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15 Years of Blogging
Wine, food, and life.
This story started 15 years ago when…
Nah…
Well, wait. This is actually true. This blog should’ve started at least 17 years ago, as some of my friends suggested. Then, of course, there was a fear of the unknown, “should I or should I not” inner voice fighting, and slow warming up to “I guess I can at least try… what is the worst thing that can happen?”. In March of 2010, I finally told the world that the new wine blog was coming (here is the link to the very first post on this blog). Four months later, in July of 2010, this blog finally took off.
I love numbers, so for this post, I wanted to share some Talk-a-Vino 15 years stats:
- 1,553 – number of published posts (it averages to 100+ a year, even though earlier years saw a lot more posts than the late ones)
- 1,556,337 words written (only in posts, not including comments; this was a fun project of figuring it out)
- 10,202 comments posted (that includes my replies as well)
- Pinot Noir is the most talked about grape with 79 posts, followed by Cabernet Sauvignon (70) and Chardonnay (55).
- Wine Quiz is still the most popular category with 257 posts, even though I have not been running the series for many years now.
- 640,293 spam comments protected against by Akismet according to the WordPress.com dashboard – this one is the most impressive number 🙂
When I started writing this blog, I was pondering the question – who do I write this blog for? After spending some time researching what others think, I came to a simple conclusion – I will be writing this blog for myself. I will be the one who has to like the posts first and foremost – of course, it would be wonderful to find some soulmates, people who would enjoy reading what I wrote, but I wouldn’t do anything special to find them, “just be myself,” as they like to say.
As an engineer at the core, I wanted my posts to be organized, so I came up with a concept of “series”. I was also very ambitious – for example, one of the series was called Daily Glass – as I drink wine daily, this series was supposed to talk about those daily wines. To date, I have 84 posts in that category – not exactly a daily activity. However, I still find the concept of the series helpful, at least personally, as it delivers the big picture. Usually, the names of the series are self-explanatory, as with the Daily Glass, so I don’t need to explain what “Restaurant Files”, “One on One with Winemaker”, “American Pleasures” (well, this one is actually about great American wines), or “Travel Diaries” actually mean.
Wine, food, and life.
This blog became a place where I store wine, food, and life experiences. There are notes for thousands of wines. There are restaurant experiences and recipes. You can find my travel diaries, whether visiting Japan, Israel, Paris, or my own neighbourhood, all illustrated with countless pictures. Tasting rare grapes is another passion, spurred by being bitten by the Wine Century Club bug – the rare grape experiences are collected throughout these pages, as I continue that Wine Century Club journey. Then there are even more experiences I love to collect, such as tasting wines from as many US states and as many countries as possible.
When I started blogging, the plan was to share my opinion and my opinion alone. When at the first Wine Bloggers Conference I attended, I heard seasoned wine writers saying “interview, interview, interview”, this was completely lost on me. What interviews? Why should I ask someone questions and then try to repeat the conversation in the format of a blog post? Little by little, conversation after conversation, the “aha” moment happened, and you can now find 40 or so conversations with the winemakers and wine people, the interviews. Among those, there is a series called Stories of Passion and Pinot, dedicated to the people who made the finicky grape their passion, most of them coming from Oregon.
And I also have to mention two of my perennial favorites. In my 15 years of blogging, I haven’t missed a single year with my Wine News and Updates, always published on April 1st, always filled with the most sensational happenings in the world of wine (if you have some time, check them out!). Another favorite is the list of the Top Wines of the Year, also published every year from 2010 through 2024. Originally envisioned as being only Top 10, then Top 12 (a dozen), the Top Lists usually reach at least 24 wines, but hey, this is my blog, my rules, and I can break my own rules.
I’m definitely enjoying my journey of 15 years, and I can only hope that I was able to share the joy with you on some occasions. Let’s raise our glasses to Wine, Food, and Life. Cheers!
FeedSpot 100 Best Wine Blogs of 2025
When I started this blog about 15 years ago (you will hear about it more this year) after extensive nudging from friends, I did some “soul searching” as a novice blogger. When you write something “in the open” you want someone to read it, right? Along these lines, one of the important soul-searching questions was: “Who am I writing for” – again, every writer is looking for readers, so what can or should I do to attract them? The best answer I found was ” you don’t write for anyone, you only write for yourself” – and ever since this was exactly what I have done.
