Monthly Archives: November 2011

International Food Bloggers Convene on Santa Monica With A Focus on Wine

Gwendolyn Alley blogger author writer poet This weekend, Food Bloggers from around the globe but especially from California will convene near Santa Monica’s famed Third Street Promenade to exchange tips on blogging, to try new and exciting foods, and to learn about how to incorporate wine into food blogs by tastings and pairings and by attending a Saturday afternoon session on the topic where I am one of the panelists! I’ll be focusing on how to create compelling content about wine.

3:30 — 4:45    Session: How to Incorporate Wine into Your Food Blog sponsored by The Crusher. Hosted by Michelle McClendon, Winemaker, Don Sebastiani & Sons, Gwendolyn Alley, Blogger, Wine Predator, Michael Wangbickler, Balzac Communications

For many cultures around the world, wine is an integral part of people’s daily lives. It is served with every meal (okay, maybe not breakfast) and enjoyed with friends and family. Walk into a restaurant in France or Italy, and you will likely see a bottle of wine on every table. In America? You are as likely to see beer, cocktails, or Coca-Cola as you are wine. Inexplicably, most Americans are intimidated by wine and are afraid of making a mistake when purchasing a bottle. But the simple fact remains that wine doesn’t have to be complicated and can be enjoyed by anyone. In this session, we’ll explore ways for you to integrate wine and wine reviews into your blog to further enhance your and your reader’s enjoyment.

Here’s the complete agenda for the 2011 Food Bloggers Conference in Santa Monica. I’ll be attending and blogging the sessions on Saturday and possibly Sunday (I couldn’t attend today Friday because of my son’s 8th birthday party!)

And I promise to post the key points of my own session–I’m thinking about putting them up before the session so people can follow along!

Who am I? Of course you can read my “about” page.  Here you can read recent press about me.

Last May, influential blogger and wine publicist Jo Diaz named me a “woman wine blogger who matters.”

PS While it’s not about food or wine or blogging, I will also have my book Middle of the Night Poems From Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son with me for sale and signing.

On Books & Bottles, Wine & Sex

“The sway of alcohol over mankind unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.” American philosopher and psychologist William James, one of the first to study the application of alcohol in religious ritual.

So quotes Jeremy Parzen in his article “(Not So) Odd Pair: Wine and Sex.” His globe trotting discussion includes a mention of the first English-language translation of the “youthful, sex-fueled tale of wine tasting and daring” Japanese manga comic Drops of God by Tadashi Agi (a pseudonym for brother and sister Shin and Yuko Kibayashi) which British wine magazine Decanter has written is “arguably the most influential wine publication” of our time–partly because prices for wines mentioned have skyrocketed, partly because it has a great wine related story (plot summary here), and according to a 2007 Reuters feature, “wine industry experts believe part of the manga’s appeal is that it teaches readers enough about wine to understand the drink and impress their friends, but does so in an entertaining way.”

The holidays are coming: this might be a good book for the wine lover on your list! While I haven’t read this one, I have a few more that I will be reviewing in the coming weeks. What better present for than wine lover on your list than a bottle and a book?

Because books too stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature!