After a little over 5 months of development, our Second Life Winery is getting pretty close to being finished.

As you can see in the photo above, the entry area (the covered building on the right) and the first three winemaking stages are complete. At each stage you’ll procees grapes that you’ve harvested from the vineyard. The goal will be to manage tannins, acid, alcohol and fruitiness so that you create a balanced wine that will receive a 90-plus point “Farker” score. It should be a fun and a pretty cool way to learn a bit about winemaking.

Stage 4 is the actual cellar and bottling area. You’ll need to work through each area to finish your wine and receive your Farker score. There is still some texturing that needs to be completed on the barrels, tanks and the bottling line, but we’re getting close. Next up will be the virtual tasting room.

For more pics check out SimVineyard.com.

I was reading a post over at Winecast where Tim was lamenting the lack of Wine 2.0 posts. This, then, is my contribution.

For me Wine 2.0 really was just a fun way to put a face to a stream of online text. For instance, I got to look El Jefe of Twisted Oak in the eye and verify that he is indeed quite insane. El Jefe graciously afforded me the opportunity to taste his good stuff, and since I’m not one to turn down a quick *%#&@! I happily partook. Later I was able to shake hands with Jeff from Good Grape and Inertia, met and chatted with Jason of Wine Log, and ran into old acquaintances from high school like Tom Traverso, the Marketing Manager at Wine.com.

Honestly there was nothing really “new” or novel to come out of the Wine 2.0 shin-dig, at least if you’ve been paying close attention to the industry. Now that’s not to say it wasn’t great fun and worthwhile. It was. But instead of a showcase of winery tech, Wine 2.0 was an interesting forum to network and to turn virtual relationships into more substantial “meat-space” ones. (Seeing the Wine Pod in person was pretty cool though. God help you if you want to try and make a white in it though.)

One of the best things to come from the conference was a talk I had with John Plevyak, a principal at Metaversatility, and the guy doing the coding on our Second Life vineyard project. The highest praise I can give is that John is a true wine geek (I’m into him for at least a case of wine already).

My main reason for pushing to get Capozzi into Second Life is to expand brand awareness by giving one of our target demographics a novel experience. I admit I also just wanted to be first, to do something no one else in the wine industry had done before. There are only so many firsts to be had out there and trailblazing a path is something that inspires and energizes me. But finally there’s also the feeling I share with John that 3D environments are the Next Big Thing to hit the internets, and I want to get on board that train early.

John thinks that the future will include an internet of open 3D environments that internet users will surf to much as they do web pages now. Imagine a 3D Myspace where you can check out your friends’ homes, flip through and listen to their music collection, watch video etc. As people get more and more comfortable creating stuff in 3D, and as the tools to do so get easier and easier to use, people will be slapping up virtual 3D spaces just like they do blogs right now.

From my point of view, the potential for turning such an environment into a place to better interact with customers, sell wine and provide an interesting and unique level of service intrigues me. And right now Second Life is the best place to cut my teeth exploring such an environment.

So there we are. If you’re not bored to tears yet and feel like reading some really dense technology prose, go check out The Next Big Thing. It explains how the web as we know it came to be and provides one possible roadmap for where it will eventually head. Interestingly John, who hadn’t read this article when we talked, came to many of the same conclusions. Give it a read and on the way you’ll gain a better understanding of what drives the excitement behind Second Life development – if you can manage to stay awake.

Development on the Capozzi Winery Island in Second Life is starting in earnest now. I just put the finishing touches on a team that I think will be able to bring the vision to life and I’m very excited to get going.

The final piece of the puzzle was to find someone to code all the interesting stuff we want to have happen on the island. I ended up finding a bunch of someones. Stationed in San Antonio, Metaversatility is comprised of Dr. Aaron Delwiche, Dr. John Plevyak, Adri Saarinen, Peter Haik and Matt Daly. So basically I’m awash in talent!

Metaversatility is a complete design agency, but for us they agreed to assist mainly on the scripting aspects of the island. And while their professional and technical acumen were certainly a factor, after exchanging emails with Aaron what sealed the deal for me was the group’s enthusiasm for the project and clear love of wine. Good times.

I mentioned previously that Chip Poutine of Prion Design is our architect. Chip is also a contributor to one of the leading blogs covering all things metaverse, 3pointD. Speaking of which, Mark Wallace, the author of 3pointD, gave us a very nice write up yesterday (Start Up Winemaker Coming to Second Life). If you are at all interested in the 3D internet and the possibilities it presents 3pointD is a must read. So is Second Thoughts, a blog that offers good advice to folks looking to move their business into the virtual space.

Chip also launched our group project blog tonight, simvineyard. On it he and occasionally I will update the progress of the build. We will even have a time lapse video that will show the building process. It should all be pretty cool so I encourage you to have a look.