My pal from the VoIP Users Conference Michael Graves (@mjgraves)came by to talk about his New Wine Consumer status. It’s interesting to see how these things progress from a newbie to a seasoned wine geek.

Paul Mabray dropped by and after me saying three or four times that we’d not get into the M-G social media campaign, we of course did with gusto.

@winebythebar was listening in on Skype and hopefully will join us soon to talk about that very app: Wine by the Bar. Michael Wangbickler from Academy of Wine Communications was also on hand with us on the text chat.

Sorry, keystroke loggers under 21 are not allowed on the New Wine Consumer.

Schilling for Vintank? No, we feel that the amount of jealousy and anxiety generated by the publication of a FREE white paper that is the result of much reflection deserves some scrutiny. Taking advantage of the frivilous “controversy” that surrounds Vintank’s published ideas, we hope to get your attention and help those who did not understand the white paper (or take the trouble to download and read it) to join the discussion of the impact of social media on the wine business.

At 12 Noon EDT (9 AM PDT, 5PM UK) Paul Mabray joins us to discuss a report that has made a big splash. You can download their 80-page PDF free.

Vintank’s presse release says:

When we first decided to publish this report, we had no real idea what a task this would be.  Couple that with a brand new business and all the associated challenges, the interactivity with all the organizations, the legal reviews, and just doing our day jobs, we found that completing this report was more than we originally anticipated.  Just as difficult is the speed of which things change – as fast as we’d review, there would be new changes (Facebook fan pages), new features, new companies and new ways to measure.  This paper is by no means the ultimate answer in wine social media nor does it cover every possible strategy or tactic.  However, we hope it offers one of the first real sign posts for our industry to begin to look at traveling down the road of wine social media.  We hope it sparks ideas, conversations, and success for wine companies on the Internet.

We discuss Paul’s hair, but also online affinities, influencers, Gary Vaynerchuck the phenomenon and some of the strategies Vintank thinks are winning over consumers. Also chiming in, Hardy from DirtySouthWines, @jfouts, @daveac and many more names I’ll insert tomorrow as I am late for dinner!