I think it's significant that some of the wine world's most important movers and shakers sat through a presentation that argued Blogs are a phenomena that need to be heeded.
That was exactly the message delivered by Marc Engal at the Wine Evolution conference in Paris this week. Wine Evolution looks at the industry from a global perspective. It attracts high level participants from around the wine world and attracts speakers who specialize in looking at the wine world from a global perspective.
Marc Engel is a Project Director at BRS research group here in California that provides high level
analysis of trends. Marc's specialty is wine. At Wine Evolution he sat on a panel that explored the question: "How to Improve your Sales & Marketing strategy in the World's biggest market? Others on the panel included Patrick Merrill of Merrill Research, USA, Laurent Guinand of GiraMondo Wine Ventures, and Vic Motto of Global Wine Partners LLC, USA
Although I was not there, I'm also told that at a recent Unified Symposium seminar blogging was also a main topic of conversation.
The report on Engel's presentation concerning wine bloggers at Wine Evolution relates that Engel understands the growing importance of this medium: "US
market researcher Marc Engel of B/R/S said wine bloggers were important
for producers. ‘Pay attention to bloggers, accept you don’t have total
control, participate in consumer discussion and, finally, be
authentic,’ he implored."
Seeding the minds of these folks at a conference like Wine Evolution
is the kind of thing that helps turns a peripheral "thing" like wine
blogging into an important "movement." People talk. They talk about what
they heard an authority say at a conference. The media hears the
message from an authority. This in turn gives them more reason to
report on the phenomena. More people read about wine blogging. More
attention is focused on wine blogging. The phenomenon grows.
There's something happening out there with respect to the impact of wine blogging.
