It’s back to L.A. for the Podcast Expo for me. Since my Macbook is in the shop being rebuilt, I’ll have to rely on public computers for posts here which will probably be fairly light until my return on Sunday.

If you are attending the Podcast Expo, look for me on the show floor. Oh, I look like this:

I was doing an upgrade to my polling plug-in and accidentally deleted all the results. If you have already voted, please come back and re-vote. Sorry about that… and for Wordpress blog owners, version 2.0 B52 of Democracy does not play well with the current stable version of Wordpress. I guess that’s why they call it a “beta” And good backup procedures are always a good idea…

Update: Seems it was my upgrade procedure and not the Democracy plug-in that caused my problems. I’m going to wait until the final release before attempting an upgrade, however. It will be right after I close this poll so my mistake will not be repeated.

A return to the Quick Picks format last seen almost a year ago with a review of a value-price Zinfandel.

Tasting Notes:

Castle Rock, Zinfandel, Sonoma County 2004 ($10) - Dark purple in color with aromas of blackberry, sage and a touch of vanilla. Round and soft in the mouth with boysenberry and blackberry flavors, some spice and silky, sweet tannins. An excellent value drinking as well as wines more than twice it’s price.

13.9% ABV
Composite cork closure
Score: 88

Feedback: winecast@gmail.com
Copyright 2006 Acan Media, Inc. Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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Beau from Basic Juice gets his second time at bat hosting Wine Blogging Wednesday with a unique theme only Beau could concoct which he calls, “Where’s Wino.” Basically, if I understand the instructions in his post, we are to select a white wine from New York, Oregon or Italy OR a red wine from Washington, Spain or France and taste as usual. But instead of blogging our wine tasting notes we send them to Beau who will post them without their names or origin. Then for the next week, all participants will guess the origin of each wine for the grand prize of $20 USD and bragging rights. I’ll post something linking back to Beau’s post October 11 and blog the progress. It should be interesting to see how this one turns out…

One of my planned site improvements is to make it easier for listeners to get to my back catalogue of podcasts and for me to better track subscriber numbers. I think I have arrived at a “win-win” with the establishment of two new podcast feeds.

For listeners who prefer the versatile mp3 audio format, please subscribe to this feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/winecast-mp3

After you have clicked on the link above, you will see a number of “subscribe now” buttons for various podcatching clients, including Apple’s iTunes. Just click on these or paste the feed address into your software. Once re-subscribed, you will see all 68 podcasts and one episode of my Quick Picks podcast for your downloading and listening pleasure.

For listeners with iPods or who prefer to hear the show from within the iTunes software on their computers, please subscribe to this feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/winecast-aac

Once re-subscribed you will see my last 37 shows and the lone Quick Picks podcast along with my most recent promo for other podcasters to use on their shows. The reason there are fewer shows on this feed is all of these are enhanced with chapter breaks, changing artwork and weblinks which were not possible until about a year ago. Also note that the 5 shows from this summer missing from the feed have been added, so if you haven’t yet caught the mp3 version of the show, you will have some fresh Winecasts to listen to. My apologies for getting so far behind on this feed as I released podcasts this summer.

If you want every post, including both blog entries and podcasts, please subscribe to this feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/winecast

By using these feeds, I will more accurately track the number of subscribers which will help attract sponsors to underwrite the show. I really appreciate your support here.

BTW, everyone using iTunes who don’t want immediate access to the older shows can just stay where they are as I am in the process of migrating my iTunes channels to these new feeds. One day, you will notice all the older shows pop up in iTunes once this migration is complete.

Finally, I have a new poll on the right sidebar of the blog to help gauge demand for future site features. Please stop by and cast your vote when you have a chance…

It would seem that my distinction as the only wine blogger to make the move into the wine industry is not unprecedented as Jeff from the excellent blog Good Grape Wine Company has just started a gig with Inertia Beverage Group. Hearty congratulations are in order and I’m sure a cork or two were pulled down there in Indiana where Jeff calls home (not sure why us Midwest guys are nailing these gigs, but I’m not complaining).

Speaking of my day job, my work with Goosecross Cellars has turned to more of a part time gig so I’m looking around for some more work. If you know (or are) a winery who wants to sell more wine direct to consumer using the internet, drop me a line. I’m also looking for another tech marketing job in Minneapolis, but hoping I might be able to string together enough wine gigs to make ends meet. I’ll keep you posted either way…

Today’s show is a return to podcasting after seven weeks off this time focusing on Pinotage, the red varetial from South Africa. I also play a podsafe song about wine and make a couple of announcements.

Show Notes:

00:22 - Welcome and show theme
01:06 - Pinotage background
04:00 - Tasting Notes
04:50 - Zonnebloem, Pinotage, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2003 ($12) *+
05:14 - Robertson Winery, Pinotage, Robertson, South Africa 2003 ($9)
05:39 - Fleur du Cap, Pinotage, Coastal Region, South Africa 2004 ($12)
06:19 - Best of tasting (*) and best value (+)
06:51 - Show announcements
07:58 - Clip from Evil Genius Chronicles podcast
11:21 - Podsafe song from Mark Mallman
12:10 - Pandora’s Bottle from “Between the Devil and Middle C” (buy on Amazon or eMusic)
15:18 - markmallman.com and tour dates
15:56 - Contact Details/Sign my listener map!
16:28 - Next show theme

Feedback: winecast@gmail.com
Copyright 2006 Acan Media, Inc. Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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It was fantastic to see the press release tonight that Grape Radio has won the Podcast of the Year award. Quite a while ago they became the standard bearer in wine podcasts and I’m happy to see that they get the recognition they deserve. I’m looking forward to toasting them in person next week at the Podcast Expo when they receive their award. This is also great as, for some reason, no wine podcast was nominated in the Food and Drink category of the Podcast Awards.

Congratulations, guys!

Nearly Over 40 bloggers participated in Wine Blogging Wednesday last week tasting a wide variety of Champagne. Sam has written up a nice summary over at Becks & Posh that will definitely help me to choose two more wines for my Champagne podcast.

Stay tuned for the theme for WBW 26 coming soon…

In the latest example that the wine industry - particularly in France - is grasping at straws, enter the Bordeaux Business School “Wine MBA” program. While I support higher education in the industry, all this appears to be is another way for a school to market their MBA program with a wine spin. As a wine marketer and MBA, I found the following quote interesting:

“The French wine industry has woken up to the challenge but only after some time, Dartigues explains, adding that even now, some Bordeaux wine producers she visits do not know what an MBA is.”

The French have a lot better things to do than understanding what an MBA is; they, like a lot of producers worldwide, need to better understand their customers and make wines they like. That’s it; no MBA required, but I will produce some pretty nice looking charts and reports for you