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Tom Wark ran a survey a few weeks ago about wine bloggers, wine reviews and consumer choices. I took the survey myself and was looking forward to seeing the results.

Tom released some of those results on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 and I’m not surprised at what I saw. However, I did want to point out a few things.

According the the results over 65% of the respondents admitted to having purchased a wine based on a review they read on a wine blog. Is that a scary thing? What if the blog is the Redneck Wine Review?? Who would buy a wine recommended by a self-proclaimed Level 4 Redneck?

I think many people would and that’s why I started this blog in the first place.

Let’s be frank, there are much better wine reviewers out there than me. People who are professionally trained, have decades of experience, whose palates are fine tuned instruments, education and worldly travels, etc. But, isn’t that the problem in the first place? Do the vast majority of wine drinkers have those types of resumes and skills? Heck no! That’s why many wine drinkers are put off by such reviewers, such professional palates.

One thing I’ve learned in my years thus far on earth is that people don’t like to be intimidated. They don’t like to be talked down to. They don’t like to feel uninformed, uneducated…unworthy. How many of us would feel many of those things tasting and reviewing a wine next to Robert Parker? I’m holding my hand up.

As I said the results don’t surprise me. Take what you read here for what it’s worth - just one Redneck’s opinion about any given bottle of wine. But hey, I’m not any better than you, don’t know more than you, buy wine in the stores just like you.

Give the gift of personalized wine to a friend or business associate. Personalize your wine bottle with a custom label. A great gift that will last a lifetime.

What is California Wine Hikes? Well it’s exactly what the name says!

California Wine Hikes is a website offering guided hikes, wine tastings, fine dining & accommodations in the California wine country. The primary angle of the site is as a wine country vacation destination. The thing is, the destination changes depending on what type of vacation you want.

Russ Beebe, the founder of the business, has found what I think is a spectacular niche involving vacations, hiking and, my favorite, wine! California Wine Hikes is actually a tour company that allows Russ to combine hiking and wine tasting. The company currently offers 19 different tours ranging from EASY to STRENUOUS hiking levels and the opportunity to take in spectacular scenery and excellent wines.

As I perused the site I found one tour in particular that caught my eye: Romp Through the Redwoods. Having always wanted to see the great Redwoods I can tell you that when I do I will do it through Russ and California Wine Hikes! For a very reasonable price you can enjoy a moderate level hike and visit a local winery when you’re through.

Here’s an excerpt of the tour description:

One-Day Hike & Wine-Tasting Tour: 8 moderate mi., 1000′ elev. gain
Hiking a loop through this mystical Santa Cruz Mountain watershed differs from other, more modern San Francisco Bay Area hiking locales. It’s easy to see why the unmaintained character of this place, with its many downed trees and ungraded slopes, can make this loop hike one of the more rugged hikes in the area. Which, for many who have come to know me, is precisely why it’s one of my favorite places to take my winehiking guests.

If one of the existing tours doesn’t fit your style or timing or budget Russ gives you the option to customize your very own California Wine Hike. Bring a small group of friends or family (or both) and enjoy each other’s company as well as a great vacation with California Wine Hikes.

In addition to the normal business angle Russ has a great blog on his site as well. There are tasting notes, wine reviews, tasting venues, winehiker trails and information about reviewing his site, California Wine Hikes where if you do a review you have a chance at winning a case of really good wine.

Incidentally, he’s also running a promotion right now where you can win a bottle of 2004 Dominus Estate just by signing up to the RSS feed. The exciting thing about it is that if Russ grows his list to over 600 subscribers the winner will get 6 bottles instead of 1! Contain your excitement though as from what I can tell the current number of public subscribers is 35. Quite a ways to go yet.

Technically speaking I really like the site and the fabulous promotion ideas Russ has. It’s obvious to me that in addition to his primary business of wine hikes Russ has a good handle on SEO and blog promotion. I also think that California Wine Hikes is a perfect example of niche marketing. In today’s environment where everyone is trying to find some unique niche to market to Russ seems to have hit a home run.

Great post over at Grape Thinking about the size of wine bottles.

The idea is that medium and large wine producers could benefit from making wine available in smaller sized bottles…kinda like what you see with wine coolers, Jack Daniel’s mixed drinks, Zima and many other girly type products. While there are some good arguments for it like not getting screwed on a crappy bottle of wine that you paid good money for I’m not sure that unless you can buy those smaller bottles individually - not in a 4 or 6 pack - it would be of any benefit other than sealing an unfinished bottle for the next day.

Funny thing is I always thought that the traditional 750ml bottles were already, as my best friend calls it, “Individual Sized”. If you want to talk about bottles that are too large for everyday buying, storing and drinking look no further than Italy. While I haven’t been there myself my wino buddy Mark was stationed in Germany for several years (with a stint in Iraq, thank you for your service!) and made several visits to many of the more popular wine regions in Europe.

While in Italy visiting a winery he observed a kid of 18 or so ride up on a bicycle to the front of the winery. There were what appeared to be gas pumps out front and the kid had 2 large bottles (1-2 gallons each) on baskets over the rear tire of the bike. He pulled the pump handle and began dispensing wine into these 2 large bottles until they were full. He sealed them and off he rode. I guess he had some kind of unlimited club membership!

Mark’s other experience while at that winery was the unique tasting environment. Mark and his wife were each handed a glass and pointed in the general direction of a dozen or so vats of wine. They were free to taste whatever they wanted, unattended, unlimited. Beats the hell out of waiting in line at some wineries in Napa and paying for a taste!

In any case I feel that the current wine bottle size is perfect. Making it smaller could cause issues with other wine drinker friends over who gets what is left of what is deemed the best bottle in the 4-pack (if its a flight) and more bottles of what already can’t be recycled.