There’s been a bit of backlash this year for some reason though, and anonymous blogger overoaked does a fantastic job of skewering both Tom, the finalists and even some of the folks who’ve voiced their displeasure with the awards.

Wine-ing 2.0 is quickly turning into the Gawker/Valleywag for the wineblogosphere.

Classic stuff. Keep it up overoaked!

The last thing this world needs is a presumptuous prick like you telling everyone else that a system thats worked great for 70 years is corrupt.

You think you’ve got this figured out don’t you. If there weren’t any wholesalers you and your faggy California vintners would be up shit creeke.

You think drinkers and your precious SWRA will win against distributors then think again. You don’t stand a chance and it’s not cause of few mllion doallars. Its because no one wants to buy 100 dollar bottles of wine ovr the Internet. And it’s because states don’t want kids ordering booze.

Why don’t you take your shitty blog, your shitty SWRA and leave the work to the big boys.

Aren’t you glad these guys are protecting us from the scourge of underage drinking?

I take particular umbrage with this quote:

If there weren’t any wholesalers you and your faggy California vintners would be up shit creeke.

Silly wholesalers. Everybody and their mamma knows Shit Creek isn’t spelled with an “e”. But I understand, you’ve got other things on your mind. Like bribery. And extortion.

But never mind all that. You stay classy Wholesalers!

Personally I happen to think that the fact that you’re “doing laundry right now, in one big load” is about as interesting as…well as interesting as talking about laundry.

However I’ve discovered a use for Twitter, and it also happens to be wine related so I thought I’d share.

Using a web app called Egorcast that mashes up Twitter with the stupendously awesome Jott, you can speed dial the free dictation service provided by Jott and have your words published via email to Twitter.

So the next time you are at a wine tasting event and want to share your notes with the world, you can just dial up Jott and have your words automagically published on Twitter or on your WordPress blog.

Here’s how (really simple):

1) Sign up with Jott (free).

2) Sign up with Twitter (free).

3) Sign up with Egorcast (free).

4) Dial up Jott from your cell phone and simply say your tasting note. Within 20 minutes some fine folks in India will transcribe your words into text and email them to you and Egorcast, which will then forward the message to Twitter.

All in all, a pretty cool way to capture your tasting notes on the go.

And for more info on Twitter and wine, be sure to check out Tim at Winecast’s recent post on the subject.

• First and foremost the blog is a cheap, fun marketing vehicle and personal relationship builder. Crass perhaps (at least the marketing part), but true. The thing is I think that relationship building is marketing, and it’s actually one of the very best parts of the job. I think that if you’re going to go into the wine business you absolutely have to like people and want to welcome them into your life.
• I blog because I noticed it was far too hard to find solid information on how to start a winery. It’s a complicated process in a complex, over-regulated industry. I figured a blog outlining how one person went about doing it would help aid others who were trying to round up this kind of info.
• In that vein, I also hoped to get (and was lucky enough to receive) some feedback on the process by other folks more experienced and knowledgeable than I (not too hard). I talk to a lot of folks in my neck of the woods, but a blog brings in voices from hither, thither, and etc.
• Finally, there’s some sappy chick movie I watched once where one of the characters said about his father: “Things don’t really seem real to me until I’ve told him about them.” I can’t for the life of me remember anything else about that flick, but I feel the same way about all the seminars, classes, research and discussions I have about the industry. Ideas only really get cemented in my mind when I have to sit down and post on what I’ve learned, hopefully in a semi-entertaining way. Building this winery is my unending passion and sharing that passion on this blog seems like the best outlet I have.

  If I didn’t write, I’d be even worse company at dinner parties than I am now, boring people with talk about Precision Viticulture. There are probably only 14 readers in the world interested in PV, but dammit I want them all.

So now it’s my turn to tag a few others! Tag, you’re it.

Craig Camp @ Wine Camp Blog
Steve @ The Wine Collector
Jamie Goode, the Carl Sagan of Wine
Jeff @ Good Grape
Alder @ Vinography

Here are the other winners, I suggest you check them out as they are all worthy of being a daily read and warrant an RSS subscription if you’re into that kind of thing.

2007 American Wine Blog Awards Winners

BEST SINGLE SUBJECT BLOG:
The Wine Collector Blog

BEST WINE PODCAST OR VIDEOBLOG
Wine Library TV

BEST WINE BLOG GRAPHICS
The Good Grape

BEST WINE REVIEWING BLOG
Vinography

BEST WRITING ON A WINE BLOG
Dr. Vino’s Wine Blog

BEST WINE BLOG
Dr. Vino’s Wine Blog

And a special shout out to The Grape Nuts for their very kind write up. Thanks for your continued support guys!

