Gary Vaynerchuck, host of the popular video podcast Wine Library TV, visited Des Moines this weekend and spoke at East Village Books.

Gary V. is a new form of celebrity, self-made through tireless enthusiasm, infectious energy, hard work, and the ability to leverage powerful social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook. He actually interacts with the community he’s built — Gary typically receives 1,000 e-mails a day and he takes the time to answer each one personally. This is refreshing, especially in a media landscape that likes to package, produce and force-feed us “celebrities” that have zero relevance other than attending parties and appearing in garbage reality programming.

It was a pleasure hearing Gary’s thoughts on building a business and his full-throttle obsession with changing the culture of wine. After his talk and signing at the book store, some of us from the Des Moines TweetUp crew kidnapped Gary and went out for food and cocktails. (Above is a quick video interview that I captured in the back seat of Rob Jensen’s Camry.) Podcasting News also has a fantastic, in-depth interview that you should check out.

Thanks again to @garyvee for visiting Des Moines!