W! B! C! TTL!

What is with all of these letters? WBC? TTL? How is a wineaux to decipher such things!

First things first, let’s talk about TTL. Twitter Taste Live is a live event, where the Twittersphere tastes & types about the same wines, and the same time. it is about connection the bloggersphere around the world, and conducting a giant social experiment about what drives trends in wine, and encouraging us to gain knowledge about consumer tastes.

During the event, we will be guided through 4-6 different wines, and post our Tweets, with the tag #ttl. This will enable our hosts, Twitter Taste Live, to log these directed Tweets on the TTL home page, so we can all follow along. If you haven’t yet registered for Twitter, I would encourage you to do so. There is a large community of wine lovers, bloggers, and professionals who are actively using Twitter as a mass communication tool and you can learn a great deal in new social media.

This month, we will be walking through the wines of Jed Steele. Jed Steele was the founding winemaker, general manager, and VP of Production at Kendall Jackson at its inception, and now makes his own wines out of his facility in Lake County.

For this adventure, we will be tasting:

• 2006 Shooting Star Aligote (WA)
• 2006 Steele Pinot Blanc
• 2006 Steele Chardonnay
• 2006 Shooting Star Blue Franc (WA)
• 2006 Steele Pinot Noir (Carneros)
• 2006 Steele Zinfandel (Pacini Ranch)

For your best source to find these wines, please contact Bin Ends Wine, who is offering this tasting pack for the ridiculously low price of $90. But you better hurry! Time is running out to get your tasting pack before next Thursday. The tasting is on Thursday, October 23rd, at 4pm PT. Yes, I realize this is early for us Left Coasters, but upcoming tastings will be on weekends to accommodate the global nature of this event.

The Twitter Taste Live event is held every month, so please go to Twitter Taste Live and click on the Upcoming Tab for information on the next theme. If you have ideas, please post them! We have the 89 Project tasting, a Blogger’s Pick tasting, suggestion for Walla Walla tastings, and more! This is where the bloggers take over, so please, let’s hear your voice.

The other exciting bit of news is that one week from today, the FIRST EVER Wine Blogger Conference kicks off at the Flamingo Resort & Conference Center in Santa Rosa.

I cannot tell you how excited i am to have the opportunity to meet 159+ other wine bloggers & professionals in this arena. While I have met several of you in person through my wine travels, there are so many that I know virtually and have not yet have the opportunity to meet in real life.

A huge shout out to Joel Vincent and the Open Wine Consortium Team for putting together this amazing event.

Furthermore, this conference will give us all the opportunity to not only taste some amazing wines, but also to have some discussions about where the wine industry is headed in the 21st century, with the advent of Wine 2.0, Web 2.0 and beyond technology, as well as the saavy wine drinker.

Some of the highlights of this event include:

• Tour of Kick Ranch, one of the most exciting growers in Sonoma County
• Live Blogging sessions
• Keynotes with Gary Vaynerchuck & Alice Feiring, two controversial figures in the wine world today
• Breakout sessions on topics such as:
• Increasing Visitors to Your Blog
• Beyond Blogging – New Technologies and Social Media
• Wine Blogger Credibility
• Making Money from Your Blog
• Blogging for Your Wine Business
• Wine Industry & Blogger Interaction

Although this year’s conference is sold out, even over sold, this promises to be the first of many in North America.

I look forward to seeing you there!