Bricks of Wine

Last month, I went home for the weekend to visit my wife. Because this trip was planned for a while, Bob Moore, from my wine tasting club, arranged a special dinner at Lark in Seattle. Bob initially was supplying the wines, but as the guest list grew, others in the group added some bottles of their own. With the exception of the Dönnhoff Riesling, all the wines that evening were French.

But what is great French wine without great food paired with it?

Lark is located on Capitol Hill in Seattle. John Sundstrom, chef and co-owner, made a name for himself working with Tom Douglas at Dahlia Lounge and later at Earth & Ocean. Given the list of wines we would have that evening, he created a magical meal that I won’t soon forget.

The most memorable course that evening was also the first course. This was Dungeness crab with celery leaf and green apple soubise, along with Meyer lemon crackers, paired with a 2005 Domaine Long-Depaquit Chablis Grand Cru Moutonne generously provided by Bill Owen (of O•S Winery) who was also in attendance. The combination of flavors of the tart apples, vegetal celery and succulent crab was a nearly perfect pairing with the exotic tropical fruit aromas and elegant flavors of crisp pear, ripe citrus and ocean-influenced minerals. This chardonnay was rich, ripe and powerful while still retaining its balance and Chablis character. There was none of the over-oaked, buttery malolactic that I typically find in California chardonnays. It was, in a word, perfect.

I won’t go into details about all the food and wine. If you’re interested in what other epicurean delights we were treated to that evening, click on the photo above to see the Flickr photo set of our dinner. The food and wine that followed was equally magnificent, but my taste memory still lingered on this first course, one of the best pairings I’ve ever experienced.

Bottle photo courtesy of Laithwaites Wine

Like a cluster of grapes in a press, wineries are feeling the pressure to use social media to market their wines, and if they’re a small winery, they’re at the point of bursting. Small wineries in particular have limited time and resources, and putting a significant amount of either into a social media initiative usually means taking that away from more traditional marketing and PR. If your traditional marketing plans are working fine for you, should you re-allocate time and resources to something you’re unfamiliar with and without a proven track record? A fair question would be: Do you have what it takes to develop a wine social media strategy?

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Do you ever get writer’s block? I know I often do, but I can’t imagine how difficult it would be if I didn’t have a knack for writing. Such is the case for many small wineries where the same person doing the winemaking is sometimes the blog writer as well.

I’ve been asked, “How do you decide what you’re going to write about?” To be honest, I usually don’t know until something strikes a chord and I think to myself, “Mmm, that might make an interesting blog post.” Take this post for example. I was in a marketing meeting today and we came up with a bunch of great ideas for future blog posts. It’s great that I can get all sorts of fantastic topics out of these brainstorming sessions, but what ends up happening is that I usually have more topics than I have time to write or make videos about them.

So I started thinking that these topics shouldn’t go to waste. Why not let someone else write them? I’ve been wanting to do more posts that will help some of my friends in the wine community and I’m sure they would enjoy sharing their thoughts on some of these topics.  However, I’m trying to think of topics accessible to wineries in particular, because sometimes just trying to overcome writer’s block, especially if you’re not a writer, can be the most frustrating and time-consuming part of maintaining your winery’s blog. So here are a few ideas that you might consider:

17 Interesting Blog & Video Topics for YOUR Winery

1. The day we came up with our winery name (who, where and how)
2. How we came up with our label design
3. Our volunteers are some of our greatest assets
4. How we selected a cooper for our barrels (best if you’re not using French oak)
5. The wine that never/almost never made it to bottle
6. We can laugh now, but I was horrified at the time…
7. It all started in our [garage, basement, bathroom, etc.] (talk about humble beginnings)
8. The wine we want to make someday (and why you haven’t made it yet)

While the previous ideas are very general and can be used by almost any winery, the following ideas are a little more specific to your winery, your location and what you’re producing.

9. Why [your AVA] is the best for growing [wine varietal]
10. What makes the terroir of our [name of vineyard] vineyard so special
11. The perfect food pairing for [wine varietal] and why our [your wine] is the best
12. Meet our winemaker. He’s also a [fireman, police officer, etc.] (Consider the cool factor—musician, athlete: cool; banker, attorney: not so cool)
13. The challenges of growing [unusual varietal] here in [your location] (and why that’s good)
14. Our favorite recipe using our [wine]
15. The art of blending our [red wine blend] with [winemaker]
16. 10 things to do in [your town] besides visit our tasting room
17. [notable person, key event] was the inspiration for [winery, wine, vineyard location, etc.]

Those are a few I can share off the top of my head. You can use these as I’ve presented them here or they may trigger some ideas of your own. Feel free to make catchier titles and if you end up using one of these ideas and come up with a great story, feel free to mention this article.

Do you have any winery topics that you think might be blog-worthy? Do share.