Tag Archives: Simon Back

Blog with passion, Food & Wine Bloggers advised

Food and wine bloggers should blog with passion, they were told by both wine blogger Dusan Jelic and food blogger Linda Harding, who addressed the first meeting of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club of 2011 and which was held at Pigalle Restaurant.   It was the largest attendance in the nine-month history of the Bloggers’ Club, and representatives of food and wine PR companies, food bloggers, wine bloggers, wine estates, and even the author of “Pinotage’, the only book written about this wine variety, UK-based Peter May, attended.

Dusan Jelic introduced the bloggers to wines he had brought along from Wederwill (12°C  and 17°C) and Avontuur (Vintner’s Blend Rosé and their Brut).    Dusan started working as the Social  Networking and Media Manager of wine.co.za in May last year, and he embraces Facebook, blogging and Twitter for the company, spending about 9,5 hours daily with social media.  His company’s website is the most comprehensive data base of wine information in South Africa, it was said.   He gave bloggers the following tips:

1.  Always be honest in what you say and write. One’s “reputation is priceless”, he said.

2.   Wine education is important, and should be constantly improved.  Dusan praised the Cape Wine Academy, as being a top-class institution, and its courses at three levels.  He himself is currently studying for his Diploma.  

3.   Dusan advised social media users to ‘don’t drink and Tweet’.  He warned that it “reveals deep fears and thoughts”, and gives away more about oneself than one would have wanted to.

4.   Have integrity, because you will be found out.  Dusan quoted winemaker Abrie Bruwer of Springfield, who has not released one of his 1999 wines, because it is not ready yet.  It could have been launched and earn revenue, but the brand would have suffered.  One cannot fake passion and work ethic, Dusan said.

5.   Trust your palate – Dusan explained about the different wine evaluation methods used, including the Decanter score out of 100, and the South African score out of 20.  Platter uses stars.   He said one should respect those wine drinkers who are able to express what they can smell and taste in a wine.   As one develops one skills, one will be able to smell and taste specific fruits.  Dusan advised one to be relaxed when tasting a wine:  “wine is a living thing”, he said, and advised that it was acceptable to ‘slurp’ one’s wine when tasting it, to bring in air.

6.   Do not be a freeloader.  Freebies must be acknowledged in blogging.  Give the sponsored brand credit, but also point out its weaknesses, if relevant.

7.  Do not write monotonously, approach an evaluation positively, and present the aspects which need to be improved.

8.   However, in contrast, Dusan said that one should not be a “people pleaser” in one’s blogging, as one would not have credibility.

Dusan was asked which wine blogs he reads regularly, and his list includes Simon Back from Backsberg, and Emile Joubert from Wine Goggle, both previous speakers at Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meetings.   He said that wine tasting was the beginning, but the ultimate was the pairing of wine and food.

Linda Harding is a bubbly blogger, who only started her blog Squashed Tomato, based on the title of a book she read as a child, in May last year.  She is an intern for Eat In and Eat Out, and works in tasting rooms too.  She described herself, highlighting that it is important to read other bloggers’ blogs, to get to know them and their personality, and that will determine who one will follow on Twitter and whose blogs one will read, she said.  Linda is a Sagittarian, and her star sign defines who she is.  She describes herself as a “flexitarian” as far as her eating goes, eating anything, especially seafood, but she once was a vegetarian!   Linda only started cooking four years ago, and blogs about her recipes, which are quick and easy to do and do not need expensive ingredients.    She started off using her cellphone camera, and has ‘progressed’ to a “mik en druk”, she laughed. 

