How to Get the Best Review in Our Books
We want you (our valued content provider) to understand what it is we do and what you can do to get the very best review written about you. After countless visits (over many years) where we have seen a huge range in the quality of content we were able to obtain; therefore we are compelled to provide this information to help you put forth your best presentation. Our goal here is to demonstrate to you the importance of showing us the very best of everything you have to offer.
Putting Your Best Foot Forward
First and foremost, we do not charge you for being in our books. There is no advertising. Everything is strictly editorial and based on our personal experiences. So the more we experience, the more we can show-off what you have to offer. And the more time we have to capture beautiful photography, the more photographs we will have to represent you – in your section as well as in other areas throughout the book. This is how you can get the most coverage and with the best quality within the pages of Exploring Wine Regions.
Our readers have come to trust that we only write about what we have actually experienced. And they look forward to the accompanying photographs from such visits (no stock photos ever used).
The best way to explain this is by giving you a few real experiences we encountered:
Wine and wine tourism are what every winery needs to promote. This is where going all out in experiences makes a huge difference in the quality and quantity of coverage in our books. Here are some examples:
- One winery which customarily includes a bottle of wine in their guest rooms for all their guests, does not include wine for journalists! We show up and we were not able to taste, therefor not able to write about their wines. Isn’t wine the most important aspect of a winery? In contrast, another winery provided us three bottles, a 10-year vertical, allowing us to fully experience and appreciate the development of their wines over several vintages. This gave us much greater appreciation and more content to write about, plus more photography of their wines. The result was the second winery ended up with six full pages of quality coverage versus the standard two pages for the first winery.
- Another winery took us into a private, unique tasting room in addition to their already beautiful main tasting room. This room was so special that we ended up with spectacular photographs worthy of an additional two-page spread.
- Imagine a winery with extraordinary tourism experiences that simply gave us a standard tour. Without the experiences, we were not able to capture and share with our readers anything they had to offer. We even had to leave them out of the book. Very unfortunate for them.
- For hotels and winery accommodations, the longer we stay on a property, the more coverage ends up in our books. It is not very productive to stay only one night, as this usually means less than 20 hours on a property. Ideal photography is not always possible due to weather and lighting, schedules, and activities. A minimum of two to three nights is essential as we are able to capture more and much better photography during different times of the days and activities in and around the property. (See an example of this under Wineries.)
- For restaurants, going beyond just the meal makes a huge difference. Dishes plated for photographs, meeting the chef and wine pairings expand the coverage greatly! Cooking classes and demonstrations are also very appealing.
Go All Out!
The summary of all this is that the more we are able to experience, the greater the opportunity to have higher quality material to share with our wide audience.
We are here to share the best of the best, the most unique, and the most luxurious. We want to educate and entice our readers about new, interesting and top places them for to visit. So go all out! Give us everything you’ve got! Not only is it your opportunity to get published, it is also your opportunity to stand out from your competitions!
Here are some ideas to help tourism organizations, winery associations, wineries, accommodations, restaurants, entertainment, and attractions.
