Two elements seem to be priviledged: 1) blogs seem to be a representation of growing civil society (in contrast to business interests, that also include wine magazines and journalists); 2) blogs are interactive and allow exchange of experiences.

Even producers are paying growing attention to wineblogs and their impact. To make an example, Angelo Gaja (a famous Italian producer from Piedmont) invited 20 bloggers to his winery for a discussion last sunday 18 January. The meeting was a success because of this recognition and because a blogger transmitted a live report of the event through his PC.

P.S. To complement what Ray said above, bloggers appear to be less “parkerized” or “winespectatorised” and reflecting other views on the world of wine.

That’s the one for me. I have enjoyed wine for the most of my time alive, however, I never really read or discussed wine and it’s flavors until now. After working on a mountain vineyard, I have since been writing for a wine blog, and, have entered an informative community of other wine bloggers.

I’m amazed at the amount of information I pick up; the candid opinions on different bottles and the industry as a whole. Without bloggers and blogging I don’t think I ever would have learned as much as I have.

One must also consider quality both in the writing and in the content. Too many blogs are glorified diaries. Some are well executed like the one we are writing our comments to. So it may be that a dozen blogs are followed by a sufficient number of wine enthusiasts (not just other bloggers) to make a difference in buying patterns and other lifestyle decisions (since after all WS is a lifestyle mag–tourism, restaurants, gadgets, recipes, cheeses, etc).

Irrespective of their specific content, blogs as a personal and journalistic form are democratizing wine and helping America become a wine-drinking country. Taken together and separately they are enlarging the entire conversation and, by being able to talk back to the supposed authorities, form a countervailing body of critical power. Power in debate gravitates to those who have the last word. Today, nobody has the last word anymore.

The upside of blogs and readers’ comments in them is the volcanic expression of passionate interest in wine whose dimensions have been perhaps underappreciated except when Wine Spectator has, over the years, published data on it circulation.

The downside is incivility. Far too much ad hominem content appears, and, I think, discourages potential contributors. Who wants to go into electronic print knowing that he might be dry-gulched by a cowardly sniper hiding behind a pseudonym?

Maybe most bloggers don’t taste blind, but neither does the Wine Spectator really. Based on multiple sources, but from the book “The Wine Trials” James Laube has been quoted as saying that “We know the region, the vintage and the grape variety” The knowledge of these facts alone going into a blind tasting will have a great influence on how a wine is judged. Also, being someone in the wine industry with a small winery we know how hard it is to even have WS pay any attention to us. Blogs level the playing field in that many thrive on finding hard to find wines.

Perhaps it’s not how they WILL transform, but how they are already transforming. This discussion, which includes representatives from both blogs and trade magazines being a good example of that.

Some that are seriously interested in wine will read blogs, and those blogs will be influential on them. These people will then influence the media, who will in-turn influence the less serious.

Wine blogs will have a “trickle-down” impact on the industry by influencing what the mainstream wine media discuss. This will trickle-down even further to the mainstream media. This will, eventually, democratize wine criticism and dramatically alter the industry.

Thanks, Ron

Good reading for everyone learning how to play in this new sandbox.

It seems that this relevancy, and that of other types of “social” wine media, would be to enable certain types of winemakers to survive and even prosper. What types of winemakers? Those, I think, that make hand-crafted products that go against the grain established by mass-distributed wines.

The question is, do readers of this blog and others like it, who clearly have a passion for hand-crafted wines, have enough buying power ? Will their passion enable the wines they love to continue to exist in a globalized market dominated by the mass-distributed brands ?