To prevent just such a catastrophe, I’ve mixed together a bunch of killer Mac tools into an unholy brew that allows me to take an image, manipulate it, upload it to my web server, and code it into a blog post in under 60 seconds. This is a big deal to me as this same process used to take closer to 10 minutes. If my estimates are right and I blog about 4 times a week on average where I use a picture, it turns out I’m saving 31.2 hours per year. That’s nearly a work week’s worth of productive hours saved!

Anyway, I’m so thrilled I just had to share (figured I’d waste a few of my newly saved hours to write this post). Check out the video after the jump to see it all in action, and if you’re still around at the end, I’ll show you how to set it up for yourself.

Warning!

This post is EXTREMELY geeky. If you’re looking for a wine post, come back tomorrow. If, however, you’re like me and want to squeeze every last ounce of productivity out of the time you spend blogging you really should have a look. All set? Click “more” below to jump feet first into blog productivity nirvana.

The basic workflow in the screencast goes like this:
1. Upload the image to Snipshot using a hotkey trigger in Quicksilver.
2. Resize/recrop etc. the image and save it to disk.
3. Rename the file and upload it to my webserver via Transmit and another Quicksilver hotkey.
4. Use TextExpander to speed up the repetitive html coding.
5. Publish the post.

Click to view 60 second picture post screencast (or right/control click to save to disk)

There are 4 tools that provide the foundation for my 60 second blog picture post. They’re listed below and if you’re already a Mac user your probably familiar with at least a couple.

• Quicksilver
• Snipshot.app
• Transmit
  and
• TextExpander

About Quicksilver

Quicksilver (QS) is the glue that holds the whole process together. Nothing has changed the speed with which I can access my files and data and the way I use more computer more than this little program. The best part is it’s free.

Basically what QS does is lets you type in the name of the program, folder, contact or song you want to access and brings it right to you, right now. As fast as you can think it and type it, you can have it with QS. QS also lets you set up hotkey triggers which let you automate tasks and that’s what you see happening in the video above. If you haven’t yet, go download it now.

How to Set Up the 60 sec Pic Post

1. Download and install the 4 tools.

You’ll have to pay for Transmit ($29.95) and TextExpander ($29.95) to get full functionality. QS and Snipshot are free.

2. Set up Quicksilver.

Go to Preferences (either Control click or right click on the Quicksilver icon in the dock to bring up preferences) and make sure Enable advanced features is checked. I also recommend checking Start at login as well.

Just below the Application pane is the Appearance pane. Click it. I recommend that you make sure Superfluous visual effects, Load Icons for all results and Load previews are checked and that down below Command Interface is set to Bezel. None of this is strictly required, but it makes QS (and by extension, you) look much cooler.

3. Set up a Snipshot.app trigger

To set up Snipshot.app (which just auto uploads a picture to the online photo editor Snipshot) you need to create a trigger in Quicksilver. Here’s how:

Open the preferences for Quicksilver again and click on the Triggers tab.

Under custom triggers click on the plus sign at the bottom of the tab and choose Hotkey. When the Trigger window opens, click in the topmost window to highlight it and type in “Finder selection” (without the quotes). You’ll see Quicksilver start suggesting commands as you type. When you’ve finished and your screen looks like the pic below, press tab.

Using the same process as above, begin writing “Open with” and press tab again when you are finished. In the third window type in “snipshot.” Check to see that your screen looks like the one below and click save.

Finally, click in the hotkey area over to the right of your new trigger and give it a hotkey combination (I chose Shift-Command-M). You’re done!

To test it, highlight an image file on your desktop or in finder, hit your hotkey combo (mine’s Shift-Command-M) and watch the sucker load into your browser for speedy editing. Sweet.

4. Set up Transmit

Transmit is a lot like most other ftp clients. You set up an acount with your ftp server info and password, log on and upload files. What sets Transmit apart (at least to my knowledge) is the ability to create “droplets” that you can use to automate your uploading chores.

After you’ve entered your ftp info into Transmit, click on the More options drop down and click on Save as Droplet.

Clicking More options expands the menu. Now you can click on Save as Droplet, highlighted below.

Tip: Be sure to set your Remote path to your blog’s image folder to help keep things organized. You can see the Remote path text box in the screenshot below.

Transmit will ask you to name your droplet, and it will ask if you want to store your password or prompt you for it. I chose to store my password for speed. Click Save and your new droplet should appear on your desktop. Very cool.

