The European Wine Blogger’s Conference  is announcing its 2010 location in Vienna, Austria, on October 22-24!

Last year’s conference, held in Lisbon, Portugal, brought together over 120 bloggers, social media innovators and wine industry leaders from 14 different countries. Compared to the first edition, held in 2008 in Logroño, Spain, participation tripled, with very positive results. After the event, the bloggers provided a wealth of feedback online by means of articles, photos, videos and tweets, all praising this exceptional experience and the warm hospitality, friendliness, beauty and gastronomy of the host country.

“For those who attended the whole event, it had obviously been brilliant, socially, inspirationally, technically, wineyly, and as an opportunity to learn a little more about Portugal.” – Charles Metcalfe, internationally renowned wine writer and author of “The Wine and Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal“.

“I loved the (very short) bit of the conference I attended, and only wish I had done the whole thing. I plan to come to the conference next year…” – George Sandeman, spokesman of Wine in Moderation and responsible for Public Relations of Sogrape Vinhos.

“The EWBC is that one time each year when we  have the opportunity to meet amazing professionals from the online wine world to discuss the future of wine. In addition to an ever changing location, the EWBC allows wine professionals to continuously learn about the wine, food and culture of an innovative European wine region.” – Andre Ribeirinho, owner of Adegga.com and recently awarded the “Wine Personality of the Year“.

In part, what makes organising this year’s conference so inspiring is the number of bloggers, producers and countries who actively showed support by bidding to host the event. Despite the amazing offers we received from across Europe, Austria provided us an offer we couldn’t refuse. We are therefore very excited to have Wines from Austria be the 2010 EWBC event sponsor, and trust they will help us create a conference that is not only exciting and relevant, but culturally rich and expressive of the unique qualities of Austria. A conference with terroir, if you like.

In three weeks time, we will be putting out our call for papers and announcing both our theme and an initial list of speakers but for now, don’t hesitate to reserve your ticket! The first bloggers – based in Europe – to register before March 1st will be entered into a random drawing to win a FREE TRIP to Jerez to attend the only international sweet wine tasting in the world, Vinoble. This trip will include 1 roundtrip ticket to Jerez, 1 night stay in a hotel, and 1 free entrance into Vinoble. So buy your ticket today!

As always, we thank everyone for their continued support and we’ll providing you more information in the near future!

Cheers,

Gabriella, Robert and Ryan

On Saturday night, October 31st Charles will present an hour long tasting on Portuguese wine. His aim is both educate on the myriad styles of Portuguese wine and its intricate relationship with Portuguese tourism.  As Portugal remains a very rustic and undiscovered haven for wine lovers, Charles will do his very best to enlighten us as to the myriad of possibilities that await us – and knowing Charles, we may even be graced with a portion of the tasting done in song and verse.

What follows are a few brief questions we posed to Charles regarding the potential of Portugal as a wine tourism destination! Enjoy!

The EWBC this year in Lisbon will have a considerable amount of “first time” Portugal visitors, many of whom have online voices. Therefore, what message should bloggers take away from Portugal as a potential wine tourism destination, and what sets it apart from other locations?

Portugal’s key point of interest to wine-lovers is the great array of native grapes, from which most Portuguese wines are made. These taste different from any others in the world. And, whereas the wines of, say, Italy (another country with great native grapes) are pretty well-distributed in other countries, Portuguese wines haven’t achieved this international distribution yet, so you have to come to Portugal to find them. And Portugal is also a very beautiful country, not just the coasts, but with mountains, rivers and lakes inland, too.

Why do you feel it’s taken so long for Portugal to be recognized as a quality wine tourism destination?

A bit more focussed activity from Tourism of Portugal and ViniPortugal has certainly helped. The new network of motorways built since entering the EU has also made it much easier to get to parts of inland Portugal that were well-nigh inaccessible before. And European funds also became available to finance better equipment at wineries. That happened at the same as a new generation of winemakers was coming out of wine school, getting international winemaking experience, and making even better wines. It all adds up to a ‘new’ wine country within easy reach of all of Europe.

You visit Portugal frequently, however, as Portugal is far from the largest wine producing country, are you revisiting because you are interested in the evolution of the wines, or is Portugal expanding what it can offer? Where do you see Portugal’s wines in 5 years time?

I’m continually amazed by the number of good new labels that come to the market each time I look at Portuguese wines. I try to keep up, but it’s tricky when I am also writing and talking about wines from other countries. I think we’re reaching a point of consolidation, rather than further expansion. But most of the ‘new’ producers are people who have been growing grapes for years, centuