There is one man in particular that comes to mind in this industry who saw this potential and has found a way to capitalize on it: Rick Bakas of St. Supery. Earlier this year he announced that he would be organizing virtual Twitter tastings that individuals would be able to participate in from anywhere. The first tasting was for California Cabernet Sauvignon, so the "hashtag" was #CaliCabs. What this means is that every time someone tweeted (posted) about a wine they were tasting, they would include "#CaliCabs" in their post, and any Twitter user who searched that hashtag would see every post made by anyone who used it in a tweet.
In addition to being able to taste and talk to people virtually, local Napa Twitter users took it to the next level and organized places to meet up and taste together. Round Pond participated in this first tasting at Judd's Hill winery with our 2006 and 2007 Cabernet. The set up was simple: everyone bring your laptop or handheld device to tweet from and a bottle to share. As the tasting commenced, we were all able to taste and tweet about one another's wines. The beauty of Twitter is that information spreads virally, so by getting together in a central location the information spreads that much farther. Each person who brought a wine to share was also given an opportunity to share more detailed information about the wine with the group, lending a more personal note to the overall results. Round Pond's winemaker Brian Brown joined me for this event, and while the idea of Twitter was completely new to him as well, he was able to see first hand how much information you are able to share and how far it really goes using this medium. Our wines personally received a lot of love, especially our 2007 Cab that hadn't even been released yet!
The results of the #CaliCabs tasting were promising and plans for the next tasting started coming about nearly the next day! This time it would be #SauvBlanc, another varietal Round Pond does well and something we were excited to share. The idea of having a community location where interaction and live discussion accompany the virtual tasting really took hold with Linda Cordair of the Quent Cordair Fine Art gallery in downtown Napa. She personally invited local tweeters out to her gallery to partake in the tasting and all we had to do was show up with the wine! The gallery provided nametags for the guests and the bottles (so people could reference the Twitter name as they tasted the wines). There was also a beautiful spread of Sauvignon Blanc friendly foods including sweet water oysters, compliments of Hog Island Oyster Co. This being the second go-around for the Twitter tasting in general, there was even more positive response and participation. We tried 50+ different Sauvignon Blanc's from various regions around the world and even several from specific areas in Napa which were great to compare. Round Pond poured our 2009 Sauvignon Blanc that will be released in May of this year. The wine was showing crisp, clean and full of bright fruit, which really helped it to stand out in the crowd. The positive response was overwhelming and we even heard "favorite of the night" more than once! Total responses included over 2700 tweets from over 600 people!!
The next Twitter tasting is scheduled for April 1 and the hashtag will be #WineBlends! So wherever you are and whatever experience level with Twitter, give it a try. If nothing else, just search #WineBlends and follow along with the tasting on Twitter. We might be pouring our 07 Cab since it's blended with Petit Verdot, but you will have to wait and see! If you can resist cracking open a bottle and participating, I will be surprised. Cheers!
