I was once tasting wines with a distributor, and he was showing me his portfolio. He noted that there were two types of products he carried: wine and "gadgets". His Cab Franc-based Chinon was a wine. His chartreuse-crankbait green, "mojito-flavored wine-like beverage" was a gadget. They both sold (okay, only the latter sold...this was rural Georgia), but the mojito monstrosity was not a wine, at least in his expert opinion.

But back to my fragile reputation as a savvy sommelier-wannabe of the interweb. Has it gone the way of a bottle of mojito-flavored wine-like beverage at a Georgia demolition derby tailgate? Plausible, as there are warning signs:

1) My facebook page numbers have dwindled, along with comments and page visits. Yeah, I've been slow on Twitter. I haven't interacted much with the community. Circumstances just don't allow right now. Oddly, though, the reader Exodus manifested after I wrote a post about how back sweat is best tempered with a glass of Assyrtiko. Lighten up, folks! I didn't realize you were so offended by Greek wine.

2) My company- whom I've long debated for blocking Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube at the office- has opened up said three, but countered by blocking anything with "suburbanwino" in the address, including the blog, the twitter page, and the Facebook page. Touché, I.T. gents. Clearly, like a bad porn flick, the embarrassing bits have been blacked out from view.

3) Most disturbing: I'm receiving gadget samples.

Granted, I'm not usually one to take a wine sample, sniff, taste, and report. Sure, it's a totally original concept, but I doubt readers care that I think a glass of Aussie Karl's mojito-wine is redolent of koala diapers. I know and respect plenty of people who do reviews (and do them well), but that's not how I generally swing on this soft-copy fish wrapper.

Maybe I haven't written enough poignant pieces about HR5034 (surely, one in a bureaucratic sea of craptacular House "Resolutions"). I want small wineries to ship direct to consumers. I even know distributors who hate this proposed law. But you don't want to read about it here. I'm uninformed, and serious news generally doesn't stand a chance with my scatterbrain when "Futurama" is on Comedy Central. Alas, somewhere, Tom C. Wark is not reading this blog anyway.

Perhaps I'm not convinced that wine blogging MUST be the stone that slays traditional media's Goliath. Maybe I think wine blogging can be the young and sassy Jay Leno to Wine Spectator's wise and grounded Pat Morita. However, compromise is not what the revolutionary-types want to hear out there, so am I'm being boycotted for such a sensible view? Or, is the shun (understandably) because this is the second time Suburban Wino has referenced the Jay Leno/Pat Morita opus, Collision Course?

In any case, getting back to #3, I will be writing about a beverage made out of pomegranates soon. Yes, I'm going to write about it. Although I suppose it's "technically" wine, I'm going with "gadget". And if the subject itself doesn't kill me, the sheer audacity of the content may. When you see a subsequent post about ChocoVine, then you'll know that I'm too far gone...

...or, maybe this is just a clever ruse to entertain you.

Did you come here to be entertained? For shame.