While I’m writing for myself, I obviously appreciate any form of acknowledgment – it is nice to know that somewhere out there there is at least someone who might read a word or two from this blog. So when I got an email from FeedSpot informing me that the Talk-a-Vino blog was featured as one of the Top 100 Wine Blogs of 2025, this was a happy and humbling moment, this exact acknowledgment.
It is an honor to be featured in the list which includes Wine Spectator, James Suckling, and Decanter blogs. And of course, it is great to be in the wonderful company of wine bloggers I’ve known for many years – 1 Wine Dude, the drunken cyclist, Dallas Wine Chick, Food Wine Click just to name a few.
There was also an unexpected benefit of this recognition :). When I went to add the FeedSpot badge to the sidebar of my blog page I discovered that at some point I missed a change in the theme I’m using on WordPress, and my blog roll disappeared along with a few other lists I always considered important. I had to spend a bit of time restoring the blog to the way I always liked it to be, but now you can again see the list of blogs I’m following, along with the list of my favorite places to buy wine and some wine travel website recommendations.
And with that, let me get back to the gazillion of the posts I need to finish – onward and upward.
2023 Uncovered
“Uncovered” is an interesting word. On one side, it means that something is simply not covered, like a grill left uncovered for the night. Uncovered also means that a discovery will be made, a secret will be revealed, something will “lose its cover”.
I intend to talk about both meanings.
Let’s talk about revealing.
I have a secret closet – compartment, shelf, what have you. I don’t like it. It bothers me. I always remember it exists, and it is daunting and depressing. This closet contains posts that should’ve been written and never were. I’m not talking about just some interesting post ideas which never materialized. I’m talking about winemaker dinners, exciting, insightful, delicious – but not written about. Happening 5 years ago – and still hurtful to think about. Wine tastings – too many to remember. Some are reasonably recent, such as the 2020 Bordeaux Cru Bourgeois tasting (by the way, if you like Bordeaux, 2020 is the vintage to get by the caseload) – and some going back to much earlier. And even samples – I have some samples I didn’t get to in ages… I’m telling you, this closet is not a happy place…
Sad closet aside, let’s talk about some of the things that were not covered in 2023.
Wines
Many wonderful wine experiences of 2023 were never discussed in this blog. I don’t have any notes, so I can’t recover from it – but I can still share some memories – with the help of photographs, of course. Let’s take a quick trip back to 2023.
I had a good reason to open these two 21 years old (young?) Rioja wines from Lopez de Heredia. Just look at the state of these corks… and the color of this red wine. Both were superb, but I will not tell you anything more than that.
Then there were a couple of trips to Cape Cod, where we always drink well. In this set, there were good and bad memories at once. 2013 Torrione Petrolo was quite underwhelming, and 2001 Turley Petite Sirah was surprisingly not great – as I said, I don’t have any detailed notes, only remember my disappointment with these two wines. 2007 Leviathan was superb, though, and it made it into the top 23 of the 2023 list.
The sunset through the glass was unbeatable:
Next, I tasted a delicious Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley:
This 2016 Hendricks Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Napa Valley was perfectly on point in its Cabernet sauvignon expression, with just enough of everything (cassis, eucalyptus, tannins, acidity).
Another trip to the Cape:
Both 2020 and 2021 Campochiarenti Chianti Colli Senesi were outstanding, one better than the other – this is why they were included in the top list. San Nicolas is always perfect. 2013 Campochiarenti Passione Divina Vini Storiche was excellent, but so was 2013 Stolpman Sangiovese, and literally surprising myself, I preferred Stolpman Sangiovese over the classic Italian version (#5 on the Top 23 of 23). 2016 The Family Barrel Shiraz from Barossa was also very tasty and perfectly restrained.
The last set was from a get-together with the wine friends:
This was an interesting set of wines. Nothing was mind-blowing probably with the exception of 1998 Gaja Rennina Brunello di Montalcino, which was simply superb. But overall, most of the wines were good. 2017 Dr. Konstantin Frank Amur was tasty, and a new rare grape (Amur) for my collection; 2018 Dr. Konstantin Frank Saperavi and 2020 Dr. Konstantin Frank Rkatsiteli were nice and tasty. Voruta Black Currant from Lithuania was also nice, with a delicious Cassis profile, and allowed me to add another checkmark to the Wine of the World collection. 2010 Vino Della Pace was simply surprising, as I didn’t expect the wine made from 855 grape varieties to last 13 years, but nevertheless, it was quite drinkable. 2021 Domaine de Chafalet Le Méphisto Gamaret from Switzerland was a touch gamey, crisp and fresh, easy to drink. Flor de Muga Rioja Rosé was excellent, more of a Provençal style, lean and crisp. Lastly, Capetta Dolce Asti DOCG was a perfect accompaniment for dessert with its cut-through acidity (#12 on the Top 23 of 23).
