I am happy to announce the winner of our book giveaway of Paul Gregutt’s essential guide to Washington Wines & Wineries is PAM CAUDY!  Please help me in congratulating her on a well-deserved win!

Thanks to everyone who participated in this giveaway by commenting here and on Facebook as well as promoting the contest via Twitter and other channels.  This was a lot of fun!  Washington is making some great wine and hopefully this year we can help continue to educate other wine lovers and share in what this state, second only to California in U.S. production, has to offer.

Please be sure to check out this year’s Wine Blogger’s conference to be held in Walla Walla June 25-27, 2010 as well as the scholarship program being offered.

Pam:  Please be sure to reach out to me via my email address which can be obtained via the About Us link at the top of the site so I can get your shipping address.

Cheers!

If you’re like my wife, then you know it’s never too early to plan, especially if it’s for a trip to the wine country somewhere.  As we approach February already, we are still 5 months away from the Wine Blogger’s Conference in Walla Walla, Washington held June 25-27, 2010.  However, it is important to note that if you are a blogger and want to go and haven’t signed up yet, there were many folks left on the waiting list the past two years, so it is recommended that you don’t wait until the last minute.

We are very excited to visit an important and fairly well-known domestic wine region that we haven’t been to before.  Additionally, we have only experienced a few wines from the entire state of Washington.  So, to help get us jacked up for the trip and expand our wine horizons, we have been reading Paul Gregutt’s guide to Washington Wines & Wineries and have already held a tasting at our local tasting club focused on red wines from Washington [subsequent post yet to be published on this tasting].  But you don’t have to be a blogger to enjoy and get value out of this wonderfully written book.  Paul has been a wine critic and author for over 25 years and knows the wine and wineries of his state inside and out.  In this book he has created a numerical scale that actually relates to measurable attributes of wineries and their wines with which to rank them in categories including Leaders, Specialist, Bench and Rookies.  Oh, and he’s technologically hip touting a blog of his own that he updates very frequently.

So, in my humble attempt to help you dear readers learn more and experience what this state, second only to California in production, has to offer and what is has attained in it’s short 40-year history, I offer to send a FREE copy of Paul Gregutt’s book to a randomly chosen winner.  Here’s how you can win:

1. Post a comment on this blog post OR the same, related post on the Wine Tonite! Fan page: http://www.facebook.com/WineTonite with something about Washington.  Hopefully, it’s about a wine or winery, but it can be anything really (i.e. I tasted this xyz wine from Walla Walla and it was good, I would really like to visit xyz winery in Puget Sound, or I think Pete Carroll will/will not succeed as the Seahawks head coach, etc…)

2. The contest period will be one week with a deadline of 12 Noon EST next Sunday, February 7th.  I will announce the winner that afternoon on this blog site via a new post.

3. The winner will be chosen randomly using the www.random.org True Random Number Generator.  Posts from both the blog and the Facebook fan page will be combined and ordered by date/time stamp and obviously not include any comments I may post along the way.

It’s that Simple!  Have fun and good luck and please pass this on to winelovers you know!  And if this gets you into the giving mood, check out how you can help a blogger earn a scholarship to join the conference HERE.

Cheers!

If you’re not happy with your current job, or just have a passion for something else, you should be putting a plan in place right now to start living the life of your dreams by building your personal brand as an expert in a subject your passionate about.  This is the main theme of Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book: Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash In On Your Passion.

No, this isn’t a book about wine.  However, if you are passionate about wine,or anything else, there are some great nuggets of wisdom in this book to help you use social media tools to develop a personal brand and hopefully begin to benefit monetarily from your brand.  I liken the style of this book to those like The One Minute Manager by Blanchard and Johnson or the How to Become a CEO and How to Become a Great Boss series from Jeffrey J. Fox.  This book is short, easy to read and to the point.  If you already know Gary Vaynerchuk or heard him speak, you can imagine his voice, tone and desire as if he is reading the text to you.  If that doesn’t get you pumped I don’t know what will.

If you are already familiar with many of the social media tools as I am, you won’t get a lot out of those sections of the book.  However, there were 3 things that I really enjoyed the most about this book:

• Learning a little more about Gary’s early years and how he developed his business mind from trading/selling baseball cards all the way up to his current ventures
• Chapter 7, which is about being true to yourself (i.e. Don’t try to be a charismatic video star if that’s not in your DNA – he talks a LOT about DNA) and about the kernel if this whole process: HUSTLE.  If you’re not willing to put in the time, you will fail, guaranteed.  Hell, not convinced?  You can read Chapter 7 for FREE from Gary’s site HERE.
• Ideas on monetizing – Yes, it’s what everyone wants to know, but another key nugget is to be patient grasshopper.  It’s almost the “if you build it, they will come mentality,” but then it’s OK to put the full force on monetization when the time is right.

So, what are you waiting for?  Gary will probably be coming to a town near you on his book tour that is already underway.  Check out his schedule here.  Start cashing in on your passion.

Cheers!