I’ve said for years that Gary Vaynerchuk wouldn’t do wine videos forever–only as long as it took to launch him to something else that presumably pays more money. I always suspected he wanted to be Ryan Seacrest and make $30 million a year as an impresario. Now he’s taking a leap that could get him there.

So what does a post-Gary Vee world mean for wine? To begin with, Gary’s lost a lot of juice lately. It was a good time for him to get out. Like the old saying goes, Leave while you’re still having fun. Such was Gary’s dominance of the wine-social media nexus that it sometimes seemed no other blogger could really get any traction because Gary sucked up all the oxygen.

Yet he’s been deflating over the past year, as his act wore thin. I don’t doubt that hundreds of thousands of his loyal fans will miss him, but there was always something of a one-trick pony aspect to Gary. He reminded me of those rock bands that gets a hit or two, and then you never hear from them again.

I give Gary credit for proving that the Internet can be a viable home for a wine writer/blogger/videographer. I personally never thought much of his oversized personality. I thought he brought a bloated ego to wine media. I mean, it was always more about Gary than the wine, or whoever his guest was. Maybe that’s what it takes to succeed. Years ago, I ran into Adam Sandler, the actor-comedian, in the green room of a San Francisco comedy club. This was way before he was famous. I didn’t much like him. He was very conceited and full of himself, yet he also projected a confidence that made me think he was destined for stardom (and likewise made me realize I wasn’t!). As indeed he was. Adam is said to make $27 million a year, which is probably more than Gary makes–so far.

I analogize Gary’s retirement to Parker’s leaving California. Same kind of forces involved. Parker too was so dominant, he distorted the space around him, like a massive gravitational object that bends light to warp speed. I think Robert Parker was a nice man, but his impact on the world of wine was unhealthy. It’s not good for one person to have such power over one piece of reality, unless it’s Steve Jobs (who also retired yesterday as CEO of Apple). Parker’s influence on wine style is well known and need not be reiterated here. It has been sad for me, in my job, to travel up and down California and witness the veneration bordering on fear with which so many winemakers saw him. People said I was jealous, but that wasn’t it. It’s just pathetic to see winemakers so in thrall of a single critic that they practically wet their pants just thinking about him, male and female alike–a neurosis particularly noticeable in Napa Valley. So with Parker’s departure, I am hopeful that, after a period of adjustment, California winemaking circles can get back to normal and begin to make wine the way their winemakers actually want to, instead of the way they’re ordered to by one isolated critic with a palate to protect.

So goodbye to Gary and goodbye to Parker. Both these individuals have writ their signatures large on the history of wine. They will be long remembered, and honored in the pantheon. With their hegemony now gone, this is a good moment for pause for a moment, and then to move forward, without them, into brighter uplands.

I saw Biz Stone on C-SPAN talking up Twitter, which of course he co-founded. He told the tale of a New York night club that was struggling to get attention. When a local celebrity tweeted that he was going there, badda bing, next thing you know hundreds of people were trying to get in.

That’s a great example of the Twitter influence. Another, on a much more massive scale, is the way that kids in the Middle East are pulling off the Arab Spring, using Twitter to alert each other. This kind of stuff is exciting, and clearly establishes Twitter as one of the most revolutionary advances in the history of human communication.

So what does this mean for wineries?

I’ve been saying for years that it means nothing. Put me down as a Twitter skeptic. There are vast differences between popularizing a night club, mobilizing crowds against a regime, and boosting the fortunes of a winery. And anyone who confuses or conflates these instances is bound to be disappointed.

We can dispense with the Arab Spring use of Twitter immediately. Political movements have always depended on the ability of a core group to communicate widely with a constituency, whether it was by putting tracts up on church walls, broadcasting shortwave radio messages or, nowadays, Twitter. That’s all Twitter is for modern politics: the most up to date way for constituencies to talk to each other. But does anyone think that the choice of a wine brand is a revolutionary act, comparable to overthrowing a government?

