The idea for the #PinotNoir Twitter smackdown was hatched over wine and wings in my basement with Joe (@SuburbanWino)  and was later fleshed out further over crawfish and shrimp at the Crawfish Shack on Buford highway.  There’s just something about filling our gullets with food that really gets the creative juices flowing.  Throughout the entire process a lot of jokes were made and many more fun and crazy ideas were discussed.  Of course, we needed a west coast correspondent so we brought in Tamara (@SipWithMe) who was fantastic in moving things forward from her Oregon HQ.  In the end, the Pinot Noir Twitter tasting created a buzz we could not have fathomed and we could not be more happy with the turnout.  Thanks to everyone who participated or followed along.  Without further ado:

Winner of the 2010 #Pinot Noir Twitter Smackdown:  

#WV (Willamette Valley)

Play-by-Play Summary:

• We saw a serious flurry of blows thrown immediately out of the gate as #WV (Willamette Valley) took the early lead and really never looked back
• #NZ (New Zealand) was hanging tough though in a distant second place followed by #GV (Green Valley) after the first 40 minutes of the night
• By the halfway point, however, #RR (Russian River Valley) had swooped into 3rd place followed by #GV and #SLH (Santa Lucia Highlands).  No doubt, the Belle Glos Las Alturas and Hahn submissions were behind the quick rise of Santa Lucia Highlands in the rankings
• #CN (Los Carneros) started making a late surge with 30 minutes to go, but couldn’t muster enough flying elbows to gain any glory
• #RR and #GV were gunning neck and neck for 3rd place — in hind sight, if the regions were aggregated, could #RR have provided more of a challenge to #WV?  No, not really.  #WV stole the show.

Event Stats:

• Total tweets during the 2-hour event:   2,073
• Total unique tweeters during the event: 323
• Tweets per minute: 17.3
• Tweets including a #hashtag region vote: 873 or 42.1%
• Several event sites, including ours, are reporting significant sales generated at the event – would like hear other results if you hosted an event or promoted a special offer as part of the event
• [UPDATED] 2,224 pageviews of the pinotnoir.eventbrite.com invitation

Top 8 Results during Event:

________________________________________________________

July 1 – July 15 #PinotNoir Stats: (incl. 2-hour event)

• Total tweets:   4,145
• Total unique tweeters during the period: 677
• Tweets including a #hashtag region mention: 1,461 or 35.2%

Top 8 Results during July 1 – July 15:

Notables:

• Mentions for #ARG, #FLX and #CdN were great to see and generated some interest from many on the stream
• Others include #Bacon, #Pinotentendre and #wewantthefunk

MANY THANKS TO:

Joe Herrig – SuburbanWino.com

Tamara Belgard – SipWithMe.com

Andrea Robinson – AndreaWine.com

Tower Beer Wine Spirits   

Paul’s Restaurant  

And most importantly  YOU  the participants, the pinotphiles, the wineries and the winemakers.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts and drinking along.

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!