Although it will likely not catch drunk mathematicians, others who have a problem in this area will be well served. You know who you are

Read all about it on Google’s Gmail blog.

Rumors have been circulating for some time that Amazon would enter the market but most observers thought they would concentrate on high volume brands. But the Amazon head wine buyer was on the floor checking out wines at the recent Family Winemakers of California and I have spoken with several smaller wineries who have been in discussions with them.

As I posted back in March, I think his is the most signifiant development in wine distribution since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. And Amazon’s actions in the past 6 months have validated my hypothesis that medium to small wineries are their target. Their decision to work with regional wine associations is a good one from an industry relations, recruitment and PR point of view. I don’t think it was an accident the announcement came from the Napa Valley Vintners and think we’ll see announcements from other winery associations before Amazon formally launches their wine business later this month or in early October.

This is a great development for both wineries looking for online distribution and for consumers looking for small production, artisan wines. I expect the shipping fees to be reasonable like Amazon does for all their other products but their Prime service will be a must for serious wine lovers. For $79 a year, you get free shipping on all purchases with second day delivery. No word on if that speed will be honored for wine but if it’s just free ground shipping for wine, that will be huge for sales. With increasing fuel costs, shipping is becoming a real problem for wineries as it adds significantly to their customer price. If this is a non-issue, then wineries stand to benefit greatly from what Amazon if offering.

This is not good news for other online wine retailers who do not have the deep pockets to cover the significant shipping costs or the economies of scale that Amazon has. But I still think there will be a place for niche e-tailers like domaine547 and wine marketing sites like woot and The Wine Spies.

I think this is the biggest wine story of the year and will be blogging about what this means for wine marketing over at my company blog.

Cheers to Amazon and welcome to the wine business.

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So I’m going to talk about how wineries can take advantage of blogs, podcasts, wiki’s and social networks on my next trip to California later this month. Although there will be some slides involved, this will not be “death-by-Powerpoint” but an interactive talk in the vein of BarCamp. It’s open to anyone who whats to learn more about social media or who wants to share their learnings. I will prepare about 40 minutes of material and see what develops as we talk about this topic.

If you are interested in attending, just head over to my company wiki and add your name and winery or company. If you no hable wiki then just send me an email at acanmedia (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll add you to the list.

The seminar will be held from 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29th at the Sonoma Wine Library in Healdsburg, CA. Here’s a map to the location. Special thanks to Patrick from Iridesse who arranged to get the room reserved and Josh from Pinotblogger for his advice.

Hope to see you there; so who’s with me?

PLEASE SEE UPDATE BELOW FOR BREAKING NEWS

After several days of investigation, including sophisticated reverse IP address lookups, I have confirmed that Lenn Thompson, founder and editor of LENNDEVOURS, is the head writer of the satirical wine blog Wine-ing 2.0. The true author(s) of this blog have been sought for the past week by wine bloggers on Twitter who previously suspected Randy Hall from Wine Biz Radio, MonkuWino from One Wine Per Week and St. Vini from The Zinquisition.

It was also confirmed that Lenn writes most of the posts for all three blog authors but his main persona is “Over Oaked”, a broadside at California wine. Deeper investigation also revealed that the most biting commentary from author “Over Extracted” is actually penned by LENNDEVOURS contributor Jamie Gabrini with much editing from Mr. Thompson.

Even yesterday on IM, Lenn denied having anything to do with Wine-ing 2.0 but an IP address sniffed on the site led back to Thompson’s Long Island home proving he was not enough of a geek to use a Tor server when posting to his clandestine blog.

Now that this mystery is solved, and the American Wine Blog Awards are behind us, it is not clear what wine bloggers will complain about on Twitter. But something will likely emerge in coming days. Stay tuned…

UPDATE: New information has come to light which has confirmed Lenn Thompson is NOT the author of the satirical wine blog Wine-ing 2.0.

I received word from my forensic data researcher that the data packets traced back to Mr. Thompson’s home actually came from a proxy server in Chicago.

I also got a call from Mr. Thompson’s wife, Nena, who said, “…he barely has time to write at LENNDEVOURS, so I’m sure he’s not wasting any time on this Wine-ing foolishness.”

I apologize to Mr. Thompson for any problems this story may have caused for him and will continue my investigation to uncover the true author(s) of Wine-ing 2.0.

