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A TASTE OF TWITTER

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By JEFF HOUCK

jhouck@tampatrib.com

Published: March 29, 2009

As readers of this column know, I got into blogging on Twitter last year. (My Twitter logon is @TheStew. Creative, I know.)

It's fun to find chefs, home cooks, restaurateurs, cookbook authors and others who are interested in food. It helped that my friends @steamykitchen and @culinarysherpas were on there, too.

The quick-hit nature of Twitter blogging hooked me, especially when I found a site called Twitter Taste Live (TTL), a home for people who like to discuss wine, beer and spirits.

Most interesting was the concept of simultaneous tasting on TTL, in which people who use the site would pre-purchase a particular bottle, sample it at the same time and discuss the attributes online with each other.

It isn't a new concept; Wall Street Journal wine columnists John Brecher and Dorothy J. Gaiter started their annual "Open that Bottle Night," a decade ago, but TTL seemed like an interesting use of the electronic tools at our disposal.

So, I got in touch with TTL partner Craig Drollett, a distributor and co-owner in Boston of Bin Ends wine, a premier off-price fine wine retailer. (The site is www.binendswine.com) Drollett (@binendswine) told me they started TTL as a way of getting a conversation about wine going online.

After the site "exploded" in May (an echo of Twitter's growing popularity), Drollett said he thought, "Hey, we've got something here." They did the first Twitter tasting in July with a Spanish wine importer and have since done between 15 and 20 events online. More than 1,100 Twitter users have registered at TTL.

By November, they re-launched with a redesigned version, but it still needed refining to make the conversation flow more smoothly. The newest version launches on Wednesday and starts to edge away from Twitter with a new Web address, TasteLive.com. (Yes, the old address will still work.) There also will be a marketplace section for users to find links for buying the brands that are discussed.

During the past 30 days, the site had 35,000 page views with visitors staying an average of 10 minutes.

"Our new site is going to create a conversation rather than a stream," said Drollett, whose Twitter handle is @binendswine. "It's an open format, so even if we wanted to stop people from doing it, we couldn't do it anyway. We want as many people to jump on the #ttl hashmark as possible. It's amazing the amount of influence you can have with only a couple hundred people."

ELECTRONIC WINE TASTING

When winemakers want to put on the marketing hard-sell, they fly their wine masters or sales reps across the country to meet with wine writers for private tastings. It's a costly process, with thousands in travel costs and frequent flier miles racked up.

Kendall-Jackson winery is trying something new: electronic "teletastings" over the Internet with Web cams that let the winery introduce their wines through a video teleconference.

I had a chance to do one of the teletastings recently. Kendall-Jackson sent me a Web cam along with their 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, their 2006 Jackson Estates Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Merlot, their 2007 Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay and their 2006 Seco Highlands Pinot Noir.

From the comfort of my home, I went through the tasting notes with winemaster Randy Ullom.

"The tastings are as close as our technology can come to creating the same experience as an in-person sit down," says Mark Osmun, Kendall-Jackson's public relations director.

Along with the cost savings, the company also reduces its ecological impact by using the Web.

"Everyone is so concerned with their greenness and their carbon footprint," Ullom says. "It's helpful from our side and helpful from your side. We're being efficient, and we're helping the environment at the end of the day."

For the record, my favorite of the group was the pinot noir. Aged for 10 months in French oak barrels, the velvety soft Monterey County wine is a steal at $35 a bottle.

DINNER WITH A CROWN

Columbia Restaurant president Richard Gonzmart and his wife, Melanie, have been hobnobbing with Spanish royalty lately. In Feburary, the Gonzmarts attended a dinner with King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain during the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. The dinner was part of the festival's celebration of the wine and foods of Spain.

This month, the Tampa couple dined in New York with Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia as part of a two-day conference aimed at boosting Spanish products, services, brands and companies in the United States.

DINNER ENTIRELY POSSIBLE AGAIN

What's the appropriate period of penance when a celebrity chef is caught fudging a resume? Apparently a year is about right.

In March 2008, "Dinner: Impossible" star Robert Irvine was dumped by the Food Network after the St. Petersburg Times scorched him for claims he made on his resume about cooking for British royalty and prompted him to back out of a restaurant he planned for downtown St. Pete.

He was replaced by Iron Chef Michael Symon, who ably stepped into the role of cooking against incredible odds.

Now, Irvine returns to his former post in the April 8 season premiere when he cooks in Aspen, Colo., for 200 athletes at the Winter X Games.

Public opinion appears to be on his side. An online poll I conducted last year overwhelmingly supported him.

Food Network told me they aren't scheduling interviews with Irvine in advance of this season. Irvine addressed the controversy on his blog, www.chefrobertirvineblog.com, which he started last year as a way of communicating directly with fans. This excerpt from an August post sounded as if Irvine had found a way to survive:

"'Time and tide wait for no man,' to me, is a great way of saying, 'get over yourself and get on with it.' That pretty well describes the frame of mind I find myself in these days, having been through the mill of public opinion in the past few months, gone through the worst of it and come out the other side feeling good, refreshed in a way, definitely a bit wiser for the wear and ready - as always - to keep working and keep the momentum going."

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