The Wine Evangelist

For those of you who don’t already know, I love Pinot Noir!

In my lifetime…

• *I’ve sold Pinot Noir for many top wineries
• Founded Sonoma Coast Vineyards with my husband, John, and winemaker/partner, Anthony Austin. (We sold the winery 18 months ago.)
• *I write about it
• *Talk about it
• *Tweet about it
• *Teach classes about it
• *Convert everyone I can to Pinot
• *Drink it
• *Dream about it
• *And spend an inordinate amount of time developing recipes to pair with all styles of Pinot Noir.

Pinot Noir, is my “drug” of choice.  So…I am very happy right now. 

The 8th Annual Pinot Noir Shootout has begun in earnest.

Fabulous Pinot Noirs from the world over are arriving at my door daily.

My UPS man, Tom, staggers up the stairs and delivers these boxes that hold untold treasures.

The Pinot Noir Shootout has a single varietal focus. Each of the wines is more intensely judged than in standard, broadband competitions. Great Pinot Noir producers don’t miss this opportunity.

Most competitions go straight to medals, our Pinot Noir Shootout provides concerted, then condensed reviews, providing the most thorough, quotable, consumer friendly, and accessible results in the industry from a diverse panel of experts. Male and female reviews for each wine will be posted on the Affairs of the Vine website.

Wine writers, publicists, sales and marketing professionals, and the discerning public love the access to our reviews. There are over 12,000 references to The Pinot Noir Shootout on Google, 34,000+ on Yahoo, and 9500+ on Bing.

Distinguishing points of the Pinot Noir Shootout:

* Our judging panel is comprised of a diverse assemblage of over fifty Pinot Noir loving wine professionals: media heavy including some great wine bloggers, restaurant, retail, and winery experts.
* More judges per entry than broad-based, broadband wine competitions.
* Each judge takes copious notes on each entry and takes his detailed notes and wine information with him.
* Results and reviews that our gender based. Male and female scores and comments are detailed separately. http://www.affairsofthevine.com/7th-pinot-noir-summit-results.php
* The final judging by our professional panel will be held at Boudin Bakery in San Francisco in mid-January.
* Encapsulated results entice and accommodate the wine and food media.

* Educational and engaging, consumer-oriented, follow-up tasting, seminars and gala for the top 40 wines on February 27, 2010 at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center in San Rafael, California.
* The attendees to the Pinot Noir Summit on February 27th are involved in the process of judging the wines from their perspective:
 a most memorable and influential experience.

As in most competitions, wineries submit their wines to be judged and pay a fee to the competition entity. If you produce, market, import, or sell Pinot Noir and want to know how your Pinot measures up, there is no better way to find out.

As Chief Wine Evangelist at Affairs of the Vine, my mission is to convert people to wine. In that quest, I invite other wine lovers to share their passion about wine and life lessons they learn along the way.

I am delighted to introduce you to our newest Wine Evangelist, Rebecca Michaels.

Rebecca Haugh Michaels is a voice actress currently residing between Rome, Italy and San Francisco, California. Her roots also include Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Hollywood, California. Rebecca has credits in acting as well as voice over, video production, advertising, sales & marketing. She has also enjoyed learning the nuances of all types of wines for many years, has wine tasting listed as one of her acting ’special skills’, and looks forward to a thorough exploration of Italian wineries. Now an independent contractor, she uses her voice and her pen for projects all around the world! She is excited to write about wine, one of her favorite subjects, for Affairs of the Vine.

Learn more about Rebecca at www.LoveThatRebecca.com and follow her on Twitter http://twitter.com/RebeccaMichaels

Three Wine Evangelists, three different palates, three unique perspectives on three continents. Stay tuned for Rebecca’s first blog posting.

Tweet the Magic Word and Win a FREE ticket to the Pinot Noir Summit

Wine Evangelist is launching a new game on Twitter. It’s easy and fun. This new game is called TWICKETS — and it could be your ticket to a FREE ticket to the Pinot Noir Summit on April 5th in San Rafael, California.  