These wine experiences should’ve been covered better, but at least now these wines have some presence on this blog.
Wine tastings and events
I already mentioned the Bordeaux tasting which was not covered, and it will not be, as the 2021 Cru Bourgeois tasting is taking place merely in a week. Few other events still have a hope of coverage – Benvenuto Brunello and Chile Site Matters were two of the tastings that I still hope to write about. The same goes for the virtual tasting of the wines of Alentejo – I will make an effort to have all of them covered.
Travel
While I wrote last year about my trips to Nashville and Sweden, there were two trips to Belgium and another one to Greece that never made it to the blog – and you know how much I love inundating everyone with tons of pictures. The Belgium trip was also interesting because I accidentally came across Belgium wine which I didn’t even know Belgium produces, thus needing to add Belgium to the list of countries in the Wines of the World table. I still have a hope of correcting this, and at least writing about the Belgium trip, but we will see.
Why did I write this post?
This might be a reasonable question to ask. What is the point of this sort of self-pitying talk? When I only started writing this blog, I read many posts from others talking about blogging in general, their motivation and goals for blogging, and so on. One idea got stuck with me: we (writers) write this blog first and foremost for ourselves. This is the only reason to stay true to what you are doing. As soon as you start writing for “someone else”, you lose the core of your writing. So I needed this self-talk, I needed to get this pain and pressure out of the system – and now I feel better.
Mission accomplished.
Let’s get some wine writing done.
Looking Back and Looking Forward, 2022 Edition
Ahh, the self-reflection time.
The bad, the good, the ugly.
New Year resolutions.
Yada Yada Yada.
Okay, I know. Not the most enlightening post if I ever even write anything in that category. But hey, it is my blog. I write for myself, first and foremost. So as I get to set the rules here, I like to take a look back at the year which passed and get a little pleasure of re-living some of the best moments of otherwise not the brightest year.
New Experiences:
More often than not, I like to call myself a “collector of experiences” – I love those non-material things which you can add to your personal “been there, tried that” collection. While in absolute numbers these “achievements” sound dismal, under circumstances they are perfectly sufficient in my book.
Visiting new wine region
I visited Oregon on a number of occasions, and wrote about Oregon wines in this blog many times – but it was only 2021 when I set foot in the vineyard in Oregon, thanks to the Wine Media Conference 2021 held in Eugene, Oregon. Not only I visited a number of wineries in Oregon, but I also saw veraison for the first time, and tasted lots and lots of delicious wines, as reflected [dis]appropriately in the list of Top Wines of 2021 (more about it below).
Wine from the new state in the US
When I say that I’m collecting experiences, I mean exactly that – I keep track of how many wines from how many states I tasted, and in how many states I visited wineries. While Oregon was added to the list of states I visited the wineries at, I also tasted the wine from Michigan for the first time, and it was an excellent Cabernet Franc from Bel Lago. I keep my progress noted in this table in case you are interested.
Wine from the new country
Same as the wines of 50 United States, I also keep track of wines from different countries that I had an opportunity to taste. This year I added one of the oldest winemaking countries in the world to the list, after tasting the wines from Armenia. The wines were outstanding and Keush sparkling even made it into the Top Wines list. Same as with the 50 states, here is the table where I mark my progress.
More rare grapes
Ever since I had been bitten by The Wine Century Club bug, I had been hunting down rare grapes. This year I made possibly the slowest progress ever, but this journey is not getting any easier at this point. I only added 6 new grapes to the count (Cabernet Pfeffer, Voskehat, Khatouni, Areni, Yapincak, Ciass Negher), which now stands at the grand total of 561.
