Storm(hoek) in a teacup!
Posted by Rich...! under Uncategorized on March 9 2007 at 8:32 PMI just read a post over at Mike Stopforth’s blog about Stormhoek. Or more specifically, about why they are not a finalist for a blog award.
As it happens coda and I were the panelists for best food blog (which incorporated wine blogs), and I can tell you that the answer is pretty simple. They’re not finalists, because no-one nominated them, not Stormhoek themselves, not Hugh Macleod their patron, and not Mike, who wrote the above post.
The real question then is: why is that?
Graham from Stormhoek asks the same question. I’m thinking that the answer is pretty simple. Stormhoek is not, in my opinion, a great wine blog (others do disagree) – it is however a great blog about Stormhoek (which happens to be a wine). If anything, it should have been a best business blog contender.
The bottom line is this, local bloggers obviously see you as a great wine, and a great brand in general, they just don’t see you as a great blog. Yet.
If it’s any consolation, we’re in the same boat 
The good news is this, you’re blogging to sell wine, not the other way around. To hell with the awards, they’re drinking, and that’s what counts…!
Update: I changed the original name for this post, as given the amount of attention this non-issue(to reiterate, they’re not in ‘cos not one person nominated them in the first place) is getting, it seemed more apt.. Sheesh. I wish people would say what they really felt. Stormhoek is the excuse here.
Here’s more (be sure to scour the comments):
- vincentmaher
- Stii
- Wired Gecko
March 9th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Just to clarify, when you pointed to the 100 Top Wine Blogs rankings as an example of disagreeing with your opinion, I just wanted to let you know, as the author of that, I do not disagree (or agree). As it says on the main ranking page: “…they [the rankings] are general quantitative ratings of popularity and do not measure quality of content or frequency of updates, which can be better determined by visiting The Wine Blogs Tasting Room” (or in this case, the Winery Blogs Updates.
March 10th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Good points. And to be brutaly honest, until yesterday I did not read much on Stormhoek’s blog. I did however subscribe to their feeds. So I guess I’ll be an avid Stormhoek blog supporter from now on.
For the record, I was hooked on the wine from the first taste.
My issue as far as you, Vincent, Charl, Swimgeek Justin and a whole bunch of others that are not on there is partly due to involvement issues and a whole lot due to the nominations had to come off the top of people’s blocks. I personally sat in front of the nominations page 4 times. The forth being the day nominations closed and had to compile a list of nominations there-and-then. There is a whole lot of blogs I forgot, which I remembered later and if I could have I would have submitted them too, but that would then have replaced my first nominations and, quite frankly, I would not have remembered who all I nominated in the first place! (Yeah, I got a mind like a sift.)
As far as the involvement issue goes, Paul from Wired Gecko said it better than what I was trying to:
http://wiredgecko.net/2007/03/the-controversial-2007-sa-blog-awards/
March 11th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Thanks for the links Rich and Stii!
March 16th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I find Stormhoek to be excessively self-promoting. Their marketing dude is an old fart like me and I wonder why they’re pitching the wine at such a young generation, whilst not using someone who looks the part for that generation, to do so? Weird.
In fact, what the hell are they REALLY doing for Geek or other communities other than using a tax deductible ‘promo’ opportunity to punt their vino?
There’s something icky and smarmy about how they do what they do. That’s just a personal perspective.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
The wine is really nice – juicy and full of flavour.
got to hand it to them for breaking the norm in the wine industry – they could have handled their exclusion in a better fashion and indeed turned it into good marketing and PR for themselves.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Yeah Clive, I gotta say, I’m with you on this one…!
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Check out : http://www.colerainewineblog.iblog.co.za
Less comercial , more real .