And the #pinotsmackdown title goes to… New Zealand!

Pinot Noir lovers all over the world united last Thursday 18^th August for the second annual #pinotsmackdown. It was country vs country in a flurry of tweets that sought to identify the best Pinot Noir producing region or nation. Pinot Noir lovers used twitter as a medium to taste and tweet about a range of Pinot Noir, many at specific events being hosted to allow consumers and the trade to sample different wines and then used a regional hashtag to vote.

Whilst there’s always a competitive rivalry between Australia and New Zealand, and a win for Australia would have been nice (especially given the recent Rugby Union results), it was exciting to see the New Zealand wine industry, spurred on by @Jayson_Bryant  and @nzwine, get behind a social media event and collaboratively come together to talk about the great Pinot Noir wines being produced from numerous New Zealand wine regions. According to organizer Ed Thralls, the votes were super close with only 23 votes separating New Zealand from Oregon who came in at a close second followed by California and then Australia in fourth place. Full results posted here . Well done to New Zealand wineries!

I discovered and subsequently have sought out and purchased a number of different Pinot Noir wines that I tried on the day with the notable Australian stand outs from my perspective being the Hoddles Creek Pinot Noir 2010  (exceptional value), Heemskerk Tamar Valley Pinot Noir 2010, Tapanappa Foggy Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009 and the Dalrymple Pinot Noir 2010  from Tasmania. Whilst direct sales may not always correlate immediately from these varietals days, it certainly raised awareness of some of the brands and regions producing great Pinot Noir globally.

From the Tweetreach tracker that I set up two days prior to the event, the final numbers taken on 20^th were as follows:

• Reach – 451,404
• Exposure – 9,051,004 impressions
• 5,237 tweets from
• 1,092 different contributors

There’s always debate about what these numbers mean and different reporting systems will show various results. What is important to note is that when a global community comes together, brands who leverage can help to raise awareness and trial of their product.

What you can take out of this – Learnings for future events:

Unlike days like #chardonnay day and #cabernetday – we always expected #pinotsmackdown to have a more specialized audience, but that does not mean it wasn’t worthwhile to get involved. Some learnings for wineries new to these sorts of tweets ups to consider:

• There’s value in participating – Even submitting a sample, it can help to facilitate trial and future purchase of your wine. You never know who will turn up at a tasting to try your product and comment and there’s often cases of new distributions being gained after positive feedback from varietal days like #pinotsmackdown. It’s also a good way to build a two way dialogue to get some feedback on what people think.

• Spread the word to your own followers and get them involved - Don’t just leave it up to the venue to promote different tastings being held, help to build an audience and promote to your audience (or twitter followers) where people can go to get involved. These days are not about a specific brand, but an opportunity to tell a varietal or category story and the success depends on how the wine community comes together.

• Host a Tweet Up at your venue – those venues who got behind the initiative and organized a function, promoting to their own audience well in advance found benefits. If you’re a retailer, bar or winery, why not consider hosting one of these events and getting people along to try a range of different wines.

• Use the opportunity to build a community – following the twitter stream of tweets using the relevant hashtag highlights wineries, influencers and consumers who are highly involved in the topic. It’s an opportunity to find new people to follow and interact with. Start to engage in a dialogue with them and get to know new people

• Prepare in advance – those brands and venues who thought about how they would leverage the opportunity were the ones that got the best results. With so many upcoming events, think about which ones are relevant to participate in and start to think about how you can engage your sales team, distributors, and consumers. This may mean including in your next eNewsletter, organizing special packs to sell to consumers or talking to some of your customers and helping them get involved.

Get ready for the next events:

If you enjoyed the fun of the #pinotsmackdown, there’s more in store over the next few months – get involved in:

• Cabernet Day – 1 September – http://cabernet.eventbrite.com/
• Grenache Day  – 24 September – http://www.grenachesymposium.com/GrenacheNews/
• Rose Revolution Kick Off: 10 November - http://rosewinerevolution.com/

Related Articles

• All the run down from the host Ed Thralls of WineTonite

• Pinot Unearthed Wrap up of what tasted

Tweet Ups: What’s all the Buzz about

There’s lots of discussion of late about ‘Tweet Ups.’ Having been involved in organising a few (Wine Communicators of Australia Taste and Tweet #WCATT, Best’s Tweet Up, #Cabernet Day and the Rosé Revolution) I thought I’d share some thoughts with you on ways to make the most of the opportunity.

I’ve watched with interest the growth of this phenomenon in the United States to the point where it’s no longer a drawcard event.  People are really getting involved – there are so many tweet ups in wine that it’s almost part of the tasting scene.

However, if used appropriately in Australia as part of the marketing mix, tweet ups will still definitely have their place, as long as activities are co-ordinated so they are not happening too frequently. For a brand, I think the tweet up is a great concept to consider for a collective message or to spread the word about great wines, or simply to generate some discussion, There’s also some great sessions like #spitbucket that are held regularly where people can meet up to look at wines of interest and engage in debate. (more…)