Top Wines 2021:
Same as every year, this was a fun project to go through the list (big word here – there is no such thing) of all the wines I tasted in 2021, and select 26 to be split into Second (generous) Dozen and the Top Dozen. Considering that visit to Oregon to be the biggest highlight of the year, it is not surprising that the top list is heavily skewed towards Oregon wines – still, it offers quite a bit of diversity as it is. My list of 26 is an easy one to analyze compared to all of the Top 100 lists I processed this year, so here is my distribution of the wines in the top list: Oregon – 8, California – 7, Spain – 5, Italy – 2, Argentina – 1, Armenia – 1, Pennsylvania – 1, Texas – 1. As you can see, France makes a notable absence, but the list clearly reflects my wine drinking habits – and I stand by all of my choices.
The year of Organic Grapes:
Made with Organic Grapes was one of the hot subjects in the blog (check the posts for yourself). In 2021, I tasted and wrote about multiple organic wines from multiple producers from Argentina, Chile, Italy, New Zealand, Spain – and I’m sure I will write about a lot more organic wines this year.
Catching up:
Much to my chagrin, I was really late with many of the posts, writing about events and tastings some of which were more than 2 years old. I really made an effort in December to clear up the backlog, turning it into one of the most prolific blogging months ever with 21 posts – in my almost 12 years of blogging there were very few months with 21 posts, and even fewer with 22. Catching up is not fun, but remembering about things you didn’t deliver is even less fun. There is more catching up to do, so I definitely hope I will be able to continue the streak.
What’s in the store for 2022:
My New Year resolution is not to have any New Year resolutions, so I can’t tell you really what’s ahead. Last year, I was keen on continuing the Wine Quiz and Wednesday Meritage series of posts, only to run out of steam somewhere in the middle of the year. So the plan for 2022 is to use a more opportunistic approach – there is no shortage of wine subjects worth writing about. I also need to up my wine game by paying more attention to French, Australian, and South African wines – I want to fill that gap for the 2022 Top Wines rendition.
* * *
Here we are, my friends. A quick revisit of 2021, and mostly hope for the good year 2022 with good surprises. I know that hope is not a strategy, but if I learned anything from my years of blogging, it would be proverbial “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. So how was your 2021? Any plans for 2022? Cheers!
2020 – A Year in Blogging
2020 was a unique year – don’t think anyone would try to dispute that. Let me acknowledge this by doing something I have never done before – a look back at what happened here on the Talk-a-Vino pages during the past year.
It is interesting that in terms of the number of posts, 2020 was about the same as the prior 3 years – I averaged about 70 posts throughout the whole year or about 6 posts per month on average. Might be a decent amount, but in my most active years, such as 2014, for example, I had about 200 posts in the year, which would average close to 17 per month. Yes, the numbers are a stubborn thing.
Leaving stats aside, a couple of things happened for this blog for the first time. This blog made it to the two of the Top 100 wine blog lists – Top 101 wine writers of 2020 at Corked Wines, and Top 100 wine blogs at Feedspot. Unique and quite happy developments, I have to say – it is nice to be recognized even in the 11th year of blogging.
Many things were “much less” during 2020 – for example, I attended only 3 wine tasting events in person – Union des Grand Crus de Bordeaux, Georgian Wine tasting, and Tre Bicchieri. Since the beginning of March, there were, obviously, no trade tastings of any kind. The samples still kept coming, albeit in much smaller amounts compared to the previous years. Delicious discoveries were still made such as wines of Casarena and Mythic from Argentina, amazingly drinkable California Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, superb Oregon finds from Alit and Utopia Vineyard.
Then, of course, there were zooms. “To Zoom” became a new verb, meaning to “see each other in the videoconference”. In the old days, “to Skype” was the thing, but 2020 was the year of Zoom. Zooms with wine lovers stuck in their houses, zooms with winemakers equally desperate for the conversation, zooms with friends. A very unique year. There will be more zooms in 2021, at least in the first half of the year, whether we want it or not.
I decided to bring back some of the old series, trying to instill some timing and order into my blogging – I’m talking about continuing Wine Quiz and Wednesday’s Meritage series. Wine Quiz was exactly as the name says, posts with a set of wine-related questions. when the series was active, those were weekly posts on Saturdays. I now realized that I can’t run those on the weekly basis, however, once every two weeks or so should be possible, so the series is back. I used to have a good number of responders for all the quizzes, which is not the case now, but hey, I still have fun writing those posts, so the series will continue.