Now, let’s think about that New York club. In that example, a lot of people already were ready to go out on a particular night. They were looking for someplace cool, when lo and behold someone cooler than them told them to check out this club. So of course they did, and in so doing they created, and became part of, buzz. They had nothing to lose by going to that club. If they didn’t like it, they could always go someplace else, probably in the same neighborhood. Manhattan has plenty of clubs.

The hope among winery proprietors is that they can use Twitter (and social media in general) to create this same kind of buzz–an energy that will send people flocking to buy their wine (hopefully direct from the winery, so they don’t have to deal with distributors). But I haven’t seen any evidence yet that this can be done. It was different with the night club. Clubs are driven by buzz, same way that restaurants are. Whatever club is the buzziest at any given time will get the crowd. And when it comes to creating buzz, there’s nothing like a celebrity endorsement. People have always flocked to clubs that had celebrities in them, from CBGB and Studio 54 back in the day to San Francisco joints like Infusion and DNA Lounge.

But how can a winery get buzz going? Can you think of a single instance? I can’t, and I’ve been watching this scene for a long time. I suppose in theory one could imagine a celebrity talking up a winery or a wine brand, and it could have a certain impact. Lil’ Kim sang about Moscato (“still Over In Brazil sippin Moscato,” from Lighters Up/Welcome To Brooklyn), and that, among other things, is said to be responsible for Moscato’s popularity, especially in the hip hop community. But let’s say Lil’ Kim’s lyric was, “still Over In Brazil sippin Fetzer Moscato.” Do  you think hundreds of thousands of people would be out looking for Fetzer Moscato? I don’t. Besides, celebrities usually don’t mention specific brands unless they’re paid to endorse them.

Take it a step further. Let’s say someone famous with a high likeability factor, like Bono, tweeted that he liked Fetzer Moscato, and then, somehow, that tweet got retweeted so much that it became a trending topic. I suppose that would give Fetzer Moscato a certain boost. But it wouldn’t last for long. It couldn’t, because before long all the other Moscato producers would figure out what was happening. They’d hire their own celebrity endorsers, and the whole thing would become absurd. Either that, or the shelf life of such an endorsement simply would expire beyond a certain point, probably within a matter of weeks.

I understand the theory behind the night club tweet story. It’s an urban legend, simple to understand, and compelling. All success takes is a tweet; little wonder that winery proprietors are so enthralled with the possibilities that social media dangles before their eyes. All I’m saying is that so far those possibilities have not materialized into reality, and the logic of the situation suggests they’re not likely to in the future.

Last Thursday’s Times had two articles, one about how Heineken is aiming ads at young digital consumers, the other about ordinary people who are figuring out ways to make money from their blogs.

Considered together, the articles suggest that social media has entered an important phase that, just a year ago, would not have been possible.

Heineken’s story is interesting. It’s an old, mature brand. When I was an undergrad, Heineken was very hot and sexy. It was imported, upscale, one of the first aspirational beers. If you wanted to impress a date, you bought a Heinie–not Budweiser or Pabst Blue Ribbon.

But Heineken “has lost some of its cachet,” admits a senior Heineken executive. It’s particularly lost traction in the all-important 18-34 year old demographic, which prefers American microbrews. How do you get across to 18-34 year olds, mainly men? You make a series of YouTubes that are commercials disguised as wacky videos: one that’s “about a young man on a wild date” and another “about a young man’s show-stopping arrival at a wild party,” as the Times puts it.

Young men! Wild parties! Dates! Heineken knows what’s driving this consumer market.

Here’s the link to the ad called “The Date.” It’s good, but even better is the video called “The Entrance,” which is so good, it gave me shivers. Who wouldn’t want to be that guy? He’s the coolest dude that ever lived. And with 3,652,601 views so far and counting, Heineken is obviously attracting a lot of eyeballs.