Winning for Best Blog Writing and Best Wine Blog is Alder Yarrow of Vinography. Another double winner is Dr. Debs of Good Wine Under $20 for Best Single Subject Wine Blog and Best Wine Review Blog. Both very deserving winners.

Rounding out the rest of the winning blogs, Steve at The Wine Collector took Best Business Blog, my friends at Grape Radio were recognized for Best Podcast or Video Blog, Tablas Creek got Best Winery Blog and Chateau Petrogasm won Best Wine Blog Graphics.

I’ve been somewhat critical of these awards but my remarks have not been taken exactly in the way I’d intended. I never meant my comments here or in the OpenWine Consortium to be taken as an “alternative” to the American Wine Blog Awards but some have taken this view. Whatever the outcome of the discussion, I fully support what Tom is doing to recognize great wine blogs and am looking forward to next year.

So what wine goes with crow, anyway

It’s funny how things turn out sometimes. As soon as I think I have an idea so niche someone would not possibly do the same thing, that thing happens.

I like the view popurls gives me on the conversational web, all on one page. So I thought an aggregator of the wine blog world would be interesting so I hacked a proof of concept and shared with my Twitter friends. This was right after I saw Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop which launched with a food but not wine blog page. But that all changed when Josh at Pinotblogger Twittered about wine.alltop.com today.

It’s an honor to be on this page, but a double honor to be just “above the fold” and to the right of (hopefully) my future blogging buddy Eric of the New York Times. I’m not sure who to thank for my fortune. It might be the folks at Electric Pulp just up the road in Sioux Falls, South Dakota who put Alltop together. But I like to think it was Guy himself who remembered me as some schmo who asked for this autograph on my tattered old copy of The Macintosh Way last year when he was in Minneapolis.

So thanks, Guy… I owe you some nice wine and a good ticket to a Wild game when you are here next… and, yes, I’m kicking butt

Check out Alltop here.

While I couldn’t find too much information about the wines, I did find this humorous video on YouTube of the $8M nose in action:

No, I will not be contacting the ladies and gentlemen at Lloyd’s any time soon

But that probably doesn’t matter as the U. S. wine trade is addicted to the 100-point scoring system as the default method to differentiate and sell wine. Why? Because it makes sense to the American consumer brought up with the same system in school. Everyone, it seems, wants an A in either their term paper or glass of Chardonnay. And retailers feel compelled to sell and promote highly rated wines as they drive traffic to their store.

So that’s what makes this proposal to abolish the 100 point system so interesting to me. No, it’s not from a blogger or consumer but from a wine retailer. Isn’t this cutting off your nose to spite your face, you ask? I hope not but a reading of David Lillie’s proposal makes clear that he wants wine lovers to look beyond just the numbers and concentrate on the enjoyment a wine can bring.

He concludes his argument underscoring that precise scores are not the complete measure of a wine:

“The most important argument against the point system is contained in the dedication and hard work of thousands of producers, mostly European but with a growing number in the US, whose efforts to bring delicious naturally made wines to the consumer cannot possibly be graded with a number.”

This got me thinking about the parallels of wine and film criticism. Before I got into wine, I spend a couple years in film school and remain an avid film buff today. One of the elements that make great movies are the technical aspects along with the story and performances of the actors. When these are in the right balance, magic can happen. There are other times when the intention of the director is to just make an entertaining film. Here the technical aspects are most likely emphasized but there is still room for creativity as viewers of recent works of Michael Bay and Paul Greengrass can attest.

I’ll make my comparison to wine illustrated by a couple examples. I think Sergio Leone’s “Duck, You Sucker” is one of the best films in the Western genre. My wife, on the other hand, thinks it’s a long, boring and strange movie. The opening set piece includes some of the most interesting use of the camera in movie history. I see the homages to other Westerns; my wife sees extreme close-ups of peoples’ mouths while eating. It’s the context of the viewer and knowledge of film that makes all the difference in appreciating this work.

As blogged here recently, Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel is one of my personal favorite wines. But I couldn’t get my mother to drink it because she thinks all red wines, “…smell like dirt!” She can’t imagine how such a wine can taste good if it smells like it does to her. But she is an avid Chardonnay drinker who values Charles Shaw wines that I find lacking. Is she wrong? Of course not, it’s our context and experience with wine that is different. I’ve learned to appreciate the nuances in wine where she just wants something nice to drink with dinner.

