Wine Blogs - Part One (1 Aug)

In days gone by, if you had an interest in say French wine, the chances were the only way you would be able to find information would be to subscribe to overseas publications. And if you wanted the information in a timely fashion, that would entail an airmail subscription, which made the publication about twice the normal price. No matter what your preferences in wine, in today’s e-world you can find whatever tickles your fancy on the internet, often for free. But is the free information worth what you pay for it?

There is a wealth of online information available ranging from subscription sites like Wine Spectator, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and Jeremy Oliver’s Onwine, through to free wine forums, and free wine information sites. The latest explosive fad, or perhaps more accurately described as “incarnation”, is the blog. According to Wikipedia, the definition of a blog is as follows. “A blog is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.” Believe it or not, in May 2007 one search engine was tracking 71 million of them!

With coverage like that, the blog has become a force in its own right. In a series of two articles, firstly we will examine where the blog fits into the vinous scheme of things, what impact it is likely to produce, the nature and character of the blog; and finally in the second article, there will be a synopsis or review of a number of wine blogs that are relevant to Australian wine, or Australian consumers of wine.  

The tactile experience of reading hard copy magazines is seen by many as pleasurable, but profitability for many publications is an issue. Australia has more magazines per head of population than any other country, which makes things even more difficult from a profitability perspective. Magazines like Winestate, by their own admission recognise that expanding circulation is extremely difficult. Chasing advertising dollars is more competitive every day, and that is why Winestate introduced a charge for wineries that wanted their wines reviewed. The impact of explosion of information on the internet will further exacerbate these problems, not just for Winestate, but for all publications.

There are pros and cons to both traditional media and blogs. Each side is passionate in their feeling about their chosen method of expression. The traditional media has a vested interest in their occupation, and naturally are keen to protect their turf. If you ask each side what is wrong with the other, they will be able to reel off the answers quickly. Both sides have valid points, so let’s examine some of them.

Professional expertise is a foundation stone of traditional publications. The writers are paid professionals that know what they are doing, and have a detailed knowledge of their chosen field. In some cases, professional wine writers are even trained journalists. This is where it gets hairy. In most fields of endeavour, writers are trained journalists, but when it comes to wine, you can be the best writer in the world, but if you don’t have a good palate, your chances of being a successful wine writer are about as good as Jancis Robinson and Robert Parker getting married. In theory anything is possible, but it ain’t likely.

Most professional wine writers were wine professionals first, and then evolved into wine writers. Parker was a legal eagle, as was James Halliday, but Halliday also became a winemaker. Jeremy Oliver was trained as a winemaker and then took up writing. Jancis Robinson studied Maths and Philosophy at Oxford. Campbell Mattinson is one of the few that is a professionally trained journalist that was savagely bitten by the wine bug, and has been able to keep the wolf from the door by combining his professional ability to wax lyrical, with his passionate, dedicated desire and life’s quest to consume untold quantities of respectable vino.

It is this distinction that makes wine blogs instantly more accepted/credible than many others. Readers are used to reading works by authors who started off as wine lovers, and over time, progressed to become accepted “professional” writers. Who is to say which of today’s bloggers may become the next “Grand Duke of Wine”?

The formal publications will tell you they have inbuilt check and balances, that (in theory),, makes them responsible. Daniel Rogov is a long-time food and wine writer whom I communicate with regularly. Rogov, as he is affectionately known, is a professional writer for a respected Israeli newspaper, and when this subject came up on his wine forum, he had this to say, “My own problems with blogs in general include:

(a) As there were great diarists, great letter-writers and authors of autobiographies, so one day there may prove to be great bloggers. The problem is that for every great diarist and letter-writer there were thousands who wrote badly and whose writing was of no interest to anyone but themselves. Those people's dairies, letters and biographies never made it to print so we were not subjected to them. True, some great writers were missed along the way, but the weeding-out process was an important and valuable one. With blogs there is simply no weeding out process and quite often until we find those who may be worth reading we have become quite justifiably weary.

(b) The second category can be described by three words: accountability, accountability and accountability. To whom precisely is the blogger accountable? Quite simple – his/her own conscience and nothing else.”

When quizzed about these comments, Rogov added, “I agree with what both Ric and Lior say in principle with regard to accountability but here are several examples of problems:

• A team of wine writers for a major Israeli newspaper was found to be importing wines. They were replaced.

• A wine writer in another Israeli paper was found to be accepting "gifts" from one of the wineries. He was fired.

• A wine writer in France was convicted of accepting bribes from several negociants. He was sentenced to 18 months incarceration.

• The owner of a major wine sales point in the USA maintains a blog that gets tens of thousands of discrete hits daily. He writes about and criticizes many things including those wines that he imports. I doubt that the person in question is suicidal and speaks negatively of the wines he wants to sell.

In a way - checks and balances are the issue, and to a great extent those are lacking on the net. I am not at all accusing devoted wine lovers of having partisan interests. I am saying though that dangers exist.”

Daniel makes some interesting points, but there is a difference between responsibility and being objective, which is partially illustrated in his last point.

If you ask the producers of the formal publications, they will say they have a higher stand of checks and balances, as well as a higher ethical standard, than blogs. Formal publications don’t want to be sued, so they do watch their p’s and q’s closely, whilst much of the blogging world has a more open attitude toward “free speech.”

