After a very interesting week, Kaz and Randy play host to Tim Elliott of Winecast and Tom Wark of Fermentation, as they summarize and nail the coffin shut on the “Rockaway Seven“, a group of wine bloggers who received trade samples of Rodney Strong‘s new allocated brand Rockaway before the mainstream wine media by agreeing to post some kind of blog entry (wine review or other piece about the wine or the bloggers getting early samples) by a given deadline, and got burned by Steve Heimoff and Tom separately for the alleged strings attached to the reception of the wine samples. Despite the firestorm that resulted, with everyone’s participation, the parties work through the rough spots and uncover some interesting questions about ethics, journalism and blogging.
It’s peace, love and understanding on Wine Biz Radio!
- The Rockaway Seven – Introduction by Jeff at Good Grape [link] — You’ll notice there are eight reviews:
- Tim Elliot’s review at Winecast [link]
- Sonadora’s review at Wannabe Wino [link]
- Renee’s review at Feed Me/Drink Me [link]
- Jeff’s review at Good Grape [link]
- Arthur Black’s (guest blogged) review at Good Grape [link]
- Joe’s review at 1WineDude.com [link]
- Dr. Debs’ review at Good Wine Under $20 [link]
- Kori’s review at Wine Peeps [link]
- The Critics
I think I enjoyed this show more than any other.
Raising the bar, friends, raising the bar.
Thanks Brad. I know that people have fallen on either side of this episode (either that this show was awesome, or that it flogged an already dead horse past the ground meat stage). Since I'm primarily concerned with being entertaining, having a rather solemn and deep discussion about a topic as dry as ethics (and let's face it: few things are more sleep-inducing) is a bit out of the old comfort zone.
I hardly think that I “started it all,” but I do appreciate the link love. I'm glad the “Rockaway Incident” has been put to bed.
[...] On Randy Hall’s and Kaz Kasmier’s Radio Show “Wine Biz Radio”, a little whil…, I noted that wine bloggers find themselves at a critical and tenuous moment in their history. It is just now that wine bloggers are beginning to be shown a good deal of respect. Yet at the same time, they’ve not accumulated a sufficient cache of credibitly to easily overcome a credibilty or ethical crisis. This is all true. And this is why serious wine bloggers need to be very careful in the way they do the things they do. But this is also the reason my neglect and my mistake was was amplified: it could have easily led to the kind of crisis of credibilty that hurts people and, in this case, wine blogging. [...]