The Winery Web Site Report

New Winery Blog: Three Rivers Winery

Three Rivers Winery, of Walla Walla, WA has a new blog.

So, far only one post (in August).  Come on, guys!

(Hint: Crush is *not* a good time to start your winery blog.)

One piece of advice I always give to new winery bloggers is to post at least once a week.  And if you're going to anounce your blog (which, to be fair, they haven't -- no reference to it on their main site), build up 5 - 10 posts beforehand so people have something to read.

If you can't post once a week at the beginning, when enthusiasm is high, chances are you're not going to make it for the long haul.  And there's little worse than a dead winery blog.

Three Rivers becomes the 59th winery blog on our list of winery blogs.  I'm looking forward to more from Holly, Duane, and the rest of the Three Rivers crew.

PS - in case you're wondering how I come across new winery blogs, I have an automated search at Technorati for the phase winery blog.

Conde-Nast on Urban Wineries

From Jared Brandt over at the A Donkey and Goat winery blog comes a pointer to several Conde-Nast articles on urban wineries:

• Wine and the City, in which Jared's wife Tracey drives a forklift (why do magazines find this so remarkable?),
• Urban Wineries Across America, from New York to Los Angeles, and
• Wineries Around the Bay, focusing on the San Francisco urban-winery phenomenon.

Since not everyone reads every blog, I thought I'd pass these interesting articles along.  Thanks, Jared!

Winery Blog = Sales Pitch?

From Tom Wark's interview of Tyler "Dr. Vino" Colman over at Fermentation comes this provocative quote

Winery blogs are a bit of a different animal since they are fundamentally sales pitches. Josh at Pinotblogger has done a great job of informing readers about the winery life without sounding like propaganda, in part because he doesn't have anything to sell yet since he's telling the story about starting a winery, something all wine consumers fantasize about at one point or another.

Hey, winery bloggers! Is it a sales pitch to talk about your winery (at least if you have wine to sell)?  Are you propagandists?  I think Dr. Vino is being a bit harsh on some great writers!