Wednesday’s Meritage posts were born without any connection with #WineWednesday – the idea was simply to compile interesting wine news and articles and offer it in a concise format to my readers, keeping them informed of interesting happenings in the wine world. Again, by design, those were supposed to be weekly posts – now they are “best effort” – once I accumulate enough of the good newsworthy content, the post is coming out – but the series is back.
I still managed to produce traditional posts such as April 1st Wine News and Updates, a summary of my best wine experience of 2020, and even snuck one of the most memorable tastings ever before the quarantine was besieged upon us – the OTBN 2020.
That about sums up the year 2020 here at Talk-a-Vino. There were lots of great wines back in 2020 which didn’t make it – yet! – to the blog posts – I will do my best to rectify that, as good wines are always worth a conversation.
That’s all I have for you, my friends. How was your 2020? Cheers!
Looking Back and Looking Forward
I’m sure you guessed from the title and the timing of this post that I want to talk about past year 2015 and freshly minted 2016. Yep, I’m predictable like that, you are correct.
So how was 2015 for 2015 for Talk-a-Vino in my own eyes? Great, but challenging. Very challenging. 2016 will be equally difficult, with great potential to be even more challenging, a lot more.
Sure, I will explain. Nothing happened with my love of wine or passion for blogging – both are as strong as ever. What I had (and will have) a problem with is time – my main line of work (the one which pays the bills, you know) is incomparably busier than two years back, and finding quiet time for the labor of love is now not easy at all. No, I’m not complaining, just explaining the change in cadence of the posts coming out.
Talking about 2015, there were few new things which I started doing. During the year, I was offered a few opportunities to meet with the winemakers, and was unable to find time – this is how the concept of virtual interviews came to life. I realized that even when I can’t sit down with the person in the same room, I can still ask questions – and get great answers. I also offered to profile wine apps for any of the app producers who would be interested, and so far had 3 posts in that series – by the way, the offer still stands if anyone is interested.
From the things which I didn’t like so much, but they still happened in 2015, was stopping the series of the Saturday wine quizzes. I had lots of fun creating those, but reached the point when it became very difficult to create challenging, but fun questions, so I had to stop the series, at least for the time being.
What should you expect in 2016? I definitely will continue the virtual interviews – as a matter of fact, one of them is coming out very shortly. I also have good number of posts which I really should’ve written last year, but did not. There were wine dinners, there were tastings, there were winery visits which never made it into the posts. However, the subjects are still worth taking about, so you should expect to see some of those “posts from the past”. I don’t know if I will make a series out of those posts (as an engineer, I like to organize things, may be even more than necessary), add short intro to those posts, or simply put them out without any regards to the “past” – no matter, they will still appear on Talk-a-Vino pages.
2016 is on, so let’s raise the glass to all the fun things which are ahead of us. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage: #MWWC19 Theme, Stumbling Upon and more
Meritage Time!
Let’s start with the theme for the new round of the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge, #19 (#MWWC19 for short). The winner of the previous round, Traveling Wine Chick, have chosen the theme, and it is (drum roll, please) … “Choice”. This theme sounds a lot simpler than many of the recent ones, such as “Crisis” or “Serendipity”, but there lies the challenge of making such a regular word a main element of the blog post. Well, good luck to all, and for all rules and regulations, please consult this post – most important is the submission deadline, which is September 14th, so you have enough time to get your creative juices flowing.
Just for your viewing enjoyment – a picture from the recent trip to the vineyard – more details later
Next I want to mention that Wine Bloggers Conference 2015 (WBC15 for short) will be starting on Thursday, August 13th, and it is taking place in the Finger Lakes region. Lately, Finger Lakes wineries had been producing the wines of notice, moving past excellent whites into the world of reds. I’m sure that all the attendees will be into a treat and will find quite a few surprises, such as Saperavi wines – I heard that they are delicious, and wineries have a hard time to keep them around (sell out very quickly). I will not be attending, but I wish to all the bloggers to have a great time and taste a lot of great wines. And I’m really curious what the location of WBC16 will be – I hope it will be the Texas, as Texas wines are nothing short of phenomenal and it is time for the people to get to know them.
