#Ewbc european wine bloggers conference lisbon 30.10.09 (english)
BARCELONA AIRPORT T1 : Back to the Future
It was my first time in Terminal 1 Barcelona Airport,
It was my first time in Lisbon, Setubal, the Douro Valley and Oporto.
And my first taste of a Wine Bloggers Conference.
This was an extraordinary journey into the future and back into time all at once.
I was not disappointed, on the contrary my dear Watson I was totally gobsmacked. I found out that "Elvis" was still around and in my Blue Suede Shoes, I was walking on the moon with all the latest technology and set off in my new space ship from the Space Station in Barcelona aka: Terminal 1 Barcelona. When I arrived at Lisbon I had suddenly travelled back several centuries, everything seemed smaller, less elegant and simpler. One has to say however, that I was treated with great respect.
Once at the conference, I met people from all walks of life, all of whom were interested in networking and taking back something new to their country of origin. I signed up to get more ideas for blogging, something completely new the result of which you can find here.
DAY 1
I had 4 hours sleep the night previously and when I got to the Grand VIP Lisboa Hotel, I was completely shattered. Registration at 5 pm, a taste of a few wines from Alentejo, all extremely good value for money and very different to what I have ever tasted, the day commnenced well. We got started with an introduction to wine blogging from Mr. Ryan Opaz, he was rocking and he was the man. Wine Blogging is the future with double the number of particpants to last year- this looked promising! Right after the introduction Esteban Cabezas led the Sherry, Port and Sweet Wine Tasting. Esteban, representing Wines of Spain showed us his knowledge on the subject together with one of the organisers of Vinoble, the Sweet Wine Fair held every year in Jerez. There were more than 8 wines in a somewhat unlogical order which made objective tasting a bit difficult, also as sweet wines were tasted before some dry wines with a Sandeman 2007 Port right at the end. Anyway this was just the start and I was happy to be able to come here.
In the break I was able to acquaint some other fellow bloggers and several people from wineries. Next up were the Douro Boys presented by Dorli Muhr who was responsible for organising our later trip to the Douro.
The 5 wineries were: Quinta Vale D. Maria, Quinta do Vale Meao, Quinta do Crasto, Niepoort and Quinta do Vallado.
These were definitely the stars of the night and dare I say it the stars in wine terms of the whole conference.
DAY 2
Attended the different workshops: Blogging and the Social Wine Brand where already there were disputes as how to monetise i.e. earn money from Blogging. It seems that some people think that advertsing on your blog is a good way to earn money, but then your Blog isn't objective. Jim Budd a freelance journalist was asked what the difference were between writing on his Blog or for Decanter magazine. Answer: "I don't know whose adverts Decanter is carrying nor have Decanter ever asked me to write about particular producers" then Ryan Opaz asked the question: "Would it be the same if there could be advertising for which you didn't know the source?" , this was going to be fun!
The Videoblogging Workshop was exremely useful, Daniele del Gesso, Wine Sleuth (Denise) , Zev Robinson and Gwendolyn Olston explained their experiences and shared valuable insights into making viedos on the web about wine. Daniele with Wine Rocks was probably the most complete proposal as far as wine video blogging goes with near flawless quality in his production which takes some 2-3 days of hard work with the help of an assistant to get it right. The rest of the panel also gave us valuable insights into making video, with very interesting content which is where I realised just how important sound is when making videos.
The name Gary Vaynerchuk came up quite a lot throughout this workshop but also throughout the whole conference, proof of just how far his message is reaching .
The Second workshop I attended was Tech Tools and Gadgets where there was plenty to learn about technical and software issues regarding getting started with blogging. Wordpress seemed to be the preferred software package for bloggers. We touched upon subjects such as owning your name, very important if you want to have long-term success with your brand and common sense things such as using different passwords on different sites was also commented upon. For me a very useful workshop
The last two workshops concentrated on Social Media to reach the audience better and also the Future of the Wine Brand. Extremely interesting were presentations from adegga and Able Grape, these guys stole the show!
At 18:30 it was Charles Metcalf's tasting. It was pure pleasure to hear his voice, a symphony of remarkably detailed wine knowledge , experience and a beautiful mezzo soprano (??) voice to make this one of the complete wine tastings I have ever had the joy of being in.
Later we headed off to dinner at Restaurant Eleven, where we had some nice tapas and a bit more wine too, of course I spat all of mine as I had to keep control of the situation. ;o)
DAY 3
Day 3 was spent in Setubal, visiting various wineries Fonseca, Bacalhoa and Simoes. The Douro trip which I was lucky to be nominated for on Monday and Tuesday was absolutely amazing in all aspects.