For those of you who follow OpenWine Consortium, a.k.a. OWC, know, two wine bloggers conference took place recently: one in Europe with our friends Ryan and Gabriella Opaz of Catavino and Robert McIntosh of WineConversation and one in California with the founder of OWC, Joel Vincent. Ryan had the brilliant idea to create a survey on who the wine bloggers are. So far he got 92 answers but the results he put together on wineblogger.info are very interesting.

There were 22 questions from the basic ones – country of origin, language used, the blogging platform – to more sophisticated ones – source of income, wine rating system, number of posts, etc. The countries of residence are varied with a strong dominance in the US (67%) but with significant numbers inBrazil (3.3%), Spain (4.4%), Italy (5.5%) and a few scattered in France, UK, Canada and Australia (2.2% each). 70.7% are male. The age brackets are more interesting: 27.2% are 36-40, 21.7% between 31 and35 and 20.7% between 41 and 50. 34.1% claim an average income between $100K and 250K. Most bloggers have a bachelors degree or equivalent (34.8%) or a masters degree or equivalent (37%). 64.% have taken wine education classes (62.5% have a certification from WSET and 28.1% from the Society of Wine Educators). Wine marketers are the core bloggers (32.1%) closely followed by wine bloggers (30.4%). A vast majorty of wine bloggers don’t rate wine (66.3%). They blog 1-5 times a week and don’t license their content. The leading language is English (89.1%) and 57.6% don’t accept advertising. A vast majority blog to promote themselves in other wine related work (64.8%).

From those results can we draw a picture of the typical wine blogger? He would be American, English speaking, male, aged 36 to 40, earn over $100K, college graduate, wine educated, working in wine marketing, post on a regular basis to promote his wine business and doesn’t license his content. This is a rather accurate picture if one takes into account the really focused and professional wine bloggers. If you don’t recognize yourself in this picture, please contact Ryan Opaz and all our friends to help refine the survey. Ryan is thinking about a new one based on our comments.

Want to know something really cool? It’s the new cold activated label of the Coors light beer. How does it work? Do you see the beautiful mountains in back of the name? They turn from white to blue when your bottle reaches the ideal drinking temperature – 4° Celsius or 39° Fahrenheit.

The best part is that it is also true the other way around. You got your beer out of the fridge at the perfect temperature and then left your drink somewhere while talking on the phone or pulling weeds in the garden? The mountains will turn white again to let you know you should put your drink back in the fridge!

This technology is available in Canada for now. What is its impact on the consumers? Prof. Rob Warren, I.H. Asper Executive Director for Entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, told journalist Renee Alexander that “breweries need to do whatever they can to stand out from the competition in the mature beer market. He says the cold certified bottle technology will attract some beer drinkers to Coors Light who are looking for convenience or wanting to try something new. “Or they could be people who don’t care what they’re drinking but they just want to make sure it’s cold. There’s nothing worse than having a warm beer at a barbecue or when you’re outside on a hot day. This technology is saying, ‘It’s ready to drink,’” he says.”

Enjoy your cool beer!