In yesterday’s post I mentioned that it took seven years to visit and write about 1,000 wineries and vineyards. We started writing in 2007. Several years prior to that, we just visited winery tasting rooms because we liked the experience. We never fathomed the idea in 2007 that we would end up making wine at home and at two wineries on the East Coast and a winery in Eastern Europe. Another thing we never thought of in 2007 was that we would someday write a book or books.

The writing phase has three chapters. We write articles about wineries/vineyards and other educational wine related themes. This writing to a degree is formulaic and addresses the who, what, when, where and why. Also in 2007 we started a blog. Blog posts are more opinion related and we noticed we used a different form of writing. Our first book demanded another form of writing. Our challenge was to co-author a book with one voice.

A Wine Journey, 2012

Our first book A Wine Journey, was published in 2012. Although we wrote it over several months that year, it really took six years to accumulate the experiences we related in the book. A Wine Journey encourages ordinary people to learn about wine, make wine and get involved in wine travel. The motivation to write the book came from someone we met at a writer’s conference. At the time of our first book we created several outlines for additional books. They were sidelined in 2013.

A Wine Tourist's Guide: Visiting Tasting Rooms 2013

Our second book, A Wine Tourist’s Guide: Visiting Tasting Rooms was a result of a business partnership between Wine Trail Traveler and a wine travel agency in Montreal, In Vino Veritas. We were exploring things that we could do for the travel agency. We came up with the idea of a book, because the most read article for seven years on our website is Tasting Room Etiquette. Several wineries have asked for permission to use the article. Although we physically wrote the book in five weeks, it also took years of accumulating experiences and wine knowledge. The chapters examine tasting room expectations, etiquette, how to taste a wine, common international grapes, misconceptions about wine and how to find wineries to visit.

We are now completing the final chapters of our third book: Georgia, Sakartvelo: the Birthplace of Wine. The motivation for this book came as a result of tasting Georgian wines for the last two years and visiting the country for two weeks in September 2013. While in Georgia, we had opportunities to harvest grapes, clean and sanitize a qvevri and make wine in the qvevri. We also believe that the world needs to become aware that wine making and vineyards began 8,000 years ago.

Traveling to and writing about wineries have opened up doors for us. We enjoy the travel, the people we meet and the wines. Travel also afforded us the opportunity to become bloggers, writers and authors.

Cheers,
Terry