If you’re not on Twitter, you may not be aware of the existence of celebration days for some wine-grape varieties.
I am talking about such days as “Chardonnay Day”, “Cabernet Day”, “Grenache Day” etc… a day created to promote and celebrate a specific variety. On such days, those who would like to participate are encouraged to use “hashtags” to mark their tweets, or even Facebook posts. For example: #ChardonnayDay, #CabernetDay… you get the idea.
So what exactly is a varietal celebration day? I hear you ask…
And, who created them? what do you do on such a day? who do I register with to join?
I guess it’s a good idea to talk a little about these varietal celebration days, so when the next one rolls around, we will know what to do, and join in the global fun!
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What is a Varietal Celebration Day (VCD)?
Some one, one day, decided to nominate a completely arbitrary date for all the world (online) to celebrate a particular grape variety. Thus the 1st VCD was born. Something like that, I’m not too sure…
Taking aside who started what when, a VCD has some basic premises:
– 1 nominated day (around the same time each year)
– 1 grape variety (e.g. #ChardonnayDay)
– online participation & offline events
– a hashtag is created & broadcast
– try to generate as much online chatter as possible
2 of the VCDs are created by this wine social-media guru – Rick Bakas, who started this whole concept with #CabernetDay and #ChardonnayDay. A 3rd VCD is #GrenacheDay, created and “hosted” by Grenache Association.
There may have been other VCDs for Pinot Noir, Shiraz, and Riesling, but there is a lack of concrete evidence of an association or organisation running each of these days annually.
How do I participate in these celebration days? Is it free?
Participation in VCDs can be online or offline, free or paid.
Leading up to the celebration days, there will be online chatter about events that will be taking place. These celebrations primarily use Twitter as platform, thus the existence of the hashtags. There will also be events held at wineries, wine bars/restaurants etc.. some of which would require entrance fees. Participants, both online and offline, are encouraged to use the appropriate hashtags, to increase the social media foot-print.
As a wine-lover, one can easily join in these celebration days, simply by opening a bottle of wine of said variety, enjoy it, take a photo of the wine, post on Twitter, and add a hashtag. Easily done.
Or, one can get together a group of friends to do the above. It can actually be a rather fun exercise.
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Hopefully, with this short post, you have gain some understanding as to what these varietal celebration days are, and perhaps can join us online when the next one comes around.
On top of using the appropriate hashtags, please also tag your posts with #SgWine (on Twitter or Facebook), and EnjoyWine.sg will RT your tweets too!
Cheers~!
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