I have no idea if ads like these will help Heineken with Millennials and Xers. But advertising on YouTube is way less expensive than running comparable commercials on T.V., which young people are abandoning anyway, in favor of online.

Meanwhile, the other article, the one about bloggers actually making money (who woulda thunk?), will surely catch the eye of many who read steveheimoff.com. The recipe for success goes something like this, according to the bloggers the Times interviewed. First, pick a topic you’re passionate about and thus won’t get tired of. Then, be prepared to spend years building your blog. As you reach a certain level, start taking ads on a pay-per-click basis. Besides the usual banner ads, you can also have “contextual ads,” which are highlighted words in posts that link to a vendor. “A commission is paid on resulting sales,” says the Times. (Excuse me for a moment, I’m gonna go get me a refreshing can of Coca Cola and make a quick phone call to my broker on my iPhone.)

Other money-making strategies include charging for content, developing book deals and being hired to speak before groups because you’ve become so darned famous from your blog. And there is, of course, YouTube, which spices up any blog. So quickly is the quality of vlogging improving that YouTube itself is teaching vloggers “how to create a viral video, build an audience and bolster a brand,” says this article in yesterday’s Times. Last year, said a YouTube manager, the top channels on the company’s Partners Program (which teams up with vloggers) “generated 100 billion views and attracted millions of dollars in advertising revenue,” with hundreds of partners earning more than $100,000 a year.

Exciting stuff.

When Walter Cronkite famously stated, in 1968, that he did not believe the Vietnam War could be won, it was said to mark a tipping point. “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America,” LBJ remarked.

Could Rob Sands’ recent statement be a similar turning point? “If anything lends itself to social media, it’s wine,” the Constellation Brands CEO was quoted as telling Bloomberg News last week. So bullish has Constellation become on developing their online profile that the company (America’s second biggest wine producer, after Gallo) doubled its digital marketing budget last year “and is raising it 50 percent this year.”

Up until now, I haven’t been particularly impressed by the social media efforts of the country’s largest wine companies. If anything, they’ve been late to the party, preferring to wait and see what smaller, bolder wineries do before committing their resources.

So what, specifically, is Constellation doing? Well, for one, they hired Karena Breslin away from Gallo to ramp up their digital marketing efforts. It’s not clear, just yet, how she’s doing. Forbes.com reported on May 5 that Constellation is planning “some marketing tricks that are new to it–and to the wine industry” in order “to woo tech-savvy wine drinkers under the age of 35.” These tricks are said to include “a mobile application that will let [Millennials] use their ever-handy iPhones and BlackBerrys to scan bar codes on wine bottles for more information–even video snippets” about the wine. But that doesn’t sound “new to the wine industry” to me. It’s standard QR coding.

I will admit this Constellation ad for Black Box is pretty cute (although it does pander a little to newbies, but that’s okay), and I’d like to see more examples from Constellation. According to the website Market VOX, which recently reported on Constellation’s social media efforts, “The company has seen an increase of click through rates of 150%, increased fans of 75%, and surprisingly a decrease in click through rate cost by 30%.” But Market VOX is mute on some vital information. Where are the click through rates coming from, and what are they resulting in? And 75% increased fans of what? Its Facebook page? Presumably so; the article says Constellation’s “great success” is “based on interest and Facebook ‘likes.’”

However, Constellation’s Facebook page, near as I can tell, has only 195 “Likes,” and its content was lifted straight from Wikipedia. [CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this post, I misstated the number of "Likes" that Robert Mondavi Winery has. It is 8,623.] So, again, I’m not clear where this success is coming from, or what Market VOX’s statements are based on.

Still, progress in social media has to be measured in increments. I give credit to Constellation for making the effort to become active in the digital sphere. If any of the majors are positioned to do it, it’s Constellation. Their stock is at nearly a three-year high, and shipments for January-February were up 17% (Gomberg Fredrikson). In a recent TV interview, Sands told Bloomberg News, “We’re generating a lot of cash flow,” meaning the company has the luxury of seriously investigating the online sphere, not just talking about it. In this sense, Sands may be to social media what Walter Cronkite was to the Vietnam War: in a single statement, he signals the tipping point where the biggest wineries realize the potential of online.