Now, let’s talk about an interesting subject – promotion of your blog. When it comes to the blogging, most of us write because we enjoy it – but we also want to be found and our writing to be enjoyed by others, and that is what “blog promotion” is all about. I recently came across an interesting article called 30 ways to promote your blog posts, which contains wealth of great advice. Among other tools, I saw a mention of Stumble Upon, which I heard before, but never used. I checked with some of Connecticut bloggers on Facebook, and many people find Stumble Upon a great tool, so I decided to add this capability for the blog post sharing. I learned that WordPress.com used to offer the Stumble Upon sharing button, but not anymore – but then I came across this post which provides detailed instructions on how Stumble Upon button can be added. Without talking about promotion, I found lots of interesting articles with the help of StumbleUpon – here is one example for you – “22 Foods You’ve Probably Been Eating The Wrong Way Until Now“. If you use Stumble Upon, I would like to know what is your take on it. And by the way, I don’t know if you are aware of the two pages I have in this blog, under the menu of Resources – one of them is called Best Blogging Tips and second one is Technical Tips for Bloggers – I use those pages to collect interesting articles and “how to” as it relates to the blogging – check them out.
Last for today, really a local update – I made changes to the page called Grapes of the World, to properly reflect all the grapes I tasted so far in my Wine Century Club journey. Why is that important? Will tell you very soon.
And we are done here – the glass is empty – but the refill is on the way. Until the next time – cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Blog Awards, #MWWC16, Making Money With Your Blog and more
It’s been a while since I posted “Wednesday Meritage”, the wine world news potpourri, which used to come out like a clockwork every Wednesday. Well, anyway, there are many things I want to share, so the Meritage it is.
Let me start with the Wine Blog Awards subject. Wine Blog Awards is an annual endeavor since 2007, where the best (supposedly) blogs are recognized as standing out in a number of different categories (best writing, best photography and so on). After a few years of poor execution (2013 and 2014 nominations were announced too late and judging lacked clarity), there is seemingly a desire to make things right. Nomination period is now open until April 22nd, and submission can be made for all of the 8 different categories. And yes, if you like this very blog, I would greatly appreciate your nomination, which can be made here.
Next up is Monthly Wine Writing Challenge, now in its 16th reincarnation. The theme of the #MWWC16 is “Finish“, as assigned by the winner of the previous round Jim of jvb uncorked fame. The submission deadline is April 20th, which is less than 2 weeks away – if you plan to finish, the time to start is now. Don’t forget to tag your entry with #MWWC16 and share it on twitter with the same tag.
Now, let’s talk about the money. For those of you who invests countless hours into this product of your obsession, also known as a “blog”, tell me – have you ever thought “that would be awfully nice to get paid, even a little bit, for all that labor of love”? I don’t know about you, but I definitely had those thoughts. Of course this is not why we blog, but still, monetization of the blog is an interesting subject. Thus I want to bring to your attention an excellent assembly of the stories of the 7 bloggers who make money with their blogs, and they all make very decent money, at least in my opinion. If anything, this is an interesting food for thought, and you can find the link here. Also, just in case you are not aware of it, one of the pages in my blog is designated as a collection of the useful tips regarding blogging, search engine optimization and more – you might find it useful and it is available here. It is also available from the top menu under the “Resources”.
Next, I want to bring to your attention a new collaboration project, masterminded by the Margot from the Gather and Graze (which is a blog you should follow in its own right). The project is called The Dinner Party Collective, or TDPC for the short, and it will be focused on creation of the easy to replicate, seasonal menus for both hemispheres. 12 bloggers are set to collaborate on creating of the menus which will be also fully paired with the suggested wine selections. You can find and follow TDPC here, as well as on Twitter (@tdpcollective) and Facebook.
If you like spicy (hot!!!) food, and live in a close proximity of New York, or plan to visit the city in a few weeks, this might be an event for you. 3rd Annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo will take place April 25/26 in Brooklyn Expo Center in Brooklyn, New York. I’m sure it will be super hot and super interesting, so I’m really contemplating a visit. Here is the link with more information.
I started today’s post with some SSP (yep, the Shameless Self Promotion), and I want to finish with the same. I want to make sure you know that Talk-a-Vino blog has a page on the Facebook, which is used to share different tidbits of information, typically not making it into the blog posts here – wine fun facts, events, special deals and more. If you are on Facebook, and you are not following Talk-a-Vino page, question is – why not? You can solve this problem right here. If you are already following Talk-a-Vino page – thank you very much – how about suggesting it to your friends as well?
And lastly, without any connection to the wine world, I just want to finish this post with the song – again, it has nothing to do with the wine world, but I happened to like it, so.. why not? It resonates with my mood, so there:
And we are done here. Cheers!
