Well the title basically says it all.
On Friday last week I was privileged enough to be invited on a Social media wine tour experiment, the goal, to test out the social influence of 1 days worth of tweets, posts, and pics while experiencing a day of wine tasting in Naramata.
The Formula:
Social Media + Fun + wine = damn good wine tour
2008 Merlot from Township 7
Hypothesis:
We did not know what to expect on this crazy journey, suffice to say, worst case scenario we would end up w/ some wine in our bellies, and a good story. Luckily, this was not the case.
Procedure:
- Get on the Top Cat Tours tour-bus.
- Arrive at first destination.
- Tweet about destination.
- Sip wine.
- Spit(yes!)
- Tweet about the wine while taking pictures of winery and scenery.
- Have Fun. Repeat w/ 4 other wineries, stopping for lunch at a restaurant of your choice(Theos for us).
Observations:
Cane pruning of the Gewurztraminer
Right from the start, I knew we were in good hands. We met at the Township 7 Winery bright and early, greeted by @bradinator Brad Cooper. As we journeyed out into the vineyard, pairs of pruners and a set of glassware in hand. After a brief talk on cane and spur pruning we dug into the vines… After a few minutes of snipping, we took a break for the 2008 Merlot tasting supplied to us. It brought me right back to last year w/ Episode 1 of Grape Generation where we first tried the 2007 Merlot.
Pinot Gris and a view
Next to Poplar Grove Tasting room. I am very familiar w/ the Poplar Grove wines as of last year, so I have been anxiously awaiting this years releases. I have managed to nurse my supply of their Syrah, and I am down to only one 08 Merlot. We spent about an hour just walking around enjoying the spring scenery, and sipping our 06 Legacy.
Beef Souvlaki from Theos in Penticton
On to Theos! Everyone was thinking eat squid as we stepped through the breach into Greece in Penticton. For anyone who doesn’t know Thoes(don’t know how but hey there are big rocks out there), its one of the best Greek food restaurants in Canada, if not the world. Located on Main st. in Penticton, Theos Restaurant has been a staple in this community for many years. We all enjoyed a great lunch, I had the Beef Souvlaki which is one of my favorites from my travels in Greece. Everyone else enjoyed the seafood special which I will admit looked amazing, I just wanted beef.
Vineyard Panorama from Therapy Vineyards
Next for a bit of wine psychology w/ Therapy Vineyards. A refreshing change, after being greeted by Winemaker Steve we all walked glass in hand to the tank room! On a side note I wanted to comment on the awesome rock star poster column in wine making area. We moved on to some great tank tastings. Not really knowing the final product was very cool, my favorite being the small batch Riesling/Kerner tank. Thank you Steve for the glimpse of Therapy 2012.
The newly released Hillside Muscat Ottonel
Our last stop of the day was to Hillside Estate Winery for a taste of a few of this years releases. They’ve got a new line of self-produced food products, lots of great dippers and snacks to pair with the wines! We ended things off with a taste of the 2011 Muscan Ottonel, one of my personal favorites, and I gather from everyone else on tour, one of theirs.
Results:
We all agreed afterwards that the day had been a success. Myself personally I was very happy w/ the results of my tweets. I received a lot of likes and some comments back on my instagram pictures during our journey, we found tweets w/ pictures had a lot better chance for re-tweet or @reply back. Later that night @bradinator sent us the tweetreach stats on our #naramatawinetour, a whopping 9000+ people were reached through our tweets. Overall we all felt the tour was a great success.
Our Tweetreach stats for #naramatawinetour(last 50 tweets)
More Pictures:
My Flickr Page for the day
Top Cat Tours Flickr Feed
