Left to Right: Ben (CalWineries.com); Gary V., G-Man and me

Stepping out of the virtual world and into the reality of Wine 2.0 was pretty neat, especially to be in the same room with Gary V., Inertia’s Andrea, Tom Wark, Wine Hiker Russ, Alder Yarrow and everyone else playing in this circle.

G-man and myself were the youngest guys by 5 and 3 years respectively – and that’s not to say that it was an older crowd. If anything, having come from the traditional route of working in on-premise and off-premise sales, everyone in the room was a baby compared to the aging 3-tier crowd. It is inspirational to be in a game that is dominated by young players.

To listen to the panel last night, it is a relief to hear people who not only understand how to, but have begun to take wine from a prohibitionist era mindset into the 21st Century (where everyone else is.) Gary is leading the charge, Inertia is laying the tracks and Tom Wark has spread the message. The stadium is built and the people will come.

Grape Thinking and people like the dudes at CalWineries are fortunate to be able to start down the path that has been cleared for us. Whilst Bottlenotes, RadCru, Wine Q and Cork’d are doing a good job giving an online platform to the established wine appreciation crew.

It was great to share the same vision with those who have begun to make it happen. There’s space for all of us to be successful – and with so much opposition at every step, we’re going to need all the force we can muster. Having had a great 2 weeks I’d like to take the chance to propose a digital toast to all the young self-starters in the room last night: the future is ours.

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So after a year or so of being quiet, Cork’d and its overarching concept have been given much recognition in the past 2 weeks. Gary Vaynerchuck has gone from strength to strength over the past two years, and we can only wait in anticipation to see what he does with Cork’d. Already Cork’d has been tipped as one of the top 10 best designed sites in the world, and as Gary V. is undoubtedly heading toward being one of the most successful players in the industry, the two will surely make a happy union.

This year we’ve seen Wine X magazine fall by the wayside, and perhaps Cork’d'll now rise to fill the niche which Wine X was never quite able to: the community of young, experimental and down to earth wine consumers.

Grapethinking waits in anticipation for Wine 2.0 where much of the future will be delineated and many partnerships will be forged as a group of young world beaters step up to discuss how things are going to be once direct-shipping laws are loosened and distributors lose their stronghold.

Gary V. has begun to check the boxes needed to ensure his place in history by:

1. Establishing a reputable, nationwide, tech-driven, with-the-times medium to promote and sell high-class hand-selected wines to the American public at large.
2. Winning the hearts and minds of the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Eric Asimov, bloggers, Grape Radio and a wide spread of enthusiasts around the country who take his word as gospel.
3. Purchasing the first community for wine, with cutting edge Web 2.0 design and strong community features.

However, having been at the London Wine Fair for the past three days, with all the power and might of the internet, I couldn’t help but notice a gaping void. With the veritable firestorm in online media that has caught motor vehicle marketing, merchandising, PR and news media, even despite the efforts of Gary V., it would seem as if the producers themselves are trying to ignore the internet as a whole.

You just have to love what Stormhoek has to say about the wine and spirits fair, because it’s what I privately thought and never had the guts to say the whole time I was a sales manager, and despite the genius and insight driven Stormhoek marketing miracle who have the brilliant little tag on their site ‘Stormhoek: because the wine industry need a kick up the pants’, every other person at the fair had virtually no online strategy and seemed intent on spending their marketing budgets the same way everyone else does. One wonders why certain wineries even bother having marketing people, when it seems they all just end up doing things the way they were done before.

The place was littered with mass-produced brochures; wine makers flown out and housed at great expense (with giant carbon footprints) and expensive and flashy stands all trying to out do the next. There simply has to be a more cost effective, efficient and useful way to market wines than this, and there’s no doubt the ultimate solution will be the internet. It can’t be disputed, and any attempt to dispute it is denial. So how many more uber trade-fairs and brochures and necktags needs to be printed before people wake up to this fact? Stormhoek has done in two years what same major South African wineries have and perhaps never will be able to do, and on a fraction of the budget.

Gary V. has created the outlet and he has the community, and Stormhoek has proved the power of the internet through their own savvy. However, for those who may be stuck in the last decade, a huge space exists for a number of companies to come give them a helping hand into the future. If Michel Rolland is a millionaire for telling people time and again to micro-oxygenate, then there’s going to be a lot of money in going from vineyard to vineyard and letting people know that they may want to wake up to this little thing that’s called the internet.

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