[November 22, 2009] Chicago Tribune Bill Daley column: Talking turkey Tweet Nov 22, 2009 (Chicago Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Gary Vaynerchuk has at least a million reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving. He inked a seven-figure, 10-book deal with HarperStudio; the Wine Library, his New Jersey wine shop, is generating $60 million in business a year; his Wine Library TV blog (winelibrarytv.com) gets 90,000 viewers daily. "Garyvee" has become the undisputed king of wine on the Web, a self-styled "social media sommelier" who is one of Decanter magazine's most influential wine figures in 2009. So, what does this self-styled social media sommelier, who arrived here 30 years ago at age 3 from what is now the Republic of Belarus, plan to serve on America's big day? "I have no idea," Vaynerchuk admitted in a telephone interview from San Diego, where he was promoting his just-released entrepreneurial book, "Crush It! Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion." "I'll decide the Wednesday before," he said. "I'm a classic procrastinator. I'll walk through the Wine Library and get motivated. It will be very spur of the moment." As for what you should pour on T-Day, Vaynerchuk clearly encouraged a degree of spontaneity. "First thing, you don't have to buy a Beaujolais nouveau," he said. "Ninety-five percent of people are pushing toward zin and riesling. That's fine. They're really good turkey wines. But to not pay attention to the Rhone Valley and its grenache and syrah, torrontes from Argentina or Soave? The most underrated wines are Italian whites. They tend to do extremely well with turkey." Vaynerchuk said there are some don'ts for a wine lover on Thanksgiving. High on his list: drinking a cabernet sauvignon if that's what you drink all the time. "That's the only thing where I draw a line in the sand," he said. "Please, don't drink the same varietal every night." Vaynerchuk said he has a "secret plan" to get more people to try new wines. Characteristically, it's a brand-new business called Cinderella Wine (cinderellawine.com) that sells one wine online for 24 hours at a "ridiculously low" price. "I'm selling hundreds of cases a night," he said. "I take a wine selling for $53, and I'm selling it for $33.33." Vaynerchuk memorably tells readers and fans that they need a passion to succeed in business and in life. His is wine. [email protected] To see more of the Chicago Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.chicagotribune.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Chicago Tribune Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]