Four Australian Online Wine Communities You Should Get to Know – And Why

With the advent and explosive development of Web 2.0 technologies, many sites are now available online for wine lovers all over the world to acknowledge their passion, and rate, review and share their views on their favourite wines in a fun and educational environment with like-minded people. These are terrific sites for wine consumers as they allow for new wine discoveries, peer reviews, cellar management, a sense of community around wine, and a great opportunity to learn. But what about their importance to your wine business?

Now, all these sites operate in their own unique way, but most online community sites allow wine brands to set up a winery profile page where you can ensure that your brand is accurately represented with the most up-to-date information, often through the process of “claiming” the winery as yours and then being granted access to edit the winery’s information. How can community members find your wines if your information is out of date? Or worse still, your winery is not represented at all. You can also add background information, reviews and tasting notes for your wines. In most cases when wines are reviewed by consumers there is no bottle shot for the wine available. Most communities will allow you to update bottle shots so that your product is presented in the best possible light. Most communities also have some sort of discussion forum. If you’re really dedicated, you can join in discussions about your wines and ensure members questions are quickly and accurately responded to.

There are a number of excellent international online wine communities – a list of some of the most popular can be found on our Wine-List page – but today we’re going to focus on a few Aussie sites that you may not have made yourself familiar with yet. All these sites offer free membership.

qwoff

Perhaps one of the most active sites from a social media perspective, qwoff offers members the opportunity to search for wines and wineries, review and recommend wines, make friends and participate in the community and manage your cellar and wishlist. There is a blog and a forum and plenty of information. Reviewing wines helps members gain ‘qwoff points’ which escalates them through various levels from ‘qwoffer’ to ‘grand master of qwoff’, with each level attributing new privileges and loyalty discounts. Members can also follow the qwoff boys through ‘qwoff TV’ and there is a soon-to-be-released wine library and encyclopedia, ‘winopedia’, where members will be able to gain valuable wine knowledge. And of course, members can buy wines trough the qwoff cellars at discounted rates.

BoozeMonkey

BoozeMonkey promotes itself as an Australian and New Zealand Wine Social Network. And while the rating and reviewing of wine is also strongly encouraged on this site, the feel certainly seems more about the community and the social network, where members can befriend each other, chat and share photos. But there are also winery listings. There is also a blog, a Wine A-Z, some basic wine education and a wine events page. BoozeMonkey also offers advertising for those so inclined. There is no wine for sale through BoozeMonkey.

Project Vino

On Project Vino members can rate and review wines, keep a wine diary, track their cellar and create a wishlist, learn about Australian and New Zealand wines through interactive wine region bios, and once again, become a member of a wine community. Not only can members browse wines, wineries and wine regions, but also wine bars and retailers. There is also a blog and an events listing. Members can also take part in virtual wine tastings. Though the concept again is good, unfortunately this site currently seems to be a little light on information. Perhaps you might want to head over and get some updating happening.

Terroir.me

Terroir.me is a very different concept to the other three sites mentioned above, but certainly worth mentioning as far as ensuring your winery information is up-to-date. This site is more regionally focussed, as the name suggests, and is less online wine community and more interactive wine guidebook and tour planner. Users can log in to create their own wine tour through viewing information which is collated from community input. If you have a cellar door, you will want to ensure that the information on your winery and region is accurate. Terroir.me is a relatively new site, so there are still lots of holes in the information provided.

If you have a favourite online wine community, we’d love to hear about it, your experiences, and how you use it. Drop us a line in the comments section below.

Until next time,

At bunchMEDIA we offer a service to keep your wine brand up-to-date in online wine communities. To find out more visit our Wine-List page.