European Wine Bloggers' Conference 2011 (#EWBC): George Taber

 George Taber: the keynote speaker@#EWBC11

George M. Taber, author of The Judgment of Paris and To Cork or Not to Cork, gave the key speech yesterday afternoon to the 2011 European Wine Bloggers' Conference in Brescia. 'Telling stories' is the theme this year.

Here are a few snippets from George's speech:  

"Story not about you it is about your subject."

"Small detail important. Small details bring the character alive."

"Describe the thing that makes a character interesting and do it in detail and do it accurately."

"Bad thing is that it takes lots of time to find the little details." George tends not to tell his subjects how long he will have to spend with them and how many times he will need to interview them as he conducts interviews over a long time."

"Old journalistic trick – save your tough questions for the end." Tough questions posed at the beginning of an interview will make you subject clam up and be defensive.  

"Best stories not from the source but from their friends and, in particular, their enemies."

"Wine bloggers not in the pocket of the wine industry."

"More honesty from wine bloggers than Robert Parker."

I found George Taber's presentation thought-provoking and agreed with much of what he said. However, I have considerable doubts about the last two claims here. There are so many wine bloggers and from many different backgrounds that it is firstly difficult to make broad generalisations. It may be that many wine bloggers are less in the pocket of the wine industry than some critics but this is still early days and I can't see any significant difference between press visits by established wine writers and those by wine bloggers. In both cases the participants are wined and dined and often given a present at the end of the visit.

Equally it is a big and possibly, legally, dangerous (Parker is a retired lawyer), claim to make that wine bloggers are more honest than Robert Parker. Certainly a number of wine blogs have a fresh view of wine but more honesty overall? Not sure I would want to defend this in a court of law! 

 Conference in the magnificent setting of the Santa Giulia Museum 

Winners of the 2010 Born Digital Wine Awards

Many congratulations to the winners of the first edition of the Born Digital Awards:

Today, the much anticipated results of the Born Digital Wine Awards 2010 are unveiled. The inaugural awards proved an instant success, with an enthusiastic number of entries (in excess of 200), coming from 16 different countries across the world. The aim of the awards is to give value to writers and videographers who are successful at creating wine content online – it must be “born digital” to qualify – ie be published first online.
The panel of judges comprises of leading figures both in wine journalism and general publishing, renowned here in the UK and internationally:

• Jancis Robinson MW
• Evan Schnittman
• Elin McCoy
• Patrick Schmitt
• Robert Joseph
• Hervé Lalau

Here’s what some of the judges said…
“I enjoyed reading through the entries and found the submissions both entertaining and educational, particularly those from the winery and investigative categories. Without the constraints of print, particularly strict word counts and savage sub-editors, the internet provides a free rein for full and opinionated analysis of current topics. It was interesting however that the best entries tended to be from those with a background in traditional media. ”
Patrick Schmitt 

“It was a true pleasure to judge the first vintage of the Born Digital Wine Awards! I was impressed by both the high quality (of writing) and the lively diversity (of topics and voices), especially in the Editorial and Investigative categories. Those really showed the strength and importance of online wine writing. I found entries from Wineries, on Tourism, and the Videos much more mixed, with some entries far exceeding my expectations; others falling short, but showing potential. In the future, I’d like to see blogs from more wineries show up in the list, more surprising and compelling wine tourism stories, and better production values in the videos. That being said, there were a few stunners among them all.”
Elin McCoy 

The judges had a tough job indeed and it was a very close call….but without further ado…..
The winners of the Born Digital Wine Awards 2010 are:

Best Wine Tourism Feature

1. Wink Lorch Wine Days Out in the French Alps
2. Tom Fiorina Corsican Wines and Corsica, a twenty-year journey of discovery
3. Joe Roberts Endangered Species: Santorini Wine Fights for Its Survival

Best Editorial Wine Writing

1. Tim Atkin Towards a New Chile (Part 1)
2. Blake Gray The 10 Most Overrated Wines
3. Jamie Goode Wine Tasting: Subjective or Objective

Best Winery Self-Produced Content

1. Randall Grahm On a Mission: The Germ of an Idea***
2. Bernhard Fiedler Alkohol-Zunahmi
3. Brian Overstreet Hubris – It’s Not Just for Icarus Anymore

Best Investigative Wine Piece

1. Richard Ross Phylloxera– the English connection
2. Blake Gray : Sustainable Wines and Whole Foods Market
3. Alder Yarrow The Coming Carnage in the California Wine Industry

Best Wine Themed Video

1. Jay Selman The Scent of Black
2. The Quoff Boys Palm Trees & 100 Year Old Port
3. Adrian Franklin Opening a Bottle of Port with a Feather

The winner of each category receives 1,000 Euros, a Jancis Robinson Purple Page membership and a pass to the 2011 European Wine Bloggers Conference!

Entries for the 2011 Born Digital Wine Awards should be submitted between 1st December 2011 and 31st January 2012 for work first published on the net during 2011.

Editors’ notes:

The Born Digital Wine Awards (BDWA) are the brain-child of Vrazon, a company specialising in Social Media in the drinks industry and a fusion of Catavino (Ryan and Gabriella Opaz) and Thirstforwine (Robert McIntosh).

The Awards are international, with entries welcome from around the world and in any language. For the 2011 BDWA Awards the content must have been published during 2011; the maximum for written pieces is 3,000 words and for videos, 10 minutes.

***

Further announcement from Vrazon Global:

'George Taber: Keynote Speaker for the 2011 European Wine Blogger’s Conference

winebloggersconference.or

We’re very excited to announce our first keynote speaker, American journalist and author George M. Taber! A reporter and editor with Time magazine in the US and Europe for 21 years, Taber reported on the famous “Judgment of Paris” tasting where California wines were ranked alongside France’s best in an event that revolutionized the world of wine. His four-paragraph story about the tasting has been called “the most significant news story ever written about wine”. In 2005 Taber published a book about the event and more recently has also written, “To Cork or Not to Cork” and “In Search of Bacchus”.

The EWBC 2011 will take the theme of “storytelling” and online wine communications, and also include several streams of smaller group sessions to generate and nurture practical discussion. Guest speakers will host these hands-on workshops, which will focus on the four disciplines of video, photography, writing and oral reporting.

Taber will speak on the topic of Telling Someone Else’s Story and draw on his many years’ experience as a reporter, editor and author to inform and inspire some 200 wine communicators who will travel from around the world to attend EWBC 2011.'