Darek Trowbridge, of Old World Winery, wrote about “Libation, A Bitter Alchemy” on his Facebook page. It’s a 2009 book by Deirdre Heekin, described on this website as “a series of linked personal essays [in which] Heekin explores the curious development of her nose and palate [and] her intuitive education and relationship with wine and spirits…”. Darek wrote that he liked “Especially the chapter on Scent and language where she shows that ‘your palate and your vocabulary expand simultaneously [al]though the words and references are really useful only to people who have had the same experiences and thus are part of a shared “community” experience.’”

I haven’t read the book so can’t comment on it. There are several concepts encased in the above paragraph, though, that are worth exploring.

1. the curious development of her nose and palate

One’s “nose and palate” do develop over time, but only if one wants them to. As with any other acquired skill, this takes time, patience and effort.

2. Your palate and your vocabulary expand simultaneously

I never really thought about it that way, but its’s true. The more you talk and write about wine, the more nuanced your palate becomes, which in turn pushes your wine vocabulary to greater heights, and on and on. It’s almost as if you’re creating new areas in the brain related to the understanding of wine and wine-related words. I can’t explain it physiologically, but developing a palate–the discernment of qualities in wine–is directly linked to developing a wine vocabulary.

A “wine vocabulary,” however, isn’t just limited to words describing wine, or even to scientific terms like pH or brettanomyces. If you possess a good wine vocabulary, you are able to talk intelligently about all aspects of wine, including the industry, history and most aspects of terroir.

3. [al]though the words and references are really useful only to people who have had the same experiences

We are tribal animals. This explains why people who are really into wine can’t explain it to people who don’t care about wine. It also explains a lot of the disconnect that sometimes arises between younger bloggers and older writers. We haven’t had the same shared experiences.

4. and thus are part of a shared “community” experience

That disconnect isn’t as large as it used to be, because as the bloggers write and talk more about wine, their palates and vocabulary simultaneously expand (cf. #2). As that happens, their experiences more nearly match the experiences of the older writers (cf. #3), which brings us all into a community, sharing a common experience.

As if to underscore this fact, yesterday Gomberg, Fredrikson released a new finding that,  for the first time ever, “the United States just surpassed France in total wine consumption.” They attribute this to “the Millennial generation com[ing] of age, pushing aside their Generation X predecessors, who tended to prefer fancy vodkas and tequilas.” Millennials like their wine. To me, this has implications for the kinds of wine California is going to produce in the future. As the Millennials get more discerning (see #s 1-4, above), their palates will expand. That’s another way of saying they’ll demand quality, as opposed merely to low price. I think it bodes well for wines that are more balanced. One of the things you acquire as you develop a palate is an acute dislike of imbalanced wines, of which California produces too many. Wine after all is a commodity that must give consumers what they demand. Discerning Millennials are demanding better wines and I for one am ready to give credit to the bloggers (and, yes, social media) for leading the charge.

Almost since I started blogging, I’ve been asking wineries precisely how they expect to make money through the use of social media.

Their response has been, pretty much, Uhh…well…err…umm… It reminds me of when I was a kid of six and we were visiting my mom’s relatives in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma=oil, right? So I spent the better part of 3 days digging a hole in my uncle’s backyard, hoping to strike liquid gold. If you’d asked me precisely how I thought this would happen, I couldn’t have told you. But I believed.

Belief, though, isn’t a good business plan. And I haven’t seen a good business plan from wineries, not in 2008, not in 2009, not in 2010, and not yet in 2011. What would constitute a good business plan? Establishing  a solid link between social media and ROI.

