Exclusive: Roederers to launch young wine writer award
Monday 14 September
Hooray, the organizers of the Louis Roederer wine writer awards have agreed to have a young wine writers award next year.
In my blog last week, I had a good moan about young wine writers not getting the credit they deserved. There’ve been a few comments from people and happily, I can announce exclusively, that’s all set to change.
James Samson of Maison Marques et Domaines, commented on my blog, ‘That’s a very happy coincidence to read your comments as we have been going through a process of invigorating the ‘Roederers’ and have had it in mind this year to add a new category to encourage more entries from younger wine writers.
‘Unfortunately, this idea, which came out of discussions with the judging panel, was just too late to include it on the entry forms in 2009. But rest assured in 2010 there will a category dedicated to rewarding emerging talent.
‘This year we were so impressed by what Jane (Parkinson) had achieved that the Chairman’s award was the best vehicle available to get that message of encouragement across.
‘We are very keen to stimulate debate and reward relevant wine-writing in the UK and abroad, increasingly in the form of on-line writing as well.
‘So please spread the word and encourage as many young writers to enter as possible in 2010.’
Hooray someone is listening out there! Right, young’uns, better get writing something profound yet entertaining.
Twitter, facebook and an Italian restaurant
Friday 21 August
The clever people at L’Anima restaurant have come up with the great stunt of getting the world and his wife to vote for new wines on its list.
They’ve enlisted the help of Robert McIntosh, who specialises in social media as well as working for Rioja producer Dinastia Vivanco, to coordinate the event. Six experts including L’Anima’s sommelier and Anthony Rose (my invite must be lost in the post!) will taste a range of wines on Monday. The judges must then argue their case for the wines on youtube for the public to decide. The three wines with the most twitter/facebook votes will then win a place on the restaurant’s list.
This is a great idea. It gets consumers involved in selecting the wines they are going to drink plus gives a sneak peek into the sniffy world of sommeliers.
Oh, and it makes great publicity. I can safely say we’ll see plenty of copycat versions in the coming months.
Here’s the L’Anima link for you to get voting on Tuesday and Wednesday.
A blogger’s world
Thursday 9 July
I attended my first-ever bloggers get-together last night. I was a bit apprehensive as I’d never met a group of bloggers before and I had images of nerdy trainspotter-types talking about the latest piece of IT kit. Thankfully I was wrong.
It helped that we met at an Italian wine tasting. Nothing like booze to liven things up. Of course there were nibbles too, and to accompany a glass of Bisol Prosecco Crede NV, out came ‘baccala’. It looked suspiciously like Portuguese dish bacalhau, tasted like it: damn it was bacalhau. Now I’ve always believed the dish was a Portuguese invention and a quick google search of its history puts its roots in Portugal. It turns out salt cod has been produced for at least 500 years as a way of preserving the fish in many different Mediterranean countries. But this was before we were blessed with the wonder of refrigerators. Why then, must we still endure this terrible stuff? To give it credit, it did work well with the Prosecco.
Most of the bloggers were foodies and I wondered where all the wine bloggers were. Too busy writing their blogs? I came to the conclusion there are simply more foodies. But if blogging is the future and traditional media is on the decline, surely there should’ve been more drinks bloggers, especially at a wine tasting.
I also note I was the only one there who actually makes a living from writing. While I don’t make any money from my blog - yet - the likes of Jamie Goode do, and as commissioning budgets are slashed, other drinks writers ought to get more involved in this network of bloggers to give themselves a better chance of surviving in the long-term.
Other bloggers to look out for:
Niamh Shields’ eatlikeagirl
Rob Mackintosh’s wineconversation.com
Stephen and Kerri’s dinnerdiary.org