Welcome to simVineyard, blogging the development of the Capozzi Winery Island in the virtual world of Second Life.

This site will be maintained by your humble narrator and Josh Hermsmeyer, not to mention other team members as they come on board.

Josh is the author of Pinotblogger.com, where he provides the story-to-date on his family’s efforts to start a winery in California’s Russian River Valley. In fact, he started blogging about the winery before it even had a name. The site provides fascinating insight into both the traditional craft of winemaking and the cutting-edge innovations employed to successfully launch and market a business. All of which makes the prospect of helping to bring the Capozzi Winery into Second Life such a richly compelling opportunity for me, and why I am so excited to be a part of it.

It is in the spirit of Pinotblogger.com that we launch this site. simVineyard.com is an invitation to you to get an inside look at the island as it develops, and to facilitate a dialogue with about the design as it evolves and to inform the design by any ideas or suggestions that arise from that discussion. Posts here will provide a cross-section of all aspects of the project, including planning, management, research, design, building, texturing, scripting, and preview/opening events.

The idea of a blog dedicated to the development of a Second Life Island is not new. The trail has been blazed in a big way with Virtual Aloft, a site documenting the development of a Second Life island for Starwood Hotels.

As Josh mentions in his recent post, nor will this project represent the first winery in SL. That honor belongs to the Obscure Winery on the region of the same name. They are however the first Real World winery to establish a presence in Second Life. Josh writes:

While one of my goals in undertaking this project is to generate awareness of our brand, we aren’t simply recreating our vineyard and proposed winery in a virtual space. Lots of companies are doing just that (Sony, Adidas, American Apparel, Cnet, etc) and the people who frequent Second Life usually respond with a collective shrug of the shoulders. I want to make something a bit more remarkable.

My personal goal is to create architecture that extends and complement the rich experience and craft of winemaking, exploring the terroir of a virtual world.