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Winelibrary TV, hosted by the one and only Gary Vaynerchuk, is running a contest this week, called the “Bring the Thunder” contest (which he has referred to on-camera as the “Spread the Thunder” contest…). I have decided to write a blog post about my experience with wine, which exists solely because of Gary V and his Thundershow.

This is the video explaining the contest, if you haven’t heard of it yet:

To re-cap what Gary said in the video, the prizes are:

• Grand Prize (1). The Grand Prize winner will receive a trip to co-host Wine Library TV with Gary Vaynerchuk, then a private dinner with Gary in New York City, and we’ll put you up at a hotel in New York.
• Runners-up (5). The 5 Runners-up will receive an AppleTV. Watch the Thunder Show in glorious high defintion!
• Sub-winners (25). 25 sub-runners-up will win an exclusive Wine Library TV Schwag pack, featuring the *NEW* limited edition Wine Library TV wristband and more!

So where do I begin? At the beginning, I suppose.

One day I was watching Diggnation, and Gary Vaynerchuk from Winelibrary TV was hanging out with Kevin and Alex. I thought “cool, they’re friends.” A few weeks later, Kevin and Alex mentioned WLTV on the show, so I decided to check it out. Everything changed at that moment. The first time I watched WLTV, I was hooked. Gary is exciting to watch, has a great personality, and really knows his stuff. I watched for a few months before I even bought my first bottle of wine. (Keep in mind that up until that point, I had only had one glass of wine in my entire life, and it was on a dinner date with an old friend. I had simply said “I’ll have what she’s having.”)

I asked Gary V what I should buy via both email and via his “Ask Gary” Facebook application. Gary suggested Ercavio Roble La Mancha 2005 as well as an Australian Shiraz. I hit up Winelibrary and bought the Ercavio Roble La Mancha, as well as a bottle of Little Penguin Shiraz and a bottle of Amaroo Shiraz. When the package arrived, I hit up Walmart to buy an inexpensive set of wine glasses and a corkscrew. Once I got home, I was absolutely blown away by the packing. The box was MUCH smaller then I had expected, with extremely efficient and safe packing materials used. The Styrofoam inserts were custom shaped for wine bottles!

Let’s just say the wine was not what I was expecting. I was expecting to taste the fruit that Gary always talked about with Australian Shiraz. I tasted… alcohol. Nothing at all but alcohol. I let the bottle of Little Penguin sit out with the cork out overnight, to let the alcohol dissipate a bit. The second day it was definitely better. I’ve heard Gary talk on the show about how with time and practice, you don’t even notice the alcohol anymore, so I figure I’ll just keep plugging away at it, trying different wines, until I really start to enjoy them.

I just wanted to give a big thank you to Gary V for turning me on to tasting wine, and giving me a little bit of entertainment every day!

Finally, I figured a list of what I have done to “Bring/Share the Thunder” was in order, so here it is:

1. Obviously, this blog post.
2. Talk about WLTV all the time with people at work.
3. Showed my mom WLTV when I was back home over Christmas. She liked it enough to ask me to go bookmark the site on her laptop
4. I’ve been wearing my WLTV wristbands while playing racquetball at least twice a week
5. I’ve changed my email signature at work to include a link to WLTV
6. Subscribed to the WLTV Feedburner Feed.
7. Added a WLTV badge to my website
8. Added a WLTV widget to my website
9. And finally, I created a group on Facebook - “Help Chris win the ‘Bring the Thunder’ contest!”. I’ve invited all my friends, and as of this point have 28 members (Including Mr Vaynerchuk, and some people who probably joined after seeing Gary V join). I’m aiming for 100 at some point, even though that may not happen until the contest is over.

I would absolutely love to win the contest, but the second prize (an AppleTV) and the third prize (WLTV prize packs) are pretty damn awesome too!

Because you (us), with a little bit of me (Gary V), we’re changing the wine world - whether they like it, or not.