Tweet Tweet ~ It’s all About the Wine Buzz

I’m sitting here writing this post in the midst of the Big Landmark Semillon Tweetup hosted by the boys at Qwoff with the great Hunter Valley Semillon maker Andrew “Thommo” Thomas keeping us up to date on all things Semillon. Although the focus of this post is all about tweetups and social media, I just have to mention that Hunter Semillon is undoubtedly one of my very favourite drinks. There’s not much that beats it – young or old. A super drop. And as Thommo said tonight, the Hunter really is the spiritual home for Semillon and there’s no equal anywhere else in the world. In my opinion. And it seems there are a lot of people out there who agree with me wholeheartedly.

Anyway, Hunter Semillon aside, what I really wanted to talk about is the social media phenomenon and how it relates to wine. Tonight is my first experience with a tweetup – we’re only half way through, and for all those social media skeptics, I would guess that more Semillon was sold around Australia (and the world) tonight than has been sold in many years (collectively). You couldn’t have asked for a better pump up. So what’s a tweetup? Well, a tweetup is the Twitter version of a meetup, where people of like mind get together either in the flesh or through their computers and tweet about the wines they’re tasting. Where’s the fun in that, you might ask? Well, it’s a sort of virtual tasting going on while having a chat and a tweet and a good old slurp of wine, in this case, all about Semillon. Tonight’s tweetup was synchronised with a live video stream of the Qwoffboys tasting through a range of Sems with Thommo. There were live tweetup parties all over the country as well as many people just sitting at home – or on buses or trains or in restaurants or shops – on computers and mobiles – sipping on Semillons and singing their praises. Three quarters of the way through and we’ve just heard that the official hashtag #LAT10, which has been used to track related tweets, is the top trending topic on Twitter right now and Semillon is ranking second. If that makes no sense to you, don’t worry. All it really means is that there has been A LOT of noise about Semillon over the Twitter airwaves tonight!

What we need to remember is that wine is a social drink. And the word is that tweeting and blogging about wine is actually encouraging more wine enjoyment through more online conversation, and it’s taking the wine experience to a whole new level. There are nearly 10,000 wine related tweets every day and about 1500 wine blogs out there, with more and more coming on board all the time. Hundreds of wineries now have both official and unofficial pages on Facebook, and there are now almost 500 mobile phone apps available related to wine. Not only are winemakers themselves creating wine buzz but so too are reviewers, fans and wine buffs the world over. And in many cases it has been seen that people are preferring to discover and learn about wine from people they consider to be friends (including in the online sense) than to hear about wine from so-called experts. Interesting. Significant.

So if you’re keen to try out your first wine tweetup, you’re in luck, especially if you love Grenache. There’s an International Grenache Day Barossa Tweet tasting happening near you (or at least on your computer) this Saturday September 25th. Find out more here and remember to use the hashtag #Grenache in all your related tweets. Crack open a bottle of Grenache and I’ll see you there!