Today we're celebrating three birthdays. Much to my amazement, JancisRobinson.com has thrived and prospered for exactly nine years, and the members’ part of the site, purple pages, celebrates its eighth birthday today (see The story of JancisRobinson.com for the thrilling details).
I can’t tell you how surprised and delighted I am by the continuing success of this site and am very grateful to those who continue to visit and support it. It’s a great testament to the enthralling and engrossing nature of wine – and to the fact that the empire of wine enthusiasm continues to expand. Last month’s visitors to JancisRobinson.com came from 170 different countries, according to the magic of Google analytics.
We are continuing to try to improve the site, not least by responding to your suggestions. Thank you and please keep the suggestions coming.
Another anniversary today is my 34th as a wine writer – can it really be that long? I suppose so since it was on 1 Dec 1975 that I went in to Haymarket Publishing’s offices at 34 Fouberts Place just off Carnaby Street to spend my first day as assistant editor of the recently discontinued wine trade magazine Wine & Spirit. I took over the desk of the young Australian, Tony Lord, who had just left to edit a new consumer magazine called Decanter.
From Foubert to Twitter seems a long but delightful path.
You may be wondering about Twitter and feeling deeply sceptical about it all. But I must say that I am really enjoying the experience of tweeting, sending messages of no more than 140 characters to the 6,000+ fellow tweeters who have chosen to follow me on Twitter.
There are so many things I want to say which don’t necessarily warrant a full article. Perhaps a single wine that has struck me, or a campaign that needs a helping hand. Do please scroll down the home page to keep track of my most recent tweets, or visit twitter.com/jancisrobinson
Someone drew my attention to this list of other wine tweeters - although it seems a rather partial list since I could not find the arch tweeter Gary Vaynerchuk, aka garyvee.
Finally, should you by any chance be looking for an excuse to open a good bottle tonight, may I suggest toasting all these wine anniversaries?