Coolest of all: Transmit automatically uses your site favicon. Good times.

5. Set up your Transmit droplet trigger

Follow the same steps outlined above to create a Transmit droplet trigger, but at the end instead of having the third pane reference Snipshot, type in the name of your droplet. When you’re finished your trigger should look something like the screen below. Press Save, give it a hotkey and you’re done.

To test it out, highlight a file from the desktop or finder, hit your hotkey combo (in my case Shit-Command-N) and watch as your file is automagically uploaded to your web server.

6. Lastly, Set up TextExpander

TextExpander is a very cool utility that runs in the background and waits for you to type some previously defined phrase (called a Snippit). When it sees that phrase typed in, it springs into action and inserts a bunch of other previously defined text in its place. An example is helpful, so here goes.

In the video when I’m entering the html code for the image I’m about to post, instead of typing out “img src=”http://pinotblogger.com” align=”right” border=0 hspace=5″by hand, I just typed “imgg.” TextExpander recognized the phrase and replaced it with the string of text above, saving me a bunch of time and mental anguish. I’m not what you’d call a huge fan of HTML, and I suspect you really aren’t either. What this means for you is that you don’t have to remember to include tags like hspace or even what they actually do. Everything’s already baked in.

I find that TextExpander is best for frequently used HTML drudgework, but I also have a list of typically misspelled words in there as well that get automatically fixed as I type. Like I said, pretty cool.

TextExpander installs a preference pane in Apple’s System Preferences program. System Preferences is installed in the dock by default by Apple, so you should be able to access it there. After it loads, look for the blue T button. Click it and this is the screen you’ll see:

Make sure the Enable TextExpander check box is checked, then click the plus sign at the bottom of the pane to add a new Snippit. Enter the plain text and the abbreviation that you’d like TextExpander to replace it with.

Tip: Use %| as a marker for where you want your cursor to go after TextExpander does its thing. For instance, if you were making a snippit so that you won’t have to type out “The pinot noir by [insert chateau] exhibits notes of fetid squirrel and hints of corpulent ganja” every time you review a declassified Burgundy, you’d just replace [insert chateau] with %| and your cursor will always be automatically inserted in just the right spot.

Click save and you’re done!

Conclusion

That wraps up the 60 second pic post how-to, the first and very likely only technical how-to on pinotblogger. If you have any problems setting it up I wish I could tell you to email me for assistance, but I don’t think I’d be much help. Instead I encourage you to fiddle around a bit and check out the websites of each of the tool producers for technical support.

Keep in mind, if I can get it set up, you should be able to as well. The reward is pretty killer when you do get the system working.

Good luck!

As luck would have it however, a woman named Karen Schroder happened to be reading the Journal that particular Monday and was interested enough to send me an email. Karen is an agent at ICM, one of the larger talent agencies in the US, and wrote to tell me that she was interested in helping me turn our winery adventure into a book – replete with wine country silliness and behind the scenes details – if I were interested. Karen relayed that she represented bestselling authors Amanda Hesser and Candace Bushnell among others, and that she thought the blog had “the perfect mix of a personal story combined with fascinating information about the industry and the process of wine making.”

After thinking about her offer for a reasonably dignified period of time, right around 90 seconds, I of course jumped at the opportunity. Now I suppose I qualify as one of those unpublished authors you sometimes hear spouting off at dinner parties. Yeah, the ones you roll your eyes at. That’s me. Good times.

It’s all very exciting and I’ve been busy collecting interesting characters and stories from my friends and acquaintances. So far I’ve got the family winery start up cautionary tale. I’ve got an arm full of stories about the wine country version of the jet-setting toxic bachelor (no link for that one!). And I’ve got a smattering of pretty interesting inside baseball distributor stories. You know, like where the wholesale rep expenses a bag of weed that he bought for a wine buyer? Stuff like that.

I’m just now getting started but I can honestly say that researching and talking with folks, hearing their stories first hand, is and will surely be the most enjoyable aspect of this project. Obviously I don’t know how the story will end, it could be a tragedy after all, but with this type of opportunity I have to think that the future is pretty bright for Capozzi.

Anyway, I’ll be at Wine 2.0 in San Francisco on Wednesday and if you’re in the neighborhood I’d love to hear some more good stories. Grab a glass of wine and tell me your tale. I’ll be the guy in the pinotblogger shirt (which we should be shipping this week, at long last).

Paul responded by listing three ways to make your online home more porch-like.

