I heard a story recently that makes my hair stand up: how can producers and stores be so ignorant about generating goodwill? How can they also not realize that in this day and age, we consumers talk a lot online and often peer comments are more important than the critic’s reviews.

Keep in touch if you have a story to tell from either side of the counter!

Round table discussion participants

@quaffability John Gavin, web designer

@DeannaLawrence, Strategist Global Digital Media and Emerging Consumer Trends

@cavemanwines Michael Wangbickler, Caveman Wines

@mjgraves Michael Graves, Graves on Soho VoIP

@RovingThruSpain Neil Monnens, Wine BlueBook

Martin Barrett, Cana’s Feast Winery

Abstract:

With the ubiquity of Twitter, Facebook and the iPhone (and a growing number of other phones) people are now more likely to click on links and land on a web page using a small-screen browser. My goal is to assemble as many ideas and opinions as possible on the topic of what information is most needed and how to adapt it to the web-capable phone, mp3 player or personal assistant.

• Stakeholders: anyone using the web to communicate, i.e., everyone.
• Roles: consultant, designer, site builder, site visitor, site owner.
• Communication vector: what else? the phone. [numbers]

A few reference bookmarks: http://delicious.com/NewWine

Among our visits, our talk with David Corey in Santa Maria, California was enjoyable and the wines we brought home were terrific. Dave knows his way around wine and we asked him a few questions on Malbec, since he’s one of the handful of California producers using that grape.

We talked about how Allen began his travels to Burgundy and what it was like to approach wine producers and taste their wines, often in barrel. The work involved in tasting and writing notes is considerable. Deciding what parts of the producer notes to publish requires a degree in (or at least some degree of) diplomacy. We spoke about gaining the producers’ confidence while retaining credibility.

Burgundy’s history is complicated and the geography of the small parcels of land hard to keep track of. Allen’s book is about these things in great detail with specially prepared maps, notes on the Vosnes Romanée and neighboring areas. You should listen to this recording if you have any interest in wine criticism, Burgundy or just want to hear a master describe the work he’s been doing for decades.

André Rasberg is the president of the Argentine sommeliers association. He spoke to Evelyne after his presentation at Vinexpo 2009 in June.

I did not follow every detail of the campaign, but I did not have the impression at any time that the votes were any more important than the cheers for Lance Armstrong at the sides of the road (or indeed on Twitter nowadays).

I contend that it isn’t surprising (or wrong) that people like Leo and Kevin Rose, who had a friendly “I have more Twitter followers than you” contest would be outraged when they learned that it wasn’t a vote contest, the votes (again in my perception) were just a way of cheering people on.

I don’t mind that this is now old news in the real time social web, because I think some thought needs to be given to the mob mentality and how it may not be right even if a large number of people line up to crack the whip.

Of course there’s a lesson in this story, too.

Note: we are on GMT+2, 6 hours later than New York in case your comments take a long time to appear, it may be because we’re sleeping.

Here is Martin’s original totally cool Tweet “heard round the world”

Reactions

And here is what happened next, on Digg: 2295 links, 311 comments

FriendFeed.com search for Murphy-Goode also shows about 300 posts:

Today, a Google search of Murphy-Goode reveals items 2 and 4 “not so goode”.

More viewpoints:

Tardy Slip: “Goode” Opportunity for PR is Lost on Winery

Lalawag: Murphy-Goode not so great after all:

Neil Monnens will chat about living in Spain  and his sites WineRelease.com and  WineBlueBook.com. The mission statement of  WineRelease.com says it “informs wine enthusiasts, restaurants and wine shops about upcoming North American wine release dates.”  WineBluebook.com says it “is a wine buying guide that groups the major critics’ average wine ratings, then lists them by price to determine overall value – the Quality Price Ratio for wine.

What is the difference between biodynamic and organic wine making and framing?

We hope to address some of the answers with help from Jamie Goode’s excellent series of articles.

Randall Grahm started the Bonny Doon Vineyard in 1983.

Talk about “of cabbages and kings”, we chatted with Randall and a great group about Rhône varieties, the ungly duckling grapes, Riesling and Gruner Veltliner (everyone except Eve loves Riesling), biodynamics, cork taint, eastern Washington vineyards, terroir and its importance, screw caps and much more. See our Delicious bookmarks for more info.

Here is a notion we will be developing:

“I am also really interested in producing wines that have life-force.  Another word for this might be minerality, another term might be the ability to resist oxidation.  I think that one of the keys to this is learning how to master the oxidation/reduction states of the wines at varying points in the wine’s elevage.”

Special Rhone Ranger music on guitar by Zip Caplan.