From input gleaned from other food bloggers, Linda presented a list of food trends for 2011:

1.  Food markets are increasingly the source of purchase, away from supermarkets

2.   Eating out will increasingly be for lunch on weekends

3.  Fruit-based desserts will become increasingly popular

4.  Restaurants serving all-day breakfasts are on trend

5.   Meat will increasingly be bought from butchers who have personal relationships with the farmers that supply their meat

6.  Serving tapas in restaurants is a strong trend

7.   Good value for money quality offers will be a success formula for restaurants.

8.   Meat-free Mondays will grow in support

9.   Artisan bakers will receive increasing support

10.  Greater awareness of food origin and reading of pack labels.

Linda sees Twitter as an important networking tool, and it reflects what one is passionate about.  To be re-tweeted by Spit & Swallow, with their more than 6000 followers, is first prize, she said.   Linda advised bloggers to ‘write for what you want, for what you enjoy, and not for what you think others want’.   She also advised one to read other blogs regularly, and to evaluate their layout and photographs.  To build relationships and to receive support and traffic, bloggers must give by commenting on others’ blogposts.   One should use one’s own photographs, where possible.   Images are vital, as ‘one eats with one’s eyes’.  Spelling mistakes are unforgivable, especially as most blog platforms have a spellchecker.   One should become a real person on Twitter, sharing not just business information (such as a new blog post), but allow one’s personal side to come through as well, she advised.   Keeping awareness on Twitter throughout the day is vital, due to the volume of Tweets one is exposed to, but she advised against retweeting one’s blog link more than once a day.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to allow food and wine bloggers to meet other more established bloggers, to learn from them but also to network with them.  There is no formal blogging course, and the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club assists in growing the body of knowledge about blogging, through the sharing of information.   It also is an opportunity to taste good wines, and to sample good restaurant food.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Social media grows and evolves, constant challenge for food/wine bloggers

From being one of a handful wine estates using social media two years ago, Backsberg is now one of about 300 (around 50 %) of wine estates who do so.  This places pressure on all wine estates to constantly reevaluate their social media strategy, to remain ahead as well as relevant to one’s followers and friends, said Simon Back, Marketing Manager of Backsberg.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club last night met at Rainbow Experience in Mandela Rhodes Place, which will be the venue for the Cape Town Show supper club, which opens on 5 November as a musical and food showcase, including Cape Jazz, Goemma, Kaapse Klopse, Township jive, Kwela and Mpantsula on the music side.   The bloggers attending were spoilt with a taste of the menu that will be served with the Show: African Hummus and Cape Snoek pate served with Lavache as starters; Lentil cottage pie, Dukkah Crusted Beef fillet and traditional Cape chicken curry as main courses; and desserts were Malay koeksisters, Dutch melktert and a traditional chocolate brownie.  

Simon first became interested in social media when he read the Stormhoek case study initiated by marketer Chris Rawlinson, the wine having been marketed purely by means of blogging, long before most winemakers had even heard the word.  From early beginnings Simon’s blog readers grew to include regular readers.  He switched from Blogger to WordPress, finding it driving more traffic to the Backsberg website.  As the blog readership grew, Simon realised that he had to make a commitment to write regularly, and he advised new bloggers to not commit to blogging if they cannot keep up with the regular commitment, and to rather Tweet or Facebook.   Simon had to find his focus in writing the Backsberg blog, choosing specifically to write about his family farm Backsberg, and wine in general in South Africa.   Twitter and Facebook have grown tremendously in importance, and Simon says that the 900 or so Facebook friends are worth more to him than hitting thousands of ‘uncommited’ readers via an advertisement.   Simon writes from a personal Twitter account (@SimonBack) and a colleague writes from the @Backsberg Twitter account, to keep content fresh and unduplicated.  A monthly newsletter is sent to members of the Backsberg Wine Club, and the Facebook and Twitter presence of Backsberg is aimed at increasing the number of members.   Simon shared with the bloggers that he was shocked to hear recently that newsletters are dead as a form of communication, because they contain too much information, and do not appeal to readers whose attention span is reducing due to information overload.  Simon foresees an application like 4Square becoming more important, with incentives being offered linked to one’s brand.  Simon has been recognised as one of the most social media savvy wine marketers, and represented South Africa at a Prowein conference in Germany on social media earlier this year. 