So my rating of 92 or 4 stars will not convince my mother to try Ridge Zinfandel and she probably doesn’t care that I rated Charles Shaw Chardonnay an 80. Nor will my wife sit through another Sergio Leone movie when she’s perfectly happy watching “Top Gun” for the 50th time on cable.

The same can be said for wine and too many wine lovers use ratings as a way to select “good” wine when they should let their palate decide. Yes, there are technical aspects that some of us obsess over but the bottom line is the wine should taste good to you no matter what the critics say.

I don’t know David Lillie or his store, Chambers Street Wine in New York. But I’ll bet it’s a lot like Solo Vino where every wine is hand selected not for it’s Parker score but for it’s expression of the variety and region of origin. Scores will be with us for a long time, but it’s voices like Mr. Lillie that have me seriously thinking of not using the 100 point system in my reviews.

Hat tip to Craig at The Wine Camp Blog for Twittering the link this morning.

Why do I match fish with a rich red wine when all the experts might suggest something lighter?

Because I like it.

This is at the core of a post over at Vinography about wine and food matching. Alder makes a compelling argument that wine and food matching is a “scam” to sell more, and presumably higher priced, wine perpetuated by restaurants and other wine wonks. And while I think there is some common sense to matching food and wine, I agree that much of the advice on the street is bunk. Drink what you like with whatever food you want.

Kudos to Alder for another provocative and educational post. This underscores the unique value of wine blogs as I don’t think we’d see an article like this in Wine Spectator or Decanter.

Read the entire article here.

Sure, many of us are not as zany as the folks at Ask a Ninja, entertaining as Gary Vaynerchuk or as quirky as Rocketboom but I’d hardly call “most” wine bloggers boring. Many of us try to inform, educate and feature wines most people might like and write in not the same way as the established wine press (well, most times anyway). There is a camaraderie among wine bloggers that I don’t see in other parts of the blogosphere that is far from pedantic. Whilst we might be seen as somewhat geeky for our language and devotion to all things vino, I wouldn’t characterize the majority of wine bloggers’ work as “boring.”

But I’m biased. What do you think?

Speaking of wine racks, I noticed an interesting post over on Lifehacker today about a DIY wine rack made from recycled cardboard mailing tubes. All you need is a utility knife and a ruler to make this project from materials most of us have laying around. A great idea and unique use of discarded materials.

Support recycling and raise a glass to frugal wine storage at the same time.

Yes, my friends, you can pack your wine, beer, spirits or diet Coke in your brassiere if you are so inclined. While you may be more popular during the tailgate party with such an accessory, I’d suggest you reserve this for later season games at Lambeau Field to keep the temperature of the beverage at “cellar temp.”

On one hand I’m amused; on the other, outraged as El Jefe from Twisted Oak certainly has this “wine rack” ground staked out.

I’m back with a lot more posts, podcasts and perspective.

Stay tuned.

Many thanks to everyone who donated this year.

Over $86,000 have been raised so far; let’s see how close we can get to $100,000!

Longtime Winecast listeners and readers will remember that Gaiter and Brecher’s “Tastings” column was one of the inspirations for starting this podcast and wine blog. As I haven’t subscribed to the Journal for some time now, I have not kept up with their writing but will watch for their column online from now on.

Next week looks like “Delicious” wines of 2007… until then, enjoy their video:

Thanks to all who have bid on my prize of 3 bottles of the Roussanne I’m making with the Winecast Crushpad group. If you want to try to get those bottles, just go here and make a donation referencing WB17 in the notes field. You best do this soon as there are only a few hours to go.

That’s right, it’s time for another Menu For Hope fund drive and I’m pleased to again participate by donating a prize for the raffle. Between now and midnight December 21st, you can bid on many great wine and food prizes including my lot of 3 bottles of the open source Roussanne I’m making at Crushpad. This is from my personal allocation and I’ll be happy to sign and/or personalize each bottle for the winner. Given the various wine shipping laws, I can only offer to ship this lot within the United States.

This project will only produce about 50 cases of a Rhone-inspired white blend made mostly from Roussanne grown in the noted Westerly Vineyard in the Santa Ynez AVA. We’ve just finished fermentation and now will let the wine settle in for aging in neutral oak barrels (pictured to the right). Our group will decide the final blend this spring which will also likely include Marsanne and Viognier.

