineries around the world.  But a lot MORE of the talking will be happening online.

Some will blog, and even more will casually tweet with the hashtag #Cabernet.  It’s called a tweetup (twitter meetup … I really hate web-related portmanteaus).  And while I personally wanted to have a real-life party, the success of Cab Day will largely be measured by the participation on Twitter and the rest of the online chatter channels.

So that’s basically what Cabernet Day is.  In all transparency it is organized by Rick Bakas, “social media director” for St. Supery in Napa Valley.

Does there need to be a Cab Day?

Cab Day is about celebrating the grape varietal Cabernet Sauvignon, a varietal that is so popular it seems like it doesn’t really need to have a party.  So I guess that’s why some people are asking me “Do we need a Cab Day?” and “Why are we doing Cabernet?”

I’m gonna answer these questions in two parts.  Part 1, since when do we have to attach moral imperatives to wine parties?  Part 2, I need to communicate how awesome Languedoc Cabernet is.

Why people want crazy moral imperatives to party? – A lot of the people who are really into tweetups are also into promoting obscure varietals and communicating on more esoteric themes than Cabernet Sauvignon.   I like talking about rare grape varietals too, which lets you communicate on themes like authenticity, local culture, history, etc.  But I also realize that a mainstream subject can be just as interesting as an obscure one.  And more mainstream topics can bring more people into the fold while very obsucre topics can sometimes alienate people who don’t feel “initiated”.

The interesting mainstream topic – The Languedoc is not known for it’s Cabernet Sauvignon.  We’re a Mediterranean region and you can’t grow Cabernet just anywhere around here.  So the few parts of the Languedoc that do make great Cabernet Sauvignon absolutely must communicate on that.  So I’ll try to round up some Cabs from the Malpere, Cabardes, Aniane and so on.  Cab Day is going to get a lot of people online who are interested in the grape varietal and we’ll be able to talk about how certain parts of the Languedoc make really great Cab.  Sounds like a great opportunity!

And I hope other winemakers and Languedoc fans will take up the banner with me.  Come visit on September 2nd or send your friends.  We’re gonna drink great wine, have a blast, and it should be a lot of fun!

Thanks to Pierrick from MySocialWinery who video recorded the conference with Rick Bakas from St. Supery in Napa Valley.

The presentation is a little dry if you’re not in the biz, but I think Rick has some very interesting experience and he shares some truly outstanding numbers. In a time when everybody in California was hurting, St. Supery saw some impressive numbers, retaining their wine club members and increasing direct sales despite the fact that the economy is hurting. And without pitching the wine directly!

Cool insights. Thanks, Rick!  And Rick has a book coming out called QuickBites.

There’s also an interesting moment where Rick talks about catering to a client who didn’t like the bottle (way beyond the call of duty) and then it turns out that she’s a writer for the New York Times.  While the story sort of enforces the idea that a traditional journalist is way more important than a normal consumer and he lucked out, there’s also this theme that you should treat everybody like an important journalist. Customer is king. And sometimes, it turns out they are actually secret journalists or Zeus disguised as a swan.

But beside the risk that every client is Zeus disguised as a swan, you just have to be nice to wine drinkers because they are people and you should be nice to everybody.

There’s another moment of VinoCamp Paris where Vicky Wine said something very nice about my wines (or about me).

She said that it is very important for winemakers to connect with wine drinkers.  Because when she drinks a wine, she makes judgements about the winemaker or the label or other things that float around outside the bottle. And one of the reasons she likes my wine is because she knows all the stuff I’m doing online, and all the tastings I do, and (as somebody in the group quips) because we are buddies.  But there is no shame in being buddies!

😀

And I don’t have video of it, but Emmanuel Delmas said something to the same effect.  It’s unavoidable that once he meets me or sees my videos online, my wine will have a sort of exuberant, energetic feeling.  It’s a happy wine!  And then we’re left wondering if the wine truly resembles the winemaker or if it’s just that we’re influenced by our perceptions of the artist. . . . interesting questions!  And all arguments for the winemaker to make themselves visible online (when time permits).

More coverage of VinoCamp Paris:

• Session on OenoTourism
• Session on Geolocalisation and cartography

Folks watching my facebook updates and tweets of late have been wondering “What is a BarCamp? And what does it have to do with wine?”

