So Wine Life Today Blog and Vivi’s are one. This makes my life quite a bit easier. There were Vivi’s fans writing me hoping that I would continue writing and I really wanted to but I had SOOO much going on that my blogging almost came to a screeching halt. I attribute the bulk of this hiatus to my home re-model/addition. Lets just say that now I have more time because I’ve finished the work I have to do and my lawyers are handling the rest. All I have to do is show up every now and then and write checks to the law offices of “Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe”…

On to Wine Life Today. The mission of Wine Life Today (the working version) is as follows:

To provide a medium and community for independent wine publishers to grow and to create an environment that allows true talent to thrive as part of the global conversation around wine.

The genesis of this mission is that today marketing is a global conversation – its not “I speak, you listen”, its not only about “what’s the buzz” but “whats the buzz and whats your part in that buzz”. Whether your a marketer or publisher or consumer, you have some part in that buzz. Wine blogging (and blogging in general) actually gives you visibility into “buzz”. And guess what – the size of your wallet doesn’t determine your influence over the buzz. In fact, in the world of Wine there is a backlash against those that used their resources to lord over the marketplace. Thats why I love this community of micro-publishers particularly in the world of wine. As a marketing professional, the micro-publishing world is a fascinating phenomenon. If the world of wine, its a revolutionary force.

Revolutionary force? How’s that you say? Well, easy. Wine uniquely has the inherent ability to micro-segment itself. You have so many varietals (DeLong points out 100) across so many regions and they all change in flavor every year. Unlike technology where all the micro-publishers blather on with differing views on the same piece of sh@! product, wine bloggers can find and taste wines all their lives and almost never will you see the same wine reviewed twice. There are so many different blogs and they’re all reviewing different things. Occasionally there is something exceptional that transcends blogs’ segments and creates a high level of noise, but in general blogs have their audience and their audience is around because that particular writer somehow aligns with their own wine values.

At the end of the day, this micro-publishing model is far more suited for the world of wine than just about any other segment. Its also why this model will affect and change the world of wine in alot more significant ways than say technology or other areas where the topics are limited so blogs represent different opinions on the same limited set of topics (just look at the blog coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show – tons of opinions on the same Microsoft speech or whatever). The model of having a single publication tasting 300 wines a year just won’t work. 1000 wines a year? Nope. Not when there are 5000+ wineries with multiple varietals and blends that change every year in the US alone! Do you see the fundamental problem there?

The other side of that coin is – ok, well so these independent publishers could scale and niche the wine market better than a single publication, but most blogs have a few hundred readers and therefore won’t show up on a search and clearly can’t advertise. Basically you need the scale of those publications in order to get these opinions heard. This is a fundamental flaw in the theory I just wrote above. Well, what if, as a community, we can solve that problem? What if we create a “medium and community for independent wine publishers to grow and to create an environment that allows true talent [ no matter how niched] to thrive”? That is the goal of Wine Life Today. Kelly and I have a fundamental belief that the very nature of wine (thousands and thousands of wines produced every year) makes the model of a “global conversation” about wine crucially important and a revolutionary force. Wine Life Today seeks to serve the community and elevate wine’s global conversation that benefits all, not just the elite.

Are you ready for the revolution? We’re looking forward to 2008!

Enjoy the Wine Life! Viva la Revolution!

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