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April 29, 2008

New Winery Blog: Wyandotte Winery

Owned by Robin and Valerie Coolidge, Wyandotte Winery is located in Columbus, OH.  It has an interesting history, dating back to the construction of the original winery by Amish builders in 1977.

Less than two weeks old, the Wyandotte Winery blog has a great deal less history behind it.  And one never knows how these brand-new winery blogs are going to work out, since many are started "because we oughta."  As Robin wrote,

Well, Valerie recently attended a conference on wine marketing, and during the conference she learned that many of you enjoy reading blogs.

True enough, but a winery should never start a blog without a pretty strong committment to regularly writing interesting stuff.  I think that's one reason that there are so few winery blogs to begin with, many of which are rarely updated.  With all the things that a small winery has to do, blogging gets forgotten, unless the writer has a real passion for writing (and writes interesting stuff).

Still, I wish Robin and Valerie the best, as a good winery blog benefits both the winery and the wine industry in general.

My suggestions for the 63rd addition to The List?  Spend an hour to plan a regular update schedule (at least once a week), and map out ideas for your next 10 posts.  Take some (interesting, well-framed) pictures and build posts around them.  Add a link back to your winery's home page.  Link to your blog from your winery Web site.  Most of all, give people a reason to read your blog (write interesting stuff)!

April 23, 2008

Sorry, Don, but this is *not* a blog.

Update: They fixed it!  The navigation link now reads "Press", which is totally accurate.  Thanks, Don (and Tyson Caly, who made the change the very next day).

Go to www.donandsons.com and click on the navigation link at the top entitled "Blog".

It takes you here.

Sorry, Don, but that is *not* a blog

In fact, it's not even an RSS feed for your press releases, which is a good idea for any winery (neither Bloglines.com or IE 7 detects a feed on that page).  And on top of that, the link marked "Subscribe to DS&S Press Releases" doesn't work (because it uses the not-widely-supported feed: protocol).  Come on, guys!

(Note: the real feed for the DS&S Press Releases page is at http://www.donandsons.com/pressreleases/feed/, which IE 7 and bloglines both accept.)