Join Now to receive targeted wine samples for review.

If you review wines on your blog, on Twitter or even on Facebook, you know that wineries are falling over themselves to send out free samples for you to review (and if they aren't yet, then you're definitely in the right place!).

The problem is that often times wineries send the right people the wrong wines. If you review high end Cabernet, it's a waste of time and carbon to ship you a bottle of Two Buck Chuck.

Plus, no one wants a bunch of spammy emails from winery PR flacks filling up their inbox.

By joining Help A Winery Out (it's free), not only are you helping wineries to cut down on the waste associated with sending out poorly targeted wine samples, you're also taking control over which samples you get, and how.

It's sampling on your own terms.

How it works.

You sign up for the list, and soon after you'll start to receive emails with offers of wine samples from various wineries. The offers will be based on the types of wines you prefer to review, or the geographical area you specialize in.

The only emails you will receive will be from me, Josh Hermsmeyer. I run my own blog over at pinotblogger.com where I'm blogging the birth of our small family winery in the Russian River Valley. I've been involved in the food and wine blogging community for a little over 3 and a half years, and I know many of you personally. I've started a wine blogger scholarship which gives away up to $1000.00 in prize money to put toward wine education, and my blog has been featured in national periodicals like the Wall Street Journal, Wine & Spirits, Fast Company Now as well as other local media.

My Pledge To You.

I promise to never share or use your email address for any purpose other than to alert you when wineries have samples available.

This is my pledge to you. If, God forbid, something ever happens and you receive spam as a result of joining this list, you will have only one person to go to for answers: me. My cell phone number, email and physical address are posted prominently on my blog. You can also reach me on Twitter (@pinotblogger).

Your Privacy & How to Accept Samples

Wineries will never have direct access to your email address. They will simply submit their sample queries using a form similar to the one above, and I will send the request out to you. If I ever choose to use the list in my role as owner of Capozzi Winery, I will use HAWO in exactly the same manner as the other wineries. No favoritism.

If after receiving a samples email you choose to engage with the winery, you will do so by contacting the designated winery representative directly (usually by email). I won't be involved.

You Are In Control.

The benefit of this system is that you are in control. You choose which wines you want to review as well as when and how you will interact with the winery offering the samples.

In the end its a win-win for both you and wineries.

The 2 Rules.

There are only two rules:

1. If you choose to review a sample you must promise to give your honest opinion of the wine, and you must disclose that you received a sample.

2. You must never accept payment of any kind for reviewing a wine. If you are ever offered cash for a review, please report the offending winery to me immediately and I will ban them from the list and out them publicly (please note: there is no rule against having an affiliate link at the end of a review, something I'm totally in support of - see here).

Trust and credibility are the new currency on the social web. We must be curators of our own credibility and be transparent when there is an opportunity for conflicts of interest so that our readers can make allowances for it.

Join Us!

If you're on board, join now to begin getting your targeted samples. It's free, and always will be.