Communicating wine
2026 Update
When I first wrote this article, back in 2015, Klout and Kred were important metrics for measuring social presence. They assigned a score to a person’s or brand’s ability to attract attention, generate engagement and exert influence online. Klout shut down in 2018, and Kred is no longer accessible.
In the 2010s, the internet was a much more democratic place, with open spaces for everyone. Interesting content, good conversations and a community were enough to build credibility in your field. Back in 1996, Bill Gates declared that “content is king” [I’m sure he’s had second thoughts about that by now]. People talked about relevance, purpose and useful content. Readers had a great deal of freedom to choose what interested them, and content gained visibility according to those choices.
That world no longer exists. Online visibility is now determined entirely by the algorithms used by platforms, search engines and aggregators. They decide which content gets shown, to whom, how often and in what order. Democracy in the online world has all but disappeared. Content is now almost entirely about entertainment, with the primary — if not sole — aim of monetising the time people spend online.
It’s a huge transformation, and rereading this article today makes it possible to see just how much the way we communicate has changed, how we get heard and, above all, who decides what we get to see and who gets to be seen.
How important is communication in the wine industry today? And what values can wine convey?
I’m honored that Donatella Cinelli Colombini, a producer of excellent wines and a keen observer of the online world, has given me space on her blog (here and here) to talk about the communication work I do online. Over the years, despite the usual fluctuations caused by the different measurement systems used by Klout, Kred and other algorithms, that work pushed my social presence score to some pretty impressive levels.
Beyond the little narcissistic thrill of seeing your score consistently hovering above 70, the most interesting thing about these systems was their ability to measure the engagement generated by the online and offline communication you work on every day. They helped you understand which topics attracted the most interest and which language was the most immediate and effective.
Talking about wine is something I enjoy almost as much as making it. Being able to share, through words, images and everyday conversations, the complex and beautiful world we winegrowers inhabit is a privilege that makes my life stimulating and rewarding. Knowing that the passion I bring to my work as a winemaker is something other people share and appreciate, and that what matters to me can also mean a great deal to people who love and respect wine, gives me the motivation to keep doing better.
Above all, communicating wine isn’t difficult, because wine itself is a great communicator. Wine brings people together. It’s about conviviality and sharing; it carries culture and beauty.
Take wine landscapes, for example. All over Italy, wherever there are vineyards, there’s beautiful countryside, shaped by generations of winegrowers who love and respect the land and make our hillsides, mountain slopes and coastal valleys more beautiful.
And think of the millennia of culture we’ve inherited, intertwined with wine since its earliest Greek and Phoenician roots, passed down to us through centuries of history, art and poetry.
All this, and so much more, is contained in wine.
Picture this: six people who have never met before, perhaps even speaking different languages, sit down around a table. At some point, someone opens a bottle of wine. After a glass, maybe two, they’re already friends.
And that, to me, is the most beautiful thing about wine: friendship.