From what I can see, generally wine bloggers appear to be pretty responsible, and whilst self moderating, they normally do a good job of not crossing over the line. If you ask bloggers about the formal publications, they will tell you that in many cases, in their opinion, there is a question mark between objectivity and the publications advertising revenue stream. Most bloggers earn five eights of sweet Fanny Adams from advertising. The adverts are generated by a third party and the blogger’s have no control over advertising content, so bloggers claim to be independent and not swayed by advertising revenue considerations.

There is merit in both sides of this argument.

There are pros and cons of both media. Blogs have the advantage of happening in the now, whilst traditional publications can be written months prior to publication. Traditional press has the money and resources to commit to detailed research, something that is not usually possible with bloggers. Blogs can provide a massive amount of information; the problem is ascertaining which information is good, and which is rubbish. And there is a lot of rubbish out there.

Blogs are expanding the information available on any given subject at an exponential rate, which is a positive provided the information is good. Blogs will have an impact on traditional media, and that impact will hurt their bottom line.

Not that long ago, the daily newspapers had a monopoly on position vacant advertisements. That has certainly changed, and in today’s electronic age, many people find their employment electronically without ever buying a newspaper. Twenty years ago people would not have believed that possible.

After accountability comes credibility. Most publications have a reasonable level of credibility; if they don’t they go out of business. Their financial investment helps establish their credibility, as no one wants to blow hard earned bucks. Bloggs don’t have that financial commitment, and some sites, ask more questions than they answer. Here is just one of many examples.  This site, whilst it looks perfectly kosher, makes me scratch my head and wonder. In part, it states, “If you would like your winery to be covered on this website, send a note to:…”

Inviting wineries to send their PR so it can be written up just does not look right to me.

It also states, “This website is dedicated to everyone who enjoys Shiraz and the great wine from Australia. Of course we will also cover Syrah based wines and associated blends that make for great, intense red wines.

The website will evolve as we get the support of wine lovers from around the world and attract contributing writers and tasters. If you are interested in sharing your wine reviews and experiences with readers from around the world, please contact us.

INCLUDE your physical mailing address because VIP invites are based on where you live and some events will require a mailed invitation to be sent!”

This also leaves me scratching my bald spot for a number of reasons, especially when you see the next quote. “This website will evolve into a great learning resource for Australian Wines and also great red wine producers using Syrah and Shiraz. The content will be based on visitor feedback so the more you request, the more you will get.

The eventual goal will be to catalog 100% of all Australian wine producers and get many of them to be contributing writers.”

A noble aim but it looks like they want to sit back and have the contributors do all the work. It’s no surprise that it doesn’t look like its working. Since February 2006, there have been twelve articles written and six of them are on Mollydooker/Sparky Marquis wines. Does this give the site much credibility? Not from where I am sitting.

The format of most blogs is consistent and navigation is easy. They all use the same basic layout, with differences in colour schemes and indexing being the main aesthetic variables. All wine blogs have loads of links. The links cover a diverse range; from “normal” wine blog sites to “alternative” wine sites that cover every sundry aspect related to, or not related to wine, as the case may be. On some wine blogs, it looks like it’s a competition to see who can have the most links listed. The philosophy tends to be the more they link, or trade links to each others sites, the more likely their own site will be “discovered”. Some of the sites (often the more professional ones) will have links to wine forums, professional wine sites, retailers etc. The major drawback of the way links are set out in blogs is that there is only room for a name; there is no room for a brief description, so clinking on a link where you have an unknown name, is a crap complete shoot.

Many of the links are to esoteric wine sites where the interest can be anything from wine and its association to the Tour De France bike race, to wine and its connection to poker. Having a zillion links on a site, many to sites that are either inactive or “ordinary” does not increase the referring sites credibility. If anything the reverse is true. It would be more credible to have less links, but have them to better quality sites. Better still it would be advantageous to have more than just a name to click on, but unfortunately that may not possible with the blog software used.

Reader feedback, and the immediacy of the contact between the blogger and their audience, is a major reason for the success of many blogs. Readers like to voice their opinion, in some ways it provides the reader with a sense of empowerment. Given that bloggers feel empowered by being able to publicly express their opinion, blogs can occasionally become a self feeding ego trip between the parties.

For those bloggers who think the number of hits to the site is a direct indication of the sites success, the number of readers comments, is of critical importance. This is simply because once you have a two or three people commenting on a topic, they continue to go back and read the latest comments, and these visits drive up the numbers quickly. The story is not being read fifty times, its five people each going back ten times to read the latest comments. Sure the numbers don’t lie and the hits are genuine, but the number of return visitors has to be balanced against other statistics to get a real idea of readership. It can be a bit like a wine forum where it says that a thread with nine responses, has been read two hundred times. That figure does not mean two hundred people have read it, it may be only twenty five individuals, but the number two hundred looks impressive.

RSS feed technology is a boon to both blog writers and their audience. If a reader subscribes to an RSS feed, they will know when a change has been made to the site they are interested in, and can check out the site immediately. This “currency” - or almost instant information update, is attractive to many blog readers, as it increases the interaction process. And the more interaction, the more personal empowerment of the reader and the blog author.

In part two, we will look at a number of blogs that are relevant to lovers of Australian wine, or produced by Australians who have an affinity for imported wine.

Part Two can be found here.

Feel free to submit your comments!

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2007