Yet, unbeknown to us, the interest was much greater than we expected and suddenly we had 50 participants from 11 different countries. From wine retail bloggers to winery bloggers, we covered the gamut, each one bringing to the table a unique professional, cultural and individual perspective.

People have asked time and time again, what makes the European Wine Bloggers Conference unique, and the answer is two-fold: passion and diversity. As this idea started on a grassroots level – between 3 bloggers who are passionate not only about the medium, but more importantly, about the subject – it is of no surprise that we wanted the participants to walk away feeling connected to a community, more knowledgeable on the subject of wine blogging, and inspired to experiment on their own blog. But what we didn’t anticipate would be vast amount of information provided by each culture. A subject so straightforward as wine blog writing turned into a heated debate based on each culture’s perspective on what is ethical, effective and professional.

The seed of this inspiration stemmed from the fact that we normally don’t read blogs in various languages. Therefore, it takes an event like an international conference to bring us together and motivate us to share ideas in whatever language we can muster. And although our communication skills may not always be eloquent, our passion to learn from one another pushes our levels of understanding forward to the point where true learning is achieved.

This is why I want us to reach our goal of 20 countries this year! To date, we have 12 countries represented, including: Sweden, Holland, England, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, USA, France, Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland, but we want 20! We want to ensure that this conference bridges cultural gaps in wine blogging to create a vast and powerful network of people communicating ideas across the globe.

If you are a wine blogger, or know of a blogger, from outside of these 12 countries, please join us! Whether you’re from Bulgaria or Mexico, we want your contribution to this conference!