What is BarCamp?

A couple people have assumed that it’s like an intensive training camp for barristas or bar patrons.  While I love that assumption, it is slightly off the mark.  BarCamps are a type of conference or symposium.  They are sort of an anarchic un-Conference, organized by all the attendees at the very last minute.  I mean they’re not totally anarchic.  There are rules of BarCamp.  But the rules are written on a wiki that anybody can change.  The whole thing has the spirit of a temporary autonomous zone, and it’s a far cry from traditionally organized, opaque, pre-scheduled industry gabfests that used to dominate the tech space.

An Inaccurate History of BarCamps Based on Conjecture and Speculation

Everything I know about BarCamp I learned by skimming wikipedia and a few articles online.  So take this with a grain of salt.  But my general understanding is that some time way back when (2005), O’Reilly launched an impromptu user-generated conference called FooCamp (a play on the computer term Foobar).  After the success of this event, a bunch of people started running similarly anarchic BarCamps (a play on the second syllable of Foobar).

BarCamps are a backlash against all the super-strict industry events that can dominate technology conferences (and wine conferences for that matter).

Anybody can start a BarCamp by getting a space and posting a wikipedia page on the BarCamp wiki.  And then anybody with the Internet can modify the wiki.  And miraculously, it works.  You get a big group of people who are leading the charge in their industry to convene and exchange ideas.  And it’s very participatory.  No visitors.  You are highly encouraged to talk.

And what is VinoCamp Paris?

VinoCamp is a BarCamp devoted to wine.  Normally, BarCamps are about technology.  VinoCamp will be about wine and technology.  There is a lot of energy being put into bringing wine online.  There are several large-scale social networks devoted to wine.  There are thousands of blogs devoted to everything from tasting notes to wine news to estate visits.  There are thousands of online stores and other web-based wine businesses.  So there’s a lot going on in this space and it makes sense that all of us get together and exchange ideas.

This is not the first VinoCamp.  There were VinoCamps in 2008 and 2009 in Canada.  But this one definitely has a different feel.  I’ll report on this less ambiguously during and after the actual camp. Right here and a bit on Love That Languedoc too, probably.

But what is VinoCamp ACTUALLY

Well it’s hard to answer because the entire event can change at the last minute.  The only thing set in stone is that we’re all meeting at La Cantine in Paris on Saturday, July 10, 2010.  I’ll be there around 10 AM. And after that the sky is the limit.  Topics and presentations will be discussed as we go along.

Obviously, there are some topics that cannot be avoided.  We will obviously address the European Wine Bloggers Conference coming up in October, for example.  With this particular group of people, it would be silly to ignore the Conference.

People keep suggesting that I am exaggerating and that I have a basic idea of what will go on because lots of preliminary ideas have been posted on the VinoCamp Paris wiki.  This is untrue.  While many ideas have been posted on the wiki and several discussions have taken place online and in the real world, nothing is predetermined.

For example, I am actually in a minority of people that believes we should be able to consume wine during the presentations throughout the day.  In the pre-discussions, it generally seems people are against this because it could let the whole event fall into a sort of debaucherous boozefest rather than an important marketplace of ideas.  To that I say, “Too bad.”  This boy is drinking. And if you want to hear what I have to say, you’re going to have to shut your eyes or see me holding a glass of wine!  And the awesome thing about a BarCamp is that it is totally up for discussion.

Although I do have to agree with the general point that we shouldn’t open up the BarCamp Bar until much later in the day.  If you are uninterested in the forum and just want to drink, go to a bar.  No Camp required.

“The web is theoretically infinite; readers value blogs that sort through the confusion to find things of interest. Some of the highest-traffic blogs provide nothing but links.”

That’s a bit from Tom Johnson’s article on Palate Press about the pitfalls of contemporary wine blogging.  He runs his own blog which will apparently change names frequently.  I think the quote above summarizes a concept that I talk about a lot with winemakers.  Aggregate content!  Link to other people!

While Tom’s article picks on wine reviewers and wine bloggers in general, I deal specifically with wineMAKER blogs and I think we have some additional psychological baggage.

