Talk-A-Vino

Let me ask you a question (no, today is not Saturday and this is not a quiz post) – what do you think the numbers in the title represent?

Any ideas?

Okay, here it is.

3 years.

415 posts.

1863 comments, which translates into more than 900 dialogs.

Today is third anniversary of Talk-A-Vino blog.

This blog started on March 29, 2010 with this post. Started is somewhat of a big word, as the very next post came out almost 4 month later, on July 20th (interestingly enough, it was about Wine Century Club, same as my post from yesterday).

From there on, this blog went forward. Slowly. Sometimes, I was questioning the entire premise of this writing (believe me – I still do). Sometimes, the going was easy. And sometimes, getting a single word out was as easy as successful as convincing oneself that tooth pain is enjoyable. But – there was always something else to say. Something else to share. And the lucky day would bring a comment. An opportunity to talk and to engage, to have a dialog. I think ultimately, the dialog is what I value the most in the whole blogging paradigm. Yes, I can express myself, I’m talking about the subject I’m extremely passionate about – but I really strive for discussion, strive for dialog, strive for the feedback. Good, bad or ugly – doesn’t matter; having any feedback is much better than having none. This is why I included the number of comments as probably the only metric I care about. No, I’m not trying to lie to you – of course I look at the number of views and visitors. But – dialogs are what really matters, and it is the major reason for this blog to exist.

Okay, I think you got my point (can I please have a comment from each one of you, so I know my message went across? What, no comment? Well, please promise that you will leave one next time?).

Considering that any birthday is an opportunity to reflect, I wanted to give you my own retrospective and tell you what was planned, what worked, what didn’t work, what I liked and what I didn’t like. I dutifully scrolled through many posts, to no avail – I’m ashamed to admit, but I like a lot of them…  Here is an “oenophile” mini-series – Fears of the Oenophile, Five Essential Traits of the Oenophile, Five Traps of Oenophile. And then there are Wine and Time, Wine = Art and Taste Of Wine – Engineering Approach, as well as the “wineries” mini-series – BV, Ridge, Paumanok, Chateau Ste. Michelle, … Wine quizzes, Daily Glass, Bars and Restaurants, Travel – all with pictures (can I share one more number? 1309 pictures are attached to this blog…).

Many things didn’t work as planned. My Daily Glass is very far from even weekly. My Categories are all over the place – grapes, wines, experiences and regions are all just lumped together, without any system. I don’t update pages on time (Top Wine Ratings is 5 month behind, for instance)…

Well, it is what it is. It is a live blog. And does create dialog. Thus, I’m happy. Cheers!