So one brisk but sunny day in November 2008, a hip young couple came to visit us at the winery. It was a busy Saturday, we had Deneen's aptly titled "Winehouse" playlist rockin' the joint, and as usual there was a great mix of people enjoying the wines, cheeses, and moody milieu inside the Brown Estate tasting room.

When our heroes (for they have indeed become our heroes!) were ready to check out, they handed me their order form with an @twitter.com email address. I'll cut short the suspense: we had in our midst Twitter CEO & Co-founder Evan Williams, and his wife Sara Morishige. They purchased their wine, went on their way, and left us feeling like something important had happened. But back then, we were not yet plugged in to Twitter -- nor would we be for another four months.

As these things go, Evan Williams's name and contact info were entered into our Mailing List following their visit. In the months thereafter, Ev and Twitter were everywhere we turned for information, because Facebook had tried and failed to acquire Twitter, and Twitter was fast becoming the new everything, the very Zeitgeist.

Fast forward to March 2009. Brown Estate's Web 2.0 offensive is in high gear with increased activity on Facebook and an official Twitter presence. Backstage, Deneen and I began brainstorming about approaching Ev and Sara to see whether they would mind if we mentioned somewhere, somehow that they had been to the winery. We wanted their permission to name-drop them.

We never got around to soliciting them, though, because running this little enterprise keeps us jumping on a daily basis. But this past Friday, March 20th, we emailed our Mailing List announcing a few things, including a link to Brown Estate on Twitter. The night before, Thursday the 19th, we had 22 people following us on Twitter. By lunchtime Friday the 20th, we were approaching 400 followers on Twitter. At this writing, we have 515 and counting.

Initially, we thought the Friday surge in Twitter activity was attributable to converts from our Mailing List. Sort of, but not really. Turns out at 7:50am on Friday the 20th, after receiving and obviously reading (yay!) our emailer, Evan Williams "tweeted" about Brown Estate being on Twitter. Not only that, he gave us a generous endorsement in the process.



That's Ev's tweet, and right above it, his announcement that Sara is pregnant. One historic moment for us, one historic moment for Ev.

We are still pinching ourselves. Ev has nearly 340,000 people following him on Twitter. That's up from around 310,000 when he tweeted about us last Friday (note the growth rate). That means Ev's tweet about Brown Estate is reaching an audience 60 times larger than our Mailing List.

Thank you Ev, and thank you Sara. Sara arranged their visit to Brown Estate, and when we looked her up on Twitter after discovering Ev's tweet, we found that she actually posted a tweet of her own about us from the road the day they visited the winery. Get it, girl.



We are true believers in the power of Web 2.0, and we thank each and every one of you for your support and love. You brought us here in the first place.

Cheers,
Stefanie at Brown Estate