This Yahoo! News report about talking wine labels gave me an idea that you could implement today: why not include your own audio description of your wines on your Web site? Who better to describe the subtle (and not so subtle) aspects of your wines than you? It's certainly not hard to do (although it does take a little effort to perfect), as witnessed by all the interest in podcasting. Imagine: someone purchases a bottle of your wine, goes home, cracks open the bottle as they fire up their browser, and listens to your guided tour of their experience on their computer.
In fact, you could burn the same file to CD, and ship it along with a case of your wine.
I don't know if people want talking wine labels in quiet restaurants, but I'll bet they'd be willing to listen to an MP3 recording at home. Just think of the possible PR buzz if you're among the first to do this! Tom, are you listening?
Update: thinking a little more, it occurs to me that Grape Radio and Winecast are already doing wine-related podcasts. What I describe above is somewhat different: explaining a single wine needs to be tightly scripted to be successful. No one wants to listen to dead air while they're engaged with the experience of a wine. You might start with a brief introduction and a discussion of the wine just out of the bottle, then tell the listener to pause the recording, and then restart after the wine has gotten some air. Lots of possibilities to create a memorable experience.
Update 07/07 - if you're interested, Walt Mossberg writes more about creating podcasts in The Wall St. Journal.
Comments