All you have to do is play Twickets – the right tweet & you might WIN.

Here are the rules:

• Peeps send tweets to @wineevangelist discussing whatever is on their minds.  Be casual. Be conversational. Just tweet it!
• IF the tweet contains one of the MAGIC WORDS on the Wine Evangelist’s list, you WIN a FREE TICKET to the Passionate About Pinot Noir Event.  

Here’s an example:  @WineChick   The mountains are pink.  It’s time to drink. But what should I open? Pinot Noir?

@WineChick wins a FREE TICKET to the Pinot Noir Summit because she tweeted the Magic Word  mountains.  Ha, you thought it was Pinot Noir, didn’t you?  Magic Words are not always wine-related. 

Hope to see you at the Summit!

http://twitter.com/wineevangelist

The world is moving unbelievably fast.  This is due in no small measure to the amazing amount of information that we receive at a frenetic pace constantly.  I am not a 20-something.  Suffice it to say that I was not a child of the 70s or 80s.  I was not raised with a computer in my hand.  Text messaging is not second nature to me.  I communicate very well in written form but still prefer oral discourse - I am best in person or on the phone. 

Knowing all of that and recognizing that the method of communicating with customers and getting the word out about events changed drastically last year, I signed up for some very expensive marketing classes.  The instructors directed me to new ways of communicating to reach clients, potential clients, people with similar interests, and keep up with friends.  The key I have been told, among other things, is social media networking.  Huh? 

I listened intently, took copious notes and when my migraine subsided, decided I would jump in with both feet.  I am determined to learn and use SMN.  I am finding that if you’re going to get seriously involved, it takes a lot of time and focus.  A LOT of time!

I started with Linked In where I have joined and am active in 20 different discussion groups, have a  growing group of connections (over 1600) from the world over, and have had seven people recommend me.  Now I have to find out how all of this pays dividends.  Check out my LI profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/barbaradrady

I also have a Facebook page but it’s not very well developed.  I need to add pictures, more comments, do updates more often, invite more friends to join me and ask people to become fans.  I’m thinking of giving up several hours of sleep a night for a month or so to get my face recognized on Facebook.  Please be my friend…

On to Twitter.  45 days ago I had no idea what Twitter was and now I’m tweeting.  (I feel a little like tweeting, “I thought I saw a puddy tat.”)

I thought I was doing quite well.  I started my twitter account just about a week ago and have 56 people following me (for those of the uninitiated this may sound a bit creepy).  Last night, I decided to join my first ever on Twitter Taste Live last night.  The concept is for people across the country to taste together.  We were to taste and twitter about our impression of the selected wine.  I was really excited. 

My set-up was quite intense.  I got the wine I thought we were tasting and the correct glassware, I got my husband to finish up his beloved outdoor work so we could have this experience together, I set up the video camera so I could share the experience with all of you,  I had to get my very temperamental older laptop to cooperate so we could read other’s comments and tweet our responses, and find some food to go along with the tasting.  OK, I was finally ready to go! www.twittertastelive.com

First my computer was really slow to get started.  (This is all documented on video.)  Then I discovered that we were actually to taste three different Pinots with the discussion led by wine writer, Jordan McKay.  I only had one of the three but I was very familiar with the other two and could share my impressions even if they weren’t right in front of me.  OK, let’s go.  I started following the discussion on TTL.  I kept typing in my impressions.  My comments did not appear.  I had opinions and no one could see them!  Bummer!  I found out too late that I had to have my twitter account settings on public view.  Oh my!  I need to chill out and start feeling groovy is I don’t want that migraine to come back.   Tweet me at http://twitter.com/wineevangelist

Tasting like this was a bit of a bear but I’m looking forward to doing it again soon.

Look for the video post of this experience soon.