How do you turn your site into a porch?
Change content regularly
Put items up exclusively for your club (remember, your club is not just an annuity program, it is really developed to REWARD your top customers)
Contact your customers often to invite them to YOUR PORCH (your winery)

Great advice. It’s no surprise though that the most obvious way to turn your site into a porch, i.e. a quasi-public space where you can engage and converse with the public, isn’t mentioned. Paul has recommended to clients in the past not to start blogs, arguing that the ROI on time invested isn’t great, and that a poor or neglected blog could do more to hurt your image than to help it.

Blogs are Porches

But really, there is no better online analogue to a porch than a blog. Not only does a blog meet Paul’s requirement that your content be regularly updated (assuming that you do post regularly), but it is a place where you can actually have short chats with current and potential customers as well a spin a yarn or two. If you enjoy people, and liking people should pretty much be a prerequisite for working in the wine industry, then interacting with folks via a blog will come naturally. Just like a porch, a blog post is an informal visit where you can share gossip, talk about the weather, ask for feedback, or bounce opinions off your neighbors.

Blogs Can Work

No one really knows yet what a successful blog can mean for a winery. They are just too new. Those who do blog often say that the benefit to them is indirect, and hard to quantify. However, I hardly think that this is a good reason not to have one. PR is nearly as impossible to quantify, and yet we as an industry wouldn’t think of going without our bi-monthly attempts to get our names printed on some dead wood. Charity fundraisers, besides being great for the community, are often seen as ways to “build the brand,� but are supremely hard to justify solely on business grounds. Hospitality and customer service in general are hard to track, and more than anything else ours is a hospitality driven industry.

But there are things we can measure (comments, links, mailing list sign-ups, online orders) and I’m here to say that based on those measurables alone that having a blog, and putting in the effort to make it a good one, is well worth it.

Since I began the Capozzi Winery blog we’ve had over 600 mailing list sign ups, over a hundred links to the blog, and 350 comments (not counting spam). And we don’t even have any wine to sell yet. Think how much better you could do with an established brand and an actual product to sell. Many of our sign ups were driven by a tee-shirt give away. Some close to me have suggested that, well, those are people looking for something free, not potential customers willing to shell out $45 for a bottle of wine.

I think that’s a foolish attitude. As I outlined here, people are more than willing to trade up for what they want regardless of how frugal they may seem when they are shopping for items that they aren’t emotionally attached to. Our free tee-shirts are our first crack at creating a relationship and kindling a passion for our winery, our family and our wines. It is our first chance to make a case to these folks why they should take the time to trade up for our wine and, best of all, these are people that most in the luxury end of the industry are simply ignoring. If we can wow them with superior service and a great product (in this case a free organic cotton tee-shirt with our logo on it), they will be happy customers, perhaps even become brand ambassadors to their friends, and will be much more likely to buy our wines regardless of the price.

If we are going to grow demand for wine, we can’t all keep fishing in the same pond. Your online porch is the best place to cast your line out into the deep waters.

10 Steps to a Happier Mealtime With Kids

16 Ways to Spot a Bad Restaurant

And be sure to check out Top 10 Wine Myths as well.

Tomorrow I’m off to San Francisco to attend WordCamp 06, a conference for WordPress users and developers. WordPress is the blogging platform that I use to write Pinotblogger, and its completely free, which I think is pretty awesome.

Capozzi Winery will be helping to sponsor the conference. We’ve decided that we’d like give a little back to the creator (Matthew Mullenweg) and the community surrounding the software that has helped us to tell the story of Capozzi in an interesting way, to get the word out about our winery, and to have all these great conversations over the past 9 months.

If you’d like to attend, the conference is free and it starts tomorrow at 9:00 AM. Here are the details:

WordCamp is a 1-day conference for WordPress users and developers.

When?
Saturday August 5th, 2006
9 AM – 6 PM, 8:30 PM after-party
Where?
Swedish American Hall, San Francisco CA
Cost?
Free!
Why?
To figure out the next generation of publishing on the web.

Some interesting bloggers will be in attendance. John Furrier, the CEO of Pod Tech and new boss of Robert Scoble, will be there. So will Rakesh Agrawal, one of the founders of Snapstream, as well as folks like Jason Cosper, who runs preshrunk, a blog dedicated to ferreting out the best in tee-shirt fashion available on the web. About 500 other bloggers will be there as well.

It’s an interesting group and I’m looking forward to meeting them. Best of all, because they all blog, I know that, for instance, Niall Kennedy’s photography appeared on a bottle of Costello Vineyard’s ’99 Merlot, and that he wants to make his own wine someday (but doesn’t have the patience).

I love blogs.