Stephen Gilberg sipped a glass of wine in the renowned Napa Valley and Twitter users around the US swished, savoured and swallowed along with him. By the time he was done sampling the vintages and varietals at a Wine Industry Technology Symposium soiree on Tuesday, his startup ‘WineTwits’ led the list of trending topics on micro-blogging site, Twitter.
“We’ve got hundreds of people across the country joining in on this tasting. They are in homes or restaurants with these wines in front of them talking, tasting, and tweeting,” Gilberg said, adding, “It’s fun to watch as the night goes on, the tweets get racier and racier”.
The “virtual tasting network” has held more than 150 events and has gained 75,000 followers on Twitter since its debut ‘Spit and Twit’ gathering in November of 2009.
The WineTwits platform was built to organise Twitter conversations around wine. Its website is designed to make it easy for people to comment on and rate wines, as well as find deals on bottles of wine.