Making perhaps, one of the biggest viral marketing coups in the nascent wine social mediasphere, Murphy-Goode Winery in Healdsburg has blown up the interwebs with its A Really Goode Job search and marketing campaign. The basics are these:

- Live on the property in northern Sonoma Valley in Healdsburg in a private home.

- Work by using all means of social media to promote Murphy-Goode and its wine and the whole of Sonoma County with the provided camera video camera, handheld device and/or smartphone. You’ll “need” to taste hundreds of wines for free and eat all over the Valley, as well…shucks.

- Get paid 10K/month for a 6 month contract.

The reach and influence of wine bloggers and wine social media mavens have exploded over the last couple of years, particularly in the last 12 months. Major wine critics have have noticed and responded, wineries and all three tiers of the wine business oligarchy have also taken notice and begun to capitalize on that influence (or are already playing catchup). The recent exhaustive and outstanding industry whitepaper by VinTank, Wine & Social Media is the first to encapsulate and quantify this influence and serves as a very important reference for these interactions between wine business, their consumers and the key social media mediators (human and software/websites) of these connections. It is a groundbreaking accomplishment and a signpost of the rapid, continuing maturity of the wine social media sphere.

I’ve received a free sample for some wine that is … simply … awesome. It’s really good stuff. I’m sure that 90% of your would like this wine. It’s that good.

I considered just sending an email to our users asking you to buy some, but I’ve promised wine producers that WineLog can do better than that. I’ve promised that we can find the top 1% of WineLog members who would absolutely love this wine.

Are you one of the top 1% of WineLog members perfect for this wine? Help us find out.

I’m very excited to be attending the Wine 2.0 San Francisco Expo tonight at Crushpad! I first mentioned the event in my precap a week ago and since then, many more details have been added. I’ll be blogging throughout the event in the WineLog.net sponsered Bloggers’ Lounge, that the WineTwo folks have again provided for this event (thanks Cornelius, Smoke & Co!). Watch this space for further details and updates through to 10pm tonight!

It’s that awesome time again when the Wine 2.0 (Twitter) folks gear up and take over San Francisco! Wine 2.0 San Francisco Expo is taking place on Thursday April 2nd and if it’s anything like the past events…it’s going to be a killer wine shindig!

Another year means another crazy adventure in the world of California’s “home” grape! The Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP) are having their annual ZAP Festival at Fort Mason on the San Francisco waterfront this weekend. Many events have already occurred in leading up to today’s press and consumer grand tasting. Over 275 wineries, 400 wines, countless other food and wine specialists and 10,000 attendees will participate with food and Zinfandel wines, again making this the largest single varietal wine festival in the entire world!

I will be posting in real-time throughout the event today until about 5pm from the Wine 2.0 Bloggers Lounge (Thanks so much to Cornelius and Abdi from Wine 2.0 (Twitter) and Lisa (Twitter) from Hahn Estates for coordination!). The post will be on the fly and mildly edited for content (especially later ;-), similar to the now famous, Live (Speed) Wine Blogging event at last year’s 1st Wine Bloggers Conference.

I’m listening now. Great podcast… taped during the 2008 North American Wine Bloggers Conference this past October.

So listen to dr_XeNo on Wine Biz Radio. Also on the podcast are Philip James, Alice Feiring, and Judd Wallenbrock.

Last Sunday I had the distinct pleasure of joining Lisa de Bruin (Twitter) of Wine Diver Girl and Hahn Family Wines at the inaugural Hahn Wine Blogger Forum, alongside many of my fellow wine bloggers. Also invited were various other wine people prominent in the new social media wine landscape, including the busy Judd Wallenbrock (Twitter) of Michel-Schlumberger, Drink Charitably and his own Humanitas; John Pianetta of Pianetta Winery in Paso appellation and the man who also straddles many worlds, Jeff “El Jefe” Stai (Twitter) of Twisted Oak and El Bloggo Torcido. Aside from organizer Lisa, Hahn had a few other people in attendance: Evelyn Pool, VP of Marketing; Bill Leigon, President; and most interestingly the Winemaker for many of the wines, the nicely zany Adam LaZarre and the warm-hearted Vineyard Manager, Andy Mitchell.

I caught a ride up with my comrades-(increasingly)-in-arms, the Brix Chicks, Liza (Twitter) and Xandria (Twitter). Thanks for the ride, ladies! We arrived just as the last piece in our chaotic vinous puzzle pulled up, Thea (Twitter) of Vinquire and Luscious Lushes. A few hello’s later and the group decision that we were now “professionally” early as opposed to “unfashionably, do you really need to drink wine so” early…we headed in to the Napa headquarters of Hahn Family Wines.

This is my first Twitter Taste Live!, #5 The Bloggers Take Over! TTL was started by the man behind the online wine savings outfit Bin Ends Wine, Craig Drollet (Twitter). TTL is an exceptionally innovative integration of the new social media and wine tasting, taking wine to an even greater level of consumer-directed interaction.

After finishing up at the last WBC lunch and tasting, the Luxe Sonoma lunch, I headed out with the Brix Chicks, Liza (Twitter) and Xandria to another party, this time hosted by Agent Red and Agent Green (Twitter) of The Wine Spies.

The Wine Spies is a interesting and effective wine sales site that specializes in 1 great wine a day. It helps both the winery to connect directly with its clientele, and allows consumers to discover a new wine each day and at significant, one-time savings. It is extremely effective at getting the word out about small boutique wineries and their choice of wines is top-notch, including some of my own favorites such as Galante (WineSpies) and Parsonage Village Vineyard (WineSpies). Their style of James Bond-ish secrecy and elite info dissemination keeps the wine very accesible and fun, while refusing to compromise on great background and techinical information.