The only way to buy this wine is to join my Crushpad group which includes a 1 case allocation. If you want less than a case, here’s a way to get 3 bottles for as low as a $10 donation (the wine sells for $18 per bottle plus I’m covering the shipping cost to your door so this is over a $60 value). Just bid on code WB17 for your chance to win this rare wine.

Menu For Home started four years ago and all donations support the UN World Food Programme. Last year nearly $61,000 was raised to feed the hungry around the world. I encourage all readers and listeners to support this effort by buying raffle tickets for this and many other prizes listed at Chez Pim and Vinography.

Donation instructions:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4 and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code. Remember the Winecast Roussanne prize code is WB17.

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim on Wednesday January 9 for the results of the raffle. I will also post here when the results are announced.

Thank you for your support of this worthy cause.

In my time in the wine trade I’ve learned quite a bit of information that can’t be openly shared here for one reason or another. It’s good to see someone in the industry put the issues on the table and invite feedback. Check out the full article here.

For the record, I personally don’t think the use of technology robs a wine of it’s uniqueness, unless it’s overdone. I focus on what’s in the bottle and glass in front of me and not in the process of how it came to be made.

clipped from wine.appellationamerica.com

Of all the Wine 2.0 sites I’ve seen to date, I think Snooth shows the most promise to make a business out of this category. The design and feature set are very well done and the wine database is impressive. The only thing that remains to be seen is if they can attract enough users to make the social networking and ecommerce elements of Snooth viable. My guess is yes, but we shall see in coming months. My full review of Snooth will be posted here soon.

Congratulations, Philip and team on this milestone!

So I was pleased to see an email today from Tom Wark, fellow wine blogger but also Executive Director of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, announcing their new blog (which is now linked on the sidebar here). Their mission is to open direct to consumer shipping for wine retailers and treat them the same as everyone else in the trade. This just makes sense so I support their efforts here.

Check out their new blog here and support your local specialty wine retailer.

Check it out for yourself.

clipped from lifehacker.com Learn to get the most out of your vino with wikiHow’s beginners’ guide to appreciating a good glass of wine. This simple tutorial gives you the why’s behind the actions, i.e., why do people swirl the wine in their glass (to mix oxygen in, among other things), why should you sniff it (to get the full bouquet of flavors in the wine), and why should you hold it up to the light (to see the color and clarity). If you are a wine connoisseur, please share with us your best wine appreciation tips in the comments. How to Taste Wine [WikiHow]

I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed the current outage of the Wine Spectator website today but they sent me an email informing me that they would be down for the entire week. I guess it’s not just a database problem that could be recovered from in a few hours at most sites; they went down hard.

But I’m not sure if it matters much given all the other choices for reading about wine online these days. So maybe I should cancel when they come back online and try Robert Parker’s online subscription (I do miss Neal Martin’s prose)?

Or maybe I should just save my money all together?

I have never attended this tasting but will be there this year on both the public (Aug. 19th) and trade (Aug. 20th) days. But I will not be attending as a wine blogger and podcaster but as a member of a participating winery pouring behind our table. If you plan to be there, be sure to look for me in the “G” section. Email me for more direct instructions on my whereabouts

Hoping to see some of my fellow wine bloggers and local readers/listeners there. Maybe there will be some additional bottles below the table; who can tell?

I have to say I was very surprised to see this brand emerge and was only going to buy the wine for it’s potential resale value on eBay. Whoever put the kibosh to this at Disney is to be commended. I think the potential damage to the Disney/Pixar brand would have been immense if this wine made it into Costco. A very good call from my perspective.

The other story that had me thinking was a post over at the Wine Direct Shipping Compliance blog. They site some pending legislation in Ohio that would limit households in that state to, “…twenty-four cases of nine-liter bottles of wine in one year.” Huh? Is that 24 Salmanazars or 24 cases of one-liter bottles?

Whatever the proper interpretation of this law is it’s clear that legislators in Ohio are not wine lovers. With similar legislation pending in other states it’s becoming clear that the forces against the free distribution of wine are starting to restrict the freedoms gained a couple years back. A very bad turn of events in my view.

Call me a “wine libertarian” but why can’t we just pay our taxes and enjoy whatever wine we want without any more government meddling?

Thanks to whoever sent the nominations in and if you like the podcast, your vote would also be appreciated.