Backsberg is synonymous with environmental care and reducing its carbon footprint.  Backsberg was the third carbon neutral wine estate in the world, and the first in South Africa, a pioneer in this important eco-orientated wine production. It is the first South African wine company to bottle its wines in plastic bottles under the Tread Lightly brand, a further environmental-concern action by Backsberg.  The Food and Wine Bloggers were spoilt with Backsberg Sauvignon Blanc 2010 and the Merlot.   Simon’s talk was so successful, various aspects of it having been tweeted by the Food & Wine Bloggers during the meeting, that “Simon Back” became a “breaking” trending topic about three hours after the meeting.

Tom Robbins only recently started his eatcapetown Blog, focusing purely on Restaurant Reviews.  He has been a journalist at Business Report, and has written about most things other than food in this capacity.  He is a freelance journalist writer and “hobby” reviewer, he says.  He is interested in the anthropology of food, and regularly reads international restaurant reviewers’ reviews.   His policy is to be fair and objective, and he likes to tell the story, making his reviews longer.  He likes to discuss the type of clients he sees in the restaurant, its interior and exterior look, including the type of cars parked outside, and does not focus on the food alone.  

Tom calls for independence from bloggers, and asks that they declare the free meals and wines reviewed.   Tom feels that free gifts make one loose objectivity.  Yet, he says, one can argue that an invitation may give one access to a chef, and a chat to him/her may give one interesting insights into the restaurant and its food, which could add to one’s review.  He prefers anonymity, and therefore uses an illustration of himself on his blog so that he is not recognised when he enters a restaurant.   He does not ask many questions, hoping to experience as average a meal as possible.  Tom quoted the example of Jancis Robinson, who refers to www.wine-searcher.com in her reviews, and discloses in them that she receives a fee for her referrals.  Guaranteeing editorial coverage for advertising placed in a wine magazine, for example, has no credibility for the reader, when they spot the advertisement a few pages along.  “I believe disclosure indicates respect for readers” he said.  Disclosure of freebies is currently being debated in the USA and is likely to be legislated.   It is already included the American Bloggers’ code of conduct.   A question from a blogger about why chefs ands restaurants take reviews so badly was debated, and it was felt that chefs are known to have enormous egos, and that they are ecstatic when the review is good, and tend to ban patrons when it is critical.  Tom said this is ‘human nature’, and probably most people would react this way.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to reflect the tremendous growth in and power of food and wine blogs in forming opinion about food, restaurants and wines.  Most bloggers do not have any formal training in blogging, and learnt from others.   Each of the two bloggers talk for about half an hour about their blog, and what they have learnt about blogging.  The Club gives fledgling as well as experienced bloggers the opportunity to learn from each other and to share their knowledge with others.  Attendees can ask questions, and get to know fellow bloggers.  The Club meetings are informal and fun.

The next meeting of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club is on Wednesday 24 November, from 6 – 8 pm, at the Grand Daddy Hotel in Long Street.  Food blogger Mariska Hendricks from The Creative Pot Blog and Emile Joubert from the Wine Goggle Blog will be ‘paired’.  Contact Chris at info@whalecottage.com to book.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter @WhaleCottage

Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club: ‘pairing’ Simon Back from Backsberg Blog with Tom Robbins of eatcapetown Blog

The sixth Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting takes place on Wednesday 20 October, from 6 – 8 pm, at the Rainbow Room at Mandela Rhodes Place, and will pair Tom Robbins from eatcapetown Blog, a restaurant review blog, and Simon Back, from Backsberg Blog. 

Tom Robbins  was born on a dairy farm in Karkloof in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.  Tom hot-footed to live in cities as soon as he was old enough, though has never lost his rural roots.  He has spent most of his career working as a journalist with one disastrous exception when he opened a café-bar in Pietermaritzburg in 1999.  Tom’s career in journalism has spanned most beats from politics and the courts to travel and engineering.  Most recently he worked as a financial journalist, covering the retail and consumer goods sectors for Business Report.  A year ago Tom established the restaurant review website eatcapetown and continues to do odd jobs as a financial journalist.  He has no formal training in cooking: he is a writer who enjoys cooking rather than a cook who enjoys cooking.  Tom’s current addiction is roasting (both pot roasting and open roasting).  What he knows about wine is dangerous, he says!   Tom will be talking about restaurant reviewing, often a contentious topic, and will discuss review writing styles.   He will also address the difference between PR and journalism in respect of blogging, and how this affects disclosure of gifts/freebies received. 

