We have a sister site! Join us in welcoming MyBEER to the world!

We are extremely excited (and exhausted right now) to announce that Real Time Wine has a sister site. MyBEER. A community of Beer Heroes, saving the world... One Beer at a Time!

MyBEER is designed to play to the craft beer culture (and mainstream beer of course) in South Africa. It's about creating the best community of beer drinkers and doing what we've always done on the Real Time Wine platform - rate, review, share and discover better products!

We've got big ones lined up for this one. Go have a look. MyBeer South Africa - our craft beer and mainstream beer community!

Thank you to SAB for sponsoring this pioneering product. Follow MyBEER on Twitter. Thanks to Prezence and Quirk who, as always, have been slogging away creating cool products for us to use.

Run along now. Some Wine Fans out there must like beer as well :)

Oh - and as always, click like, share, tweet, +1 and run out and tell 5 friends. Spread the word. Help us make this the success Real Time Wine is and has been.

We love ya!

How long can a wine last? Wine Fan Mark Lagan finds out!

Who here hasn't used the phrase: "ah, I'd better finish the bottle, don't want it going to waste and it certainly won't last...". Myth? Or Busted!

Mark Lagan undertook to take one for the team. Put his body and liver on the line to test out just how long a wine would last. Check out Mark's Real Time Wine profile here.

The wine? MMX Blackwater Noir. An SMG blend (shiraz, that mouvedre stuff and grenache).

Mark says:

My methodology was as follows.

Day 1 open wine. Pour about 80 mls through wine shower into glass. Gave it a shake with my hand over the top of the glass.  Repeat process 3 times to ensure maximum aeration. The wine shower/filter is in the pic below. I then tasted the wine and recorded my thoughts and comments as per the tweets.

I then stored the wine in the fridge. Day 2 I took wine out fridge. Poured into glass, gave it a good shake and then aerated as per day 1. Tasted and commented. Returned remainder of bottle to fridge.

Day 3 as per day 2 and so on.

And here are the tweets!

Day 1 of wine experiment with red from @terroirvino to see if it will last a week after opening and still taste good. @realtimewine
— Mark Lagan (@TokaiMark) October 22, 2012

Red/noir from @terroirvino Syrah Grenache.Soft spice & white pepper w something fynbossy perhaps.Slight tannic feel.Till2moro @realtimewine
— Mark Lagan (@TokaiMark) October 22, 2012

Day 2. Wine has opened up beautifully. White pepper with a bit of a smokey leather thing. Enjoyed every sip. @realtimewine @terroirvino
— Mark Lagan (@TokaiMark) October 23, 2012

Day3. I'm very impressed.Wine has opened up beautifully.Same tasting comments as day 2 but softer. @terroirvino @realtimewine
— Mark Lagan (@TokaiMark) October 24, 2012

Wife says she gets some blackcurrant. Never had wine last 3 days before. @terroirvino @realtimewine
— Mark Lagan (@TokaiMark) October 24, 2012

Day 4.The good times are still rolling. 4 days on & this wine is still fresh. More enjoyable than day1. @terroirvino @realtimewine #winning
— Mark Lagan (@TokaiMark) October 25, 2012

Crazy days. Go Mark! We kind of lost track of him at this point. Haze of drip strategy wine tasting? But rumour is he got close to 7 days.

Anyone else want to try some wine experiments and win fame and fortune? And maybe some free liver tablets? :)

Top 10 Trending Wines [South Africa] 8 February 2013

Haha! Would you look at that... Chateau Babbelaas is trending at #1! Sorry for the name, but that's a dear part of most South African's wine upbringing. Get in there and tap YUM, HMM or YUK - let's see what you REALLY think :)

Interestingly enough, it's a 2008. Either y'all are collecting, or someone hasn't uploaded a new bottle. Use this as an opportunity to upload the 2009/2010/2011 and you can supply the picture...

Focus. Back to the point. Here's your shopping list ladies and gents. Enjoy!

TOP 10 TRENDING WINES IN SOUTH AFRICA

#1   Chateau Libertas by Distell (2008, Blend)
#2   Semillon by Boekenhoutskloof (2010) R120
#3   Kadette by Kanonkop (2010, Blend) R76
#4   Syrah by Schalk Burger & Sons (2006, Shiraz)
#5   Pierneef Organically Grown by La Motte (2012, Sav Blanc) R103
#6   Pinotage by Jacobsdal (2008)
#7   Classique by Rupert & Rothschild (2009, Blend) R105
#8   Samsara Shiraz by Avondale (2005)
#9   Kaapse Vonkel by Simonsig (2010, Blend) R90
#10   Millenium by La Motte (2008, Blend)

Announcement: The Real Time Wine SuperFAN Club

Hello Wine Fans!

I'd like to formally announce a little pet project of ours. The Real Time Wine SuperFAN Club. A project where we try and bring our hyper-engaged super users closer to Wine Farms that want to chat to them.

It's a small, intimate community that should help both consumers and wine brands cut through the clutter and generate some real value for each other. At present, it's going to be run off a simple email mailing list. Argue all you like, but email is still the killer app of the Internet. It's the easiest way to stay in touch - as long as it's valuable.

For users: anyone from a Bottle Bandit status level and up qualifies to join. We reserve the right to lift this level if the Club gets wildly popular :)

For wine farms: a small monthly or annual fee gets you membership to the community and the opportunity to engage with a really different set of consumers. They're not all bloggers, they're not all wine critics - they good, old-fashioned passionate fans. Who in my opinion, can often be more influential in the real world.

What do I expect wine farms to do?

• sell wine to the community -  highly engaged users are suckers for a good deal
• try out new products on the base
• seed new products into Real Time Wine and social media, pre-release
• talk to wine buyers about their marketing messaging - what's working/not working
• chat about how to reach consumers in general
• ask for feedback on campaigns / events
• find out what ordinary wine buyers like in a wine / wine brand
• find out how ordinary wine buyers choose wine and where they're likely to buy
• find out what offers, specials, packages, deals would appeal to wine buyers & their social circles
• publicise events, festivals and content through this community & their social circles (get retweets, likes & content sharing started - through the people that actually care)
• generally chat and engage with SA's wine superfans

We're going to keep it nice and tight in the beginning while we figure out what's valuable to wine farms and valuable to wine consumers, but I'm really excited about where this can go.

Wine Farms, chat to us on info at realtimewine dot com if you'd like to be involved. There are about 20 spots available for the first period.

I'd also like to welcome Haut Espoir as our first Wine Farm Member. Brave. Pioneering. Probably dashingly good looking as well. Welcome - I'm sure it'll pay off in spades!

And the biggest thank you goes to those 68 Wine Fans who form the core of this community. You're leaders. You make this all work.

Cheers,
Wino Andy

PS. Interested in some of the context/strategy. Read my blog post here.