Get Twitterpated about wine
Oprah is doing it. Lance Armstrong is doing it, and so are Ashton and Demi. Come on! You know you want to do it. All of the cool kids are. They’re all twittering!
It’s been talked about on CNN and on the front of Time magazine and if you’re into oenophilia, you can find more than your share of related twitter.
So what is Twitter? Twitter.com is a free online social network for friends and family to keep in touch through an exchange of quick messages and links from their computers and cell phones. And when I say, “quick,” I mean you have only 140 characters (including spaces) to get your message across. The convenient and safe feature about Twitter is you get to choose whom you follow and who can follow you.
Twitter can mean many things to many people. It can be a powerful marketing tool when it comes to building community, and the wine community especially has made a large impact all over the world. Wineries, wine store promotions, wine and food pairings, wine events and links to recipes are all being twittered by the little bluebird of happiness — and twits.
Want more from your tweets and Twitter? There are Twitter accessories available. Want to send a photo of the winery you are visiting or of the glass of wine you are sipping to your Twitter followers? There is Twitpic.com for that. Find out what the local “twine-o’s” are twittering about at localtweeps.com. Share a glass of wine over Twitter with other “twine” lovers through Tastelive.com. TasteLive is a community that sets up wine tasting events online via — you got it —Twitter! Grab your laptop, a glass and twitter your tasting notes with other wine lovers. Special interest groups, such as Twitter Mommies, also have their own online Twitter wine tastings. Twitter even assisted the South Australian Government in selling Australian wine to British wine consumers.
Fifty British wine drinkers were invited to taste 100 Australian wines. They were asked to pare the wines down to a list of 20 and to comment about the wines through Twitter and wine blogs, as well list how much they would pay for the wines. This maneuver assisted small Australian producers into a large foreign market and allowed them to negotiate prices directly with consumers.
Back home you can “twitter twitter” Walla Walla for information on wine touring and wine events.
The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin’s new wine and dine Web site, wineanddinewallawalla.com, is all about Twitter (@Winedineww). The Web site even features a list of the Walla Walla food and wine topics locals and tourists are tweeting about. For other online wine news from the Walla Walla Valley, tweet up Walla Walla Wine News (@ wwwinenews).
Check out other Walla Walla wine sources from Basel Cellars (@Basel_Cellars), Le Chateau Winery (@LeChateauWinery), Saviah Cellars (@saviah), Va Piano Vineyards (@vapianoestate) and, me, Walla Walla Wine Woman (@Walla2WineWoman) to name a few. Don’t forget to follow other Walla Walla businesses that are twittering, such as Cheese Louise (@cheezlouise), Brasserie Four (@ brasseriefour), Heidi’s Grind (@Dragon99362) and Girasol Vineyard and Inn (@Wwgirasol).
Twitter around the world and keep up with the most current updates about all the wine news that is fit to tweet from Wine Twits (@WineTwits) and Wine Tweets (@winetweets).
These days it is so out of fashion for the drunk and lonely-hearted to “drink and dial,” slurring incoherent things on the phone to former romantic interests while under the influence of alcohol. The new trend for the alcohol influenced is to “drink and twitter.” And when your former paramour has had enough of your incoherent twits, you will find yourself with a cease and desist from Twitter Qwitter.
