The online wine show that I co-host and produce was recently featured in an article in the Winston-Salem Journal. Michael Hastings, Journal Food Editor, interviewed Kipp and me separately and wrote the following article. Here’s a link to article, but I have also reproduced it below if that link ever breaks. It was a great article, and people who read the piece went to our site to check out our show.

Web site is fresh way to discover N.C. wines
Let’s say you’re interested in learning about North Carolina wine.

You could start spending your weekends touring area wineries.

You could even go to the supermarket or a wine store and pick up a bottle at random.

Or you could log on to www.northcarolinawine.tv and learn about the wines vicariously from two curious Raleigh residents.

Kipp Bodnar and Jeff Cohen started www.northcarolinawine.tv in May. The Web site now has more than 30 videos of the two men trying North Carolina wines: swirling, sipping, tasting and giving their opinions.

Bodnar and Cohen both work in social-media marketing. They help companies get hip to Twitter, Facebook and other new media forms to help them market their products.

Division of labor

“I was thinking one day, ‘I have wine from California and Washington. But I know nothing about wine from North Carolina,’” Bodnar said.

“We just said, ‘Why don’t we try out the wine — and video ourselves while we’re doing it.’”

“I thought it sounded like a great idea,” Cohen said. “We could do a video and people could learn with us.”

Cohen, 44, is a film buff and is handy with a video camera. Bodnar is a self-professed foodie.

“Kipp is the wine guy,” Cohen said. “He is much more focused on the flavors and on describing the wine. And in the show, I’m trying to find what he’s describing.”

Cohen said he has always been interested in wine but didn’t really know that much about it. So in the videos, he’s the novice drinker who’s learning just like the people watching the videos.

Bodnar, 27, said he has been influenced by Gary Vaynerchuk’s popular www.tv.winelibrary.com as well as other podcasts. “I’ve watched his show for a long time. This is a niche that you can’t get on TV,” he said.

Having a lot of fun

Bodnar and Cohen try to post four videos a week. Every Tuesday and Thursday they post a video review. On Wednesdays, they post some kind of video tip. On Fridays, they retaste a reviewed wine with a particular food.

So far, they have posted more than 30 reviews. They are also using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to share their findings.

For a review, sometimes they visit a winery. But generally, they just buy a bottle.

One thing they never do is taste the wine before they hit the record button. “When you see us on camera, that’s the first time we’re tasting the wine,” Bodnar said. “This is about as honest and authentic as you can get.”

They will rate the wine from one to five bottles, with five being the best. They gave five bottles to the Skull Camp Confusion, a new second-label rose from Round Peak Vineyards near Mount Airy, and to Vermentino from Raffaldini Vineyards. They gave only one and half bottles to such wines as Raylen Vineyards 2005 Carolinius and Westbend Vineyards 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon.

When they do visit a winery, they shoot their videos on site. Bodnar said that wineries have been nice about leaving them alone to shoot the reviews.

“We go in with the understanding that we’re going to give our honest opinions,” Bodnar said.

He mentioned that when they picked up a bottle of Duplin wine at the store and tried it, they hated it. And they posted a negative review on their site. “But what happened after that was the owner wanted us to come to the winery,” Bodnar said. “We went and had a good time, and when we were ready to shoot, the owner just walked away.”

Neither of them has ties to the wine industry. The site is just a hobby.

“I spend a lot of time doing things that are serious and intense,” Cohen said. “This is a great way to spend time doing something really fun. And we are having so much fun. We’re never going to run out of videos because the goal is to try every bottle of wine made in North Carolina.”

Brian Long is the Director of Public Affairs for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. He talked about the challenges of implementing social media in a state-run agency. The department blog that he referred to is info.ncagr.com/blog. There are lots of links on the side to other social media initiatives of the department.

You need to be open to your ideas as they come to you, because you don’t know which ones are great and which ones aren’t until you run with them. During the course of a Twitter conversation, I came up with an idea for a North Carolina Barbecue Camp.

The idea struck me based on the words we were using and how they were ordered. I immediately registered a domain name, ncbbqcamp.com, and a TwitterID, @NCBBQCamp. This could be my next great idea.

Six Plates Wine Bar in Durham NC has been successfully using Twitter to increase business in their establishment. I chatted with Matthew Beason, one of the owners, about Social Media and connecting with their local patrons.

The concept of Six Plates involves a constantly changing menu of “six small plates” paired with wine. They have found Twitter to be an excellent way to let their customers know about today’s menu and specials. Follow them at @sixplates on Twitter.

If you stop by, make sure you say hi to Matthew and use the hashtag #sixplates while tweeting about the wine, food, service, atmosphere, or whatever else strikes you while dining.

Brian Russell started a coworking business, Carrboro Creative Coworking, last year in Carrboro, North Carolina. He has expanded on the open source model of shared work space to serve the community, while creating a sustainable business model.

Check out his site for information about coworking rates, local events and special for the month of May. Follow him on Twitter at @brianr and @carrborocowork. And he and his wife have a new baby son, so ask him to see pictures.

I recently sat down with Karlie Justus, a PR/social media officer with the NC State Fair and NC Department of Agriculture and we talked about her integrated social media campaign for the 2008 State Fair.

The goal for the campaign was to connect and engage with potential fairgoers. She spoke with me after her presentation at the March Social Media Breakfast Raleigh. Follow her on twitter at @KarlieJ and @NCStateFair.