No More Predictions – Top 10 Things that WON’T Happen in the Online Wine World in 2009

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I’m sick of it! Amateur prognosticators trying to tell us what trends to look for in 2009 when it comes to wine, the internet and social media. In then end, almost everyone starts out, “Well, last year I had almost none of my predictions come true, but I’ll try again…” Do us a favor, and don’t. That said, I can tell you one thing: what won’t happen this year! Or rather, I’ll place odds of 10 to 1 on any of the following items actually occurring.

  1. Seeing that we’re here in Spain, I can guarantee that Spanish wineries will not move away from FLASH web design in favor of something useful, practical or functional. They will not understand that simple actually functions, while crap ass video intros do nothing to actually communicate a message. Oh wait, the more I think about it, I think this might be able to be extended to most wineries around the globe.
  2. Alice Feiring and Robert Parker will not kiss and make up. Alice will continue to question any and every wine she tastes, becoming suspicious at any indication that the wine is not obscure enough that no one could possibly find it in a wine shop whose volume is large enough to keep itself in business. While Robert Parker will not admit that he has any effect on wine sales, and will continue to attempt to find new adjectives to describe the latest “Vintage of the Century, Millenia, last 10,000 years”, which we will see occur even more often as global warming eventually allows us to make wine in Antarctica.
  3. Tom Wark will not realize that there is a wine industry outside the USA. His American wine blog awards will continue to be for Americans only, and he won’t realize that there are educated people who speak other languages who could help him in judging wine blogs in foreign tongues. The tower of babbel is no more.
  4. Wine-ing 2.0 will not pull their heads out of their rears long enough to figure out they are NOT FUNNY. Wineblogs may have a lot to learn, but wine blog humor has even more to figure out!
  5. The Cellar management wars will not end, nor will we know anything new about a potential winner, other than that Cellar tracker has the most notes, Snooth is the slickest design, Vinfolio is the snobbiest, and Adegga is bootstrapping their way to someplace.
  6. Wine Bloggers will still not realize that it might be good to take advertising from wineries. Seriously, they want to pay you, but you think that you are too “ethical” to take the money. Wake up! There will not be another Robert Parker and subscription models don’t work unless your Jancis. There needs to be a model for the wine industry to advertise on the fastest growing wine media channel, let’s figure it out for them, I know I could use the money.
  7. Average wine consumers will not become technologically advanced, and will not bother taking time to “figure it out”, whatever “it” is. Wine is still largely sold to people who like to drink it, and not people who like to talk about it. All the fancy tech tools we want to create will not change this fact. Integrate wine into potential clients lives, don’t ask them to change their lives to understand your wine.
  8. Wine will not remain the same as it has always been. Things change, wines change, they have changed ever since time began. Deal with it. Styles will change, regions will change, popular varietals will change. They always have, go out and explore the changes, don’t get hung up whining about what used to be, go find out what is yet to come.
  9. Wine bloggers will not go away. I know many wineries and editorial boards may want them too, but they won’t. Accept and move on. Embrace them and move on. Welcome them and move on. Just know they are here to stay.
  10. This ones for you – What won’t happen in 2010? Leave it in the comments.

Cheers,

Ryan

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