A few weeks ago, there was a conversation on Twitter between Ian Kennedy and Eric Gonzalez about how both wine and technology have their own language that, once you are immersed in it becomes very easily understandable, is very daunting to those outside.
Flash forward a few weeks: When my friend Cheryl Wolhar left Yahoo earlier this year, she decided that she wanted to focus her career on her true passion, wine and food. After a little digging, she landed a great consulting gig with Donati Family Vineyards. Cheryl’s passion, plus her knowledge of social networking, combined with the desire of the Donati family to make wine less intimidating for newcomers is leading to some really exciting things.
As a first step, Cheryl has launched WineSpace, a Ning based social network. The goal of WineSpace is to build a small, tight nit community of people who love Donati Wines, great food and spending time with friends and loved ones in the vineyards. I love when people actually put the Social in social networking.
While too much advertising in any social network is going to get annoying quickly, thus far, Cheryl is building a nice bridge between entertaining visitors, educating wine newbies (like me), providing guidance on upcoming releases for the true oenophile, and letting past visitors know about upcoming events such as their Indulgence in the Vineyard dinners, where guests eat under the stars, in the vineyard and are edu-tained by the head chef and head wine maker of Donati.
The site itself is clean and welcoming. The Paso Robles wine crowd isn’t exactly who I’d point out in a line up of social networking all-stars and I think that the look of site will put those not familiar with blogs, wikis or Facebook at ease by allowing them to share ideas on recipes and what wine goes well with that chicken.
If you like wine, and are looking for something good, check out what Cheryl has done with WineSpace. I’m sure you’ll learn a thing or two and you may even pick up a bottle of their Sorelle Per Sempre.