Winemakers feel like running a vineyard blog means talking about yourself all the time.  And it’s cool to do that sometimes.  As the Hosemaster of Wine once said, it’s hard to find a blog that primarily focuses on a topic other than the blogger.   But don’t spend all your time doing that.

Unless you’re already insanely famous, very few people will devote time to you on a regular basis just to find out what the weather is like on YOUR vineyard.  And while it’s fun to drum up support for real world wine tastings, only a small geographical area can show up to your tasting.  The Internet gets read by everybody!

“So what do we blog about!?”  You blog about everything.  Writing a good wine blog is probably 90% reading.  You read newspapers and other blogs and then you blog about the most interesting stuff.  But winemakers have an edge.  We are uniquely positioned to hear stuff firsthand instead of discovering them through traditional wine press.  So keep your ear to the ground and talk about things that you find out about in the wine world.   Talk about everybody.

If you spend all day pruning, it’s likely you didn’t get exposed to any cool ideas to put in the blog.  But on a day where you see other people, keep your eyes open and think “would this be interesting to wine drinkers?”

So I set up Wine Everybody as my home page for a week.  Wine Everybody is a feed aggregator and social media platform specifically oriented toward wine.  It takes all the feeds from good wine blogs, tweets related to wine, message boards, etc.  and puts them in one place.  It is currently in beta.

The Short version:

Pros

• fast-loading
• no bugs
• responsive design team
• flexible search parameters
• highly customizable
• winnows out affiliate marketers and spam
• does everything you expect (e.g. link to facebook and twitter accounts, one click publishing)

Cons

• doesn’t track what I’ve already read
• I personally dislike some of the CSS (buttons pop up when you point your cursor at a block of text. it moves everything in the column downward and disorients me)
• goofy name (I’m one to talk, right?)

Suggestions

• Add a “follow this person on twitter” button
• Add a “rss url” field so that I can add good feeds to other aggregators I use
• Find out if I’m the only person who hates the popup buttons

The Long Version:

I wanted to give it an honest try to see if it would become a permanent part of my life or not.   My impression is that it’s an overall worthwhile website that works remarkably well considering it’s only in beta.

Now, technically, I set up a specific search query as my homepage.  Rather than loading the generic “Tons of articles about wine” page, I load specifically to a narrowed down search for the term “Languedoc” or “Roussillon”.  This is more pertinent to my work so I said to myself it would be more useful.  And it’s a better point of comparison to the tools I already use (like google alerts for the phrases “Languedoc vin” “Languedoc wine” “Roussillon vin” and “Roussillon wine”).

Immediately, I have to say it’s pretty cool that I don’t need FOUR separate search queries on Wine Everybody.  They have a really simple interface that lets me search for articles with Languedoc or Roussillon and then the entire website only reads stuff about wine and vin, so I get all four of my usual feeds in one little bundle.

Also, it’s pretty admirable that most of the content from my google alerts also pops up in the Wine Everybody interface.  I was worried that some news feeds like local Languedoc papers might not be included in their feed, but I generally saw the same stories published in both Wine Everybody and my google alerts.  Wine Everybody runs a lot faster than Google Reader too.

The only real downside is that Wine Everybody doesn’t track which articles I’ve read quite as clearly as Reader does. . . but that might just be because I haven’t explored the site enough.  Plus the site designers at Vinternet are pretty savvy, so there is still time for them to add features like this one.

While I haven’t fully explored it, I also enjoy Wine Everybody’s level of interaction with message boards.  Internet forums often get overlooked by the feeds I currently have aggregated.  I think a lot of the time new posts don’t have all the same keywords in them and that’s how they get ignored.

Anyway, I’m kind of rambling.  But I wanted to write up a little review of my first experiences with Wine Everybody.  I think the name is sort of goofy.  But I like what the website does.  Will it stay as my homepage?  For now, yes.  On one of my computers.  Although I feel bad because this experiment is adding like ten minutes to my dad’s computer time each morning as he struggles to type G-O-O-G-L-E-.-C-O-M every time he opens a new window.  Bless him.

Hey, I’m resolved to blog more for the vineyard. I’ve been kept very busy by filming and scheduling and promoting Love That Languedoc which gives me a chance to talk about other great wines from this gorgeous part of France. And occasionally pruning. But I shan’t neglect you any longer!

Dad prunes the vines back in winter instead of blogging