When, where and why did you begin blogging?

I’ve started nearly three years ago. I’ve heard about blogs for the first time from Antonio Tombolini, (Simplicissimus Blog Farm), a person that I consider among the first Italian entrepreneurs to understand the implication of the internet on our businesses and our lives. So I started my first blog, Poggio Argentiera, on Blogger and after a few months I moved to Antonio’s platform, where I still am ,as well as many other bloggers of food and wine scene in Italy. However, I’ve always been an avid user of wine’s newsgroups (such as it.hobby.vino) and forums.

In a few short sentences, summarize your intention with your wine blog.

As a winery owner, my blog reflects what I do, and what I do is 90 % wine oriented, like the harvest or the wine making. But I try to focus on other aspect of this industry as well, such as agricultural politics, my relationship with restaurants, wine shops, wine reps, and sometimes other things more personal. I’m constantly trying to give an honest representation of me and my family business so that people can have an idea of who I am and what we do.

How would you describe your readers?

My readers are mostly people from the wine industry, such as journalists, restaurants and wine shops owners, other fellow wine and food bloggers, but also there are many wine lovers that want to know more about our wines and our winery.

Is blogging a professional endeavor for you or more of a personal outlet?

It is both, as I can’t split my life in those two side in a neat way. We are a small business and our life is what we do here at the winery. I feel pleasure in writing about more personal things sometimes, such as my family, which is made up of three small lovely children. I love the level of intimacy that this creates with my readers.

What tools or resources have you found to be successful in marketing your blog?

Pictures of the the harvest and subsequent work in the cellar have always been very much appreciated. So are, on a lesser extent, the videos. I’m trying to use google maps to show where all our different vineyards are, and that’s more or less it. I read a lot, nearly 100, other blogs via my feedreader (bloglines) and that helps me to keep up to date with what’s going on. I like technology but I don’t want to overdo that, I think that it’s really much more a matter of quality of contents that makes a blog more or less successive. I’d like to explore more the Social Networking, but I’m afraid that that would take too much time off my work, so I try to stay where I am, keeping it simple.

How would you describe wine blogging to be different than print media?

The main difference is the interaction with the readers and the level of intimacy that that carries with it. If I can comment to what you say, then I’m not a mere reader but I’m having a conversation with you. That’s the difference and that is all the difference that it takes to make blogging something special.

Do you believe wine blogs have made any marked impact on the wine industry or wine culture?

I do believe so. I think that the impact doesn’t particularly and directly affects sales for wineries involved in the conversation (i.e. I read your blog, I’ll rush to buy a bottle of your wine!), but I feel that people are more and more addressing their attention and trying to find answers to their questions from the internet. It’s a chance for the wine industry to be there and try to answer to those questions, but also to take advantage of the fact we, as a member of wine industry, can directly pose questions to our potential clients and listen to what they have to say. I do not think that the latter aspect is being stressed enough: we are not merely there to talk about us, we are there also and above all to listen and learn from the public.

Where do you see wine blogging in 10 years?

I have no idea. Maybe there will be other forms of conversation that will be easier to maintain. I think the point is not the media, i.e. the blog, but the possibility of having a conversation cheaply and easily for anyone. This form of media is not going to go away soon. It’s here to stay.

What do you hope to gain from this conference?

Networking with other people that share the same interest, and to listen to their experiences to try to understand where we are going in the future.