Simon Back  has a Business Science degree, majoring in Economics, from UCT.  He joined Backsberg, the family farm, in 2008.  He is responsible for all aspects of marketing, and sales to North America.  Backsberg is well-known for its environmentally-friendly approach to wine farming, being very focused on its carbon footprint, and how to neutralise it.  The wine estate recently launched the first South African wines in plastic bottles, under the Tread Lightly sub-brand.  Simon is particularly interested in the role of Social Media in the Marketing Mix. He was invited to represent South Africa in Germany earlier this year, as part of a panel at Prowein 2010 on ‘Social Media and other Marketing Innovations’.  Simon will be talking about the future of blogging and social media.  He will challenge bloggers in asking them to consider how blog readers will change over time, and how their blogs need to evolve to reflect these changes. He is looking to stimulate debate on the future of blogging and social media.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to reflect the tremendous growth in and power of food and wine blogs in forming opinion about food, restaurants and wines.  Most bloggers do not have any formal training in blogging, and learnt from others.   Each of the two bloggers will talk for about half an hour about their blog, and what they have learnt about blogging.  The Club will give fledgling as well as experienced bloggers the opportunity to learn from each other and to share their knowledge with others.  Attendees can ask questions, and get to know fellow bloggers.  The Club meetings are informal and fun.

Wines are brought along by the wine blogging speaker, and Simon Back will introduce the Backsberg wines served.  Snacks will be served.  The cost of attendance is R100.  Bookings can be made by e-mailing info@whalecottage.com.

Venue: Rainbow Room, Mandela Rhodes Place (next to Taj Hotel), Wale Street.

Other bloggers that will be talking at future Bloggers’ Club meetings are the following:

Wednesday 24 November:  Marisa Hendricks of The Creative Pot Blog, and Emile Joubert of Wine Goggle Blog, at the Grand Daddy Hotel, 6 – 8 pm.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.comTwitter: @WhaleCottage

Bloggers should not blog about themselves, bloggers told!

The fifth Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting was a lively one, held at the Salt Vodka Bar, with a most entertaining Dax Villanueva of Relax-with-Dax blog, and a most informative Hein Koegelenberg of La Motte, writing the Hein on Wine blog, sharing their views on the importance of social media marketing.   In talking about blog content, Hein advised bloggers to not write about themselves, but to focus on their blog topics instead. 

Hein introduced the La Motte Sauvignon Blanc, and Shiraz Viognier from the Pierneef Collection, and his role at La Motte over the past eleven years.  In winemaking, he said distribution and the intellectual property of the brand are key.  The goal of La Motte is to focus on making excellent Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz wines, and wants the brand to be one of the Top 10 South African wine brands.   The estate created a vision to meet this goal, called La Motte Redefined, which consisted of a number of elements, all working in unison to create a WOW La Motte experience: a new Tasting Room, which has a combination of wood, brickwork and glass to make it more welcoming and less intimidating; a restaurant striving to be of a top 50 international restaurant standard, focusing on traditional South African food, with a demonstration kitchen and TV cooking; to offer a “plaaswinkel”, which sells items no other farm shop does, including five styles of breads, one of them even including 2 % shiraz;  to establish a gallery to present the collection of 44 Pierneef artworks which they bought from Pierneef’s daughter and brought back to South Africa from the UK; a museum in honour of Dr Anton Rupert; and to honour his wife Hanli’s musical career in a second gallery. 

