Wine 2.0 Interview

On September 18th in New York City the ancient tradition of wine making will be given a 21st Century makeover as Wine 2.0 will host over 1,000 wine and technology lovers for an evening of world-class wines and networking around cutting edge wine companies.

Wine 2.0 was started by Cornelius Geary who made his start in the world of wine with wineblast; essentially a pre-facebook facebook with alcohol. It was Geary’s initial plan with wineblast to create an informal wine group that would make him new friends and business contacts while also indulging the UW-Milwaukee graduate’s love of wine.

Geary has since moved on from his start at wineblast to begin Radcru.com, an online marketplace enabling just one select winery a day to sell direct to the public. Radcru doesn’t buy the wines featured on the site, but is a marketplace where wine lovers and wineries meet each day.

When not working with RadCru.com, Geary is working steadily with Wine 2.0. The website represents the future of the wine industry with a consumer trade show and a networking group combining online social networking and real world components. Wine 2.0 events highlight leading edge tech companies focused on various wine categories including winery direct sales, online wine retailing, community driven wine ratings, online education and virtual wineries. Wine 2.0 has hosted over 2,000 wine trade and consumer advocates, and more than 150 wine focused technology companies and wineries at their first four events. It has registered over 15,000 wine consumer and technology enthusiasts interested in technology, wine and wine events from over 50 countries on their website at www.winetwo.com. Geary took time out from his schedule to talk to Vinecandy about Wine 2.0 and wine in general.

Cornelius Geary: My partner Jeff Player and I started Wine 2.0 as a networking event for other new and innovative companies like ours, RadCru.com. The 2.0 was to symbolize the new opportunities for the industry, both on the tech side, but more so wherever the consumer facing innovation is happening. Tech is a big part of it but not everything. It was also added to delineate from the past failures of the wine business where hundreds of millions of dollars were invested and wasted on .dotcom companies. Wine 2.0 is a fresh start for many.

Build Wine 2.0 into an important vehicle for the wine industry to communicate with the consumer and to each other about the newest and most innovative goings on in the biz. We’re planning out expanded events nationwide and now have some invites to take Wine 2.0 into international markets in ’09 if we want to.

Geary: I saw what Gary was doing with Wine Library TV and thought he was going to be huge. I called him up and he graciously came out to our 2nd Wine 2.0 where he spoke on our panel. Since then he’s been on Conan O’Brien, Ellen and a host of other shows. But we had him first!

Geary: Technology is making it easier for wine companies to market and sell their products. Now you can create a brand and easily communicate with a large audience about it and effectively promote and sell it very quickly at a relatively low cost, plus you are in control. With traditional distribution or print, you have to wait months or years for a similar ground swell to occur if ever and never are in control of your own brand.

Geary: The Northern California wine regions are my backyard. I have “discovered” some truly great small winemakers and continue to seek out the little guy making great wine. There is so much innovation going on here that you really have to be here to see it. As for other regions, I enjoyed my time in Australia visiting the Hunter and Barossa Valley’s, and look forward to some planned trips to Argentina, Spain and Italy in the near future.

Geary: WineBlast was my first entry into the wine world. After I moved back to Milwaukee from Australia, Jeff Playter and I launched the Milwaukee Chapter of WineBrats and after one event they closed up shop on us. We decided to do our own thing and ended up doing 30 WineBlast events over a year and half. We ended up with over 5,000 members in the Milwaukee area and had tremendous support from local media and distributors.

Geary: The overall numbers of different brands, types and regions of wine make it seem intimidating to the novice. I always suggest you just jump in and like microbrews; you just start trying everything you can get your hands on. If all you’re doing is drinking Napa Chardonnay or Cabernet, you’re not really trying and missing the exploratory boat. You also have the snob factor which is really boring and a big turn off to many people.

Geary: Get involved, don’t be intimidated and be open to new wines that you know nothing about. You’ll have a few wines you won’t like but you’ll also find varieties that you’ll really appreciate. It’s all about exploring.