A Few Blog Updates
Actual title which I wanted to use for this short post was talking about SSP (Shameless Self Promotion, of course), but then I decided against it. However, this is what this post mostly is all about – a SSP, consisting of some “asks” and updates.
First, the “ask”. SAVEUR, the “definitive culinary and culinary-travel magazine” (their own wording), is running its annual SAVEUR Blog Awards. There is at least one category there, “Best Wine Coverage”, where this blog might apply. If you like what you are reading and think this blog is worthy of a nomination, here is the link to do so:
http://www.saveur.com/article/contests/blog-awards-2015-nominate
Note that nominations will close on March 13th, so you have less than 2 days left. Apparently, the more nominations, the better it is, so … thank you!
Now, a few small updates regarding Talk-a-Vino and social media overall. After long hesitation, I created a Talk-a-Vino page on Facebook. The page had been live for about 9 month, and in addition to all of the blog posts, I share interesting wine news and articles there as well, so you might find it useful. Here is the link so you can follow the Talk-a-Vino page if you are not doing so already:
https://www.facebook.com/talkavino
In case you are using a blog reader, such as Bloglovin’, you can find my blog there as well – below is the “follow button” for your convenience:
Last note regarding social media – about 6 month ago, I finally made it to Instagram. I didn’t create a specific blog account there (yet), instead I created simply an account for myself, so while you will find some pictures of food and wine there, most of the stuff simply relates to the travel, places, nature, flowers and so on. I’m thinking about blog-specific Instagram account, but I don’t know how to manage two with an iphone – if you have any ideas, I would greatly appreciate an advice. In any case, feel free to connect with me on Instagram (@anatoli.l).
And before we close here, a “local update”. In general, I pay very little attention to the ratings of the specific wines. However, I’m curious to know the average ratings for the wines in the specific region for the specific year. That information can be found in so called Vintage Charts. There are many sources for the various vintage charts – some are region specific, and some cover whole lot of different regions. In case you ever need to find and compare the different vintage ratings, I created a new page here in this blog which you might find helpful – here is the link. On the page, you will find a collection of various Vintage Charts from the different sources.
And this is all I have for you on this Wine Wednesday. Have a glass of something tasty and cheers!
Happy New Year 2015! Also Wine Quiz Answer and #MWWC14 Theme
Happy New Year 2015! I wish you all Happy, Healthy and Peaceful year! I think if we can have just these three elements (our own and ours happiness, our own and ours health and peace in this fragile world), everything else will just fall in place.
While I’m a bit tempted to analyze the past year and to talk about the plans for the this year, I will not go there. 2014 was a very good year with lots of great experiences, and I can only wish for 2015 to be at least as good as the previous year. But what I actually plan to do over the next few weeks is to create a number of posts which will be still talking about the events of 2014 – the events which still hold personal relevance and cause a burning feeling of incompleteness as they were thought through probably a thousand times. So yes, this is something which you should expect.
Now, let me give you the answers for the last wine quiz #117, where you were supposed to guess the names of the wines based on the pictures of the top foil. Here are the pictures, now with the names of the wines:
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- 1. Hess
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- 2. La Storia by Trentadue
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- 3. Loring Wine Company
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- 4. Guardian Cellars
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- 5. Steele
When it comes to the answers, a number of people were able to properly name one of the wines. I would like to acknowledge Zak (no web site) who properly named 3 wines out of 5. And I saw a number of comments promising to pay more attention to the bottle foils, which I’m glad to hear. There will be more of the quizzes like this, but I need to come across some new wines first.
Next up I want to bring to your attention that Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #14 ( dubbed #MWWC14) is in the full swing with the theme “Tradition“, as announced by the winner of the last round Bill of Duff’s Wines. You can find all the rules and regulations in this post, but the most important date you need to know is the submission deadline date, which will be Monday, January 26th. Get out of the holiday food coma and get your creative juices flowing!
The last note for today. For those of us who writes the blogs, we want our content to be found. At the same time, there is lots of content created everyday, so to be found, the content have to stand out. I recently came across an interesting article called How To Make User-Friendly (And Search-Engine Friendly) Scannable Content which I want to share with you, as it offers some of the good advice to all the writers. I also added this link to my Best Blogging Tips page so it will be easy to find in the future.
And that’s all I have for today. Enjoy your first weekend of 2015 and cheers!
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