Hein recognises that social media marketing is the new marketing platform, and he started blogging just over a year ago.  He realised that the world faces information overload, with no one having the time to go beyond the first page of Google when doing a search.  This is why one must use blogs and Twitter to package one’s information in a way that meets the target market’s need.  In the past the wine industry was at the mercy of the evaluation by Parker and Platter – now winemakers can talk to their market, explain the making of the wines and proactively provide information which empowers wine drinkers to drink their wines with greater knowledge about the brand and the particular variety.  Hein says that we are still not using blogging to its fullest extent, and over time many blogs will fall away, and new ones will commence.   He sees the decline of You Tube and videos, due to the time it takes to download them, and the increase in the use of Twitter.  La Motte publishes a new blog post every 2 -3 days, and tweets 2 -3 times per day.  Hein says that if one sets a frequency of communication, one must stick to this, as one’s readers expect it as one does a newspaper, because it becomes a habit for the reader.   This was mentioned by Dax too.   The Cape Winelands Cuisine, which is the focus of Pierneef Ã  La Motte, will be brought into the blog in future.  

Hein follows the late Dr Rupert’s communication mantra: simple, sincere and repetitive.   This applies to social media too.   Hein recognises the power of the Chinese market, and La Motte has made R 8 million in sales in its first year.  Hein is now learning Mandarin, commendable for a very busy wine businessperson.   La Motte wines sold 2800 cases 11 years ago – this has grown to 100 000 cases sold in 40 countries, whilst the economy brand Leopard’s Leap sells 600 000 cases annually.   The distribution company Meridian Wines, founded by Hein too, delivers wines from 28 cellars to restaurants in temperature-controlled vehicles.    The fellow Twitterers smiled in understanding when Hein said that he ends his day and starts the next with his iPhone, to read what has happened in the world.  It is the most time-efficient way for him to stay in touch, he said.

Hein’s talk was followed by a presentation and tasting of the first South African vodka, called Primitiv, made in Wellington by Jorgensen’s Distillery.    It is handcrafted, using artisanal methods, from barley and spelt, giving the vodka its unusual taste of peppery spice, floral and anise touches over a creamy grain base, with a masculine finish.

Dax impressed with his natural talent of speaking about a topic that is clearly close to his heart, and included tap dancing and being really funny, a side to him that he does not often reveal.  Dax said that the frequency of blogging will influence the quality of one’s posts, and therefore the traffic to one’s blog.   He advised that one’s blogging frequency should stay the same, to meet the readers’ need for consistency.   In terms of content, he advised that one pace oneself, and not write all one’s content on one day, to ensure that one’s audience comes back.  Writing comments on other bloggers’ blogs is important, he said, as it shows collegiality, and helps build traffic.  The timing of one’s Tweets is important too, and should be when one’s followers are on Twitter.  Little reading of Tweets is done at night, so tweeting then is wasteful.  Hootsuite, and similar scheduling tools, allows Dax to pre-schedule 4 – 5 Tweets per day, at intervals of one hour.  He advises Tweeting between 9h00 – 15h00.  

Dax writes about food and wine, events in Cape Town, green issues, artisanal beers and the Cape Town lifestyle.  He has been blogging for 7 years already, one of the pioneers.  His blog evolved from a newsletter he created, sharing with others what wonderful things he had discovered in Cape Town, after moving here from PE, via Durban.   Helping provide advice to others about where to celebrate a special event makes Dax feel good, he says.   The 2010 SA Blog Awards, and its poor organisation this year compared to 2009, was discussed.  In the main the comments, also from the bloggers present, were disparaging, and Dax concluded that the SA Blog Awards has devalued blogging due to the controversy associated with it, even though it was meant to achieve the opposite.  

The next meeting of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club is on Wednesday 20 October , from 6 – 8 pm, at the Rainbow Room in Mandela Rhodes Place.  Simon Back from Backsberg will introduce his wines and the use of social media in making his family wine estate one of the most environmentally-friendly in the country, and Tom Robbins from Eat Cape Town will talk about Restaurant Reviewing and Blogger Ethics.  Contact Chris at info@whalecottage.com to book.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com