Just under a month ago I attended the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Vienna. I was a little nervous, being and #EWBC virgin and all but 30 minutes into the conference I was already totally at ease. There were about 200 people from over 30 countries, all interested in wine and social media so it felt liker I had died and gone to heaven:-)
The Opening Keynote speaker was Elin McKoy, and she totally sucked me in with her talk on the end of the era of the wine critic and the upcoming opportunities for us wine bloggers. I will write more about her talk in my wizinwinebiz marketing blog but am so very happy I met her as she is an amazing lady!
I took several workshops on social media and the wine industry related topics and was really impressed with the wealth of information and detail available. I learned a lot about different tools I can use to get my message out more effectively and even on how to write my content in a more appealing way.
And then there was the wine tasting – she says with a huge grin on her face:-) – and it was a tasting with a twist. Rowan from naked wines committed to place an order of the favourite Austrian wine of us wine bloggers. So in short the tasting was Austria’s wineries have talent with a live voting system – awesome!!
We tasted some great wines and in the end the race was won by a typical Viennese wine style – the Wiener Gemischter Satz. Several (9) grape varieties are grown on 1 site and they are harvested at the same time to make the wine. So actually the blending of the varieties happens in the vineyard and not in the winery – a very interesting concept producing some great and unique wines!
The first day ended in a dinner and later a party organised by WienWein in a very special (ie the house where Beethoven composed his 9th Symphony) old farm house. The food was traditional Austrian fare – ie a lot of pork and other meats and strudel for desert. After the meal we were taken to a gorgeous old wine cellar for the party, which was opened (again) in the traditional Viennese way with a Waltz. Yours truly was lucky enough to dance with one of the Viennese winemakers (who’s Gemischter Satz was absolutely fabulous!) but I have to admit that after all that twirling I was pretty dizzy;-) We were able to taste through more of the excellent Viennese wines over dinner and the party and many of us indulged maybe a wee bit too much, but besides that we had a fantastic evening!!
Day two of the conference and the first workshops were a little hazy to me… The closing Keynote Speaker, Evan Schnittman raised some very interesting questions about the future of publishing and the changes the traditional publishing industry is currently undergoing – many again as a result of blogging (ie internet publishing)
The conference was officially closed at the Austrian Wine Marketing party in the Art Museum. Another great night with once again some fabulous wines and a lot of booty shaking on the dance floor!!
The next 3 days the Generic Austrian Wine Marketing board put on some amazing post conference wine trips. I enjoyed them that much that I feel they do deserve their own story.
Next years #EWBC will be held in Francia Corta in about 47 weeks from now :-) Do check it out – it’s an awesome experience!!
