Americans have become increasingly interested in wines. Accordingly, the number of vineyards has been exploding.

Bonny Doon Vineyard, the Santa Cruz, Calif.-maker of wines from rare grape varieties, has remained competitive in part by using Skype to hold virtual tastings with distributors around the country, noted Burke Owens, the vineyard's communications director.

Virtual tasting? The distributors actually taste the wine. The live connections via Skype video calling is the virtual part.

Burke said Skype makes it possible for the vineyard to reach out to more distributors than it could otherwise, saving on travel time and expense.

Randall Grahm, founder and "president for life" of Bonny Doon, explained this in June on Oprah Winfrey's "Where in the Skype Are you?" program devoted to Skype.
Randall broke new ground on Oprah, taking wine tasting to new levels. Literally.

Randall conducted a tasting of three wines with Oprah here in Chicago, Skype CEO Josh Silverman in London and couple on board a Virgin America flight above San Francisco.

It worked great. ml

Could virtual tastings be in the offing for consumers? Maybe, Burke said, though he advised using official Bonny Doon spit cups to protect computers. Plastic covers on the keyboard might be in order as well.