Winemakers shun social media grapevine

By Leslie Gevirtz

NEW YORK | Tue Jul 27, 2010 3:15pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When it comes to social media, most winemakers prefer to drink alone.

More than 80 percent of the 532 French winemakers surveyed by online marketing company mysocialwinery.com said they did not blog or use Facebook, Twitter or other websites that allow consumers to comment, recommend, track or question wine producers.

Although Old World winemakers prefer to stay offline, their New World counterparts in the United States, South America, Australia or New Zealand seem to be sensitive to social media's impact.

Five of 11 winemakers at a Moet-Hennessy gathering admitted they used Facebook. They were from Argentina, California, Chile, New Zealand and surprisingly Spain.

"Well, I'm just past 40 and I did spend a great deal of time in Argentina before coming to Numanthia," explained Manuel Louzada, who makes some of Spain's most highly rated reds. Numanthia's website is still a work in progress, but he does have a seldom used Twitter account.

New World winemakers may not tweet much, but they do read wine blogs.

"Wine is a social beverage and with the social media, I want to be part of the conversation rather than being talked about," said Cloudy Bay's Ian Morden, a 41 year-old winemaker who has worked in Australia and New Zealand who read bloggers.

His colleague, Nicolas Audebert, 34, a winemaker for Cheval des Andes, is amazed by how extensive social media is and appalled by how intrusive it can be.

"My whole life is online, even before I was online," Audebert said. "On the blogs they knew, 'Oh Audebert. He is leaving Krug and coming to Argentina' almost before I did."

But Laura Bianchi, who is the third-generation winemaker at her family's Castello di Monsanto, famed for its Chianti Classico, and Andrea Felluga, chief winemaker for his family's Livio Felluga in Lombardy, have no time for social media.

Old and new world winemakers try to avoid Twitter and relegate social media to marketing departments.

California's St. Supery hired Rick Bakas, a sommelier, to not only tweet and use Facebook but also to host virtual wine tastings.

Other California wineries, such as J.Lohr, weave the web, Facebook and Twitter into their marketing, while smaller U.S. wineries see social media as critical to their success.

Napa's Swanson Vineyards has a set schedule of daily Twittering, and weekly posts to Facebook and YouTube. But getting the winemaker to participate is tough.

"Very few winemakers are actively/personally engaged in social media," said Swanson's marketing manager Chris Cutler.

"They like to focus on wine making," he added.

(Reporting by Leslie Gevirtz; editing by Patricia Reaney)
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Comments (2)
keemunis wrote:
It is a good question. To make or to produce wine is a whole year work, hard work. Have I time for that to use an social network, to look at Internet, talking with other people? I dont know. But time is changing or has been changed. The old things are going over. Although, wine is the oldest cultural drink in the world, excluding water, it still survives all changes, storms and some surprises that come into our lives. On the other hand, I think that a social one means human one, some contact, still they are people behind it, nothing more, so and people makes wine, therefore. I can hate this new things, but question is: Why do the winemakers use the new technologies to produce wine and our grand- or grandgrandfathers were sufficient with simple wood barrels and the wine, which has come out of them was or it is incredible? I dont know. Thats a life in its whole and nice reality. Reality, in which we are living.

Jul 27, 2010 12:11pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
LesleyRussell wrote:
From my perspective at St. Supery in Napa Valley: We are trying to weave the use of social media channels into the fabric of our entire winery so that we allow people who interact with us there an accurate and comprehensive brand experience, as much as possible without the face-to-face interaction. For us, social media leads to more personal interactions, including IRL (in real life) face-to-face. Our winemaker makes time to participate online when we believe it will be a prudent use of his time, and also when our efforts online draw people to an occasion to have a more personal (perhaps IRL) experience with him. The winemaker is generally the winery personality people most want to meet, so we try to offer access when his time allows. Not that much different than a winemaker spending time doing a dinner or market visit – how can we make the most of it?

Aug 04, 2010 6:28pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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