Rectification and explanation

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: with this caption the initiator of the original Wine Blogging Wednesday describes our initiative of adapting this blogging event for the Dutch winedrinking public. See Lenndevours, 9 June. Lenn was notified by Tim from Winecast, who pointed out that we could and should have notified Lenn of our initiative. Tim, you are absolutely right. In our press releases to the Dutch (wine)press we have not forgotten to mention Lenndevours and the original idea, but in our blogs this fact has been snowed under a little. I hope this posting sets the record straight.

And for all the English speaking readers I’ll explain what’s the difference between the original WBW and our Dutch version. Whereas in the original version one of the bloggers sets a theme, after which bloggers and non-bloggers alike can go and find a wine around that theme to taste and write about, the Dutch version is as follows. We(myself and three other bloggers) decide on two wines to taste in a given month. We want our readers to buy one or both of these wines, pair them with food or taste them on their own, and give their opinion in the comments of our blogs or on their own blogs.

There is a very simple reason for this adaptation: we don’t have many wine bloggers yet, either in The Netherlands or in Belgium (the two nations where they speak Dutch / Flemish). Another reason for this adaptation is that we didn’t want to flat-out imitate the original, that wouldn’t be very nice. And last but not least, in the long run we hope to have some influence on the really terrible choice of wines that ends up in our supermarkets. The wines we choose for our WBWs have to be readily available in all of our country, so will mostly come from supermarkets or chain liquor stores. If we, the consumers, can give our opinion on some of these wines, we hope that the wine buyers of those stores and shops will start listening to us. We hope, in the end, to educate the Dutch palates and to force the supermarkts to buy better wines. A little idealistic and optimistic, certainly, but who knows…