ROI! It’s the Gold Ring, the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow. No, it’s not the French word for “king,” it’s short for “return on investment.” If you’re not a business person, here’s how ROI works. Let’s say it costs me $1 to do something. If I then earn $2 for that effort, I have a positive ROI, and it’s probably a good idea for me to do that thing again. If, on the other hand, I earn only 50 cents for my dollar investment, then my ROI is negative, and I’d be pretty stupid to keep on doing it.

Well, the “pretty stupid” part has been the defining characteristic of the wine industry’s investment in social media so far. Yes, it’s true that the social media boosters have said that, even though they can’t identify ROI, they still benefit from social media because it creates “branding” and “buzz” and “imaging.” But those things are unmeasurable. Will.I.Am’s Super Bowl commercial for his new social media business, Chatter.com, was seen by who knows how many gazillions of eyeballs, but it remains to be seen if Chatter.com can make it. Let me put it to you this way: If Chatter.com issued an IPO now, would you invest in it? I wouldn’t.

All of this makes the new study from Bazaarevoice, as reported on Mashable, so interesting. The study queried 175 Chief Marketing Officers about their social media goals in 2011, and found that 74% of them “predict they will finally tie social efforts to hard ROI this year.”

Finally! I’m tempted to clap my hands and say, “It’s about time, good for you guys, I hope you tell us how you did it,” except for one thing. Try as I might, I cannot find anything in the study (a summary of which you can find here on Bazaarvoice’s website) concerning precisely how the CMOs plan on tying social efforts to hard ROI, this year or ever.

What the survey did find is not without interest.

•CMOs move towards social insight and customer-centricity

“Social insight” means that companies can better understand the beliefs and behaviors of customers and potential customers. This can be incredibly useful in product development and improvement; “insights that fuel improvements across the business” can “serve as the launch pad for innovation and business change.” As for customer-centricity, it sounds good, right? But I still don’t see how a wine company can accomplish ROI on social media. Maybe Apple, Ford or Proctor & Gamble can; they have massive advertising budgets, and can afford to have social media be a part of the marketing mix. But wineries don’t have massive advertising budgets.

Okay, but now come the study’s caveats. The CMOs may be eagerly figuring out how to use social media for social insight, but

•Linking company revenue to social media is the next frontier

This gets us back to the Uhh…well…err…umm thing. Next frontier? Space is the next frontier for NASA, but it’s not coming easy, is it? The CMOs “were optimistic about tracking ROI for social media,” with 81% saying “they planned to track social media to revenue…”. But here’s the kicker: “However, standard ROI metrics proved difficult to measure for many social efforts…”. That’s putting it mildly. Anybody can make a plan, but if a plan is based on flawed or incomplete information, it’s not likely to work. (Paging Secretary Rumsfeld.) So, while [M]easurability remains a top executive priority” for the CMOs, don’t forget, striking oil in my uncle’s backyard was my priority, at the age of 6.

Lastly–and I love, love, love this

•Product ratings and reviews remain one of the best understood tools with proven ROI

Can we talk? (as my father’s cousin, Joan Rivers, might ask). Most CMOs use social media “without clear insight into the ROI that tool is delivering.” But a clear majority sees “product ratings and reviews,” including blogs, as enormously influential. Ratings and reviews, including wine reviews from trusted sources, work. CMOs know that. The advent of social media does nothing to change this, except to put credible reviews online.

So there you have it. It turns out the headline on Mashable, “Marketers Optimistic About Finding Social Media ROI” is somewhat misleading. The CMOs are hopeful. They’re keeping their fingers crossed. They’re really, really trying to make ROI work so they don’t get fired. They’re going to breakout sessions in the hope they can learn something they don’t already know, paying a whole new cottage industry of social media-ROI gurus to tell them how to do it. They figure that, if everybody keeps saying there’s social media ROI out there at the end of the rainbow, why, then, there must be. But are they optimistic? I don’t see why they should be, unless all that Prozac and Viagra is affecting their brains.