In a blog this week, Reign of Terroir discusses changes the FTC may put in effect this summer. The FTC is leaning towards requiring bloggers, who blog about wines and wineries, to clearly disclose if the wine was a gift from the winery. If a blogger writes about a visit to a winery, he or she would need to disclose if transportation etc. were paid by the winery.

The FTC is getting involved in this issue because they claim that blogging about a winery or a bottle of wine is an advertisement. Um… no, not really.  I do not consider a review to be an advertisement. If I review a bottle of wine that was a gift and say it’s plonk, how can that be an advertisement? Blogs are all about expressing opinions. When someone starts paying me $ for a blog, then I’ll consider that the FTC has a point. In the meantime a bottle of wine or transportation paid for by a winery is not going to pay my monthly bills.

More importantly, anything I review is given utmost consideration and is as unbiased as possible. Granted that there are some varieties that I enjoy more than others and perhaps I may have more to say about the ones I like but in all circumstances I try to be as fair as possible for the benefit of my readers!

Cheers! Kathy