Various Goings On in the World Wine Web

The fluidity of the world wide web is only surpassed, perhaps, by that of wine. OK, I’m reaching, here. It just sounded good.

Yet, there is something true to that idea. Things can move fast, and in sometimes suprising ways, on the Web.

For instance, thanks to a timely Tweet from Tim at Winecast, I found out that Amazon is supposed to add wine to its expanding catalogue of goods within weeks. We’ve come a long way from the world’s largest online bookstore.

Tim points out that, interestingly enough,

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Are you open? I’m open

Through discussions with Doug Cook, the creator of AbleGrape, the only search engine devoted to the world of wine (more on that great project later), I’ve come to know a fast-growing community of wine people called the OpenWine Consortium. It’s at the junction between industry forums, wine blogs and something like Facebook, with friends and groups and all.

Lots of good information rolling around the site, from links to the European Wine Blogger Conference 2008, to very interesting discussions of wine issues and wine terms, like “rustic“, an adjective that can be read as positive or negative, and which was very interestingly commented on by a number of OWC members. Me, I’ve always read it as a positive, and associated it to sangiovese wines, especially chianti.

Where is the consortium heading? Hard to tell, as the membership is growing so fast. The way it balances out between wineries, bloggers, wine-related companies and, well, everything else, has not reached maturity yet. Only time will tell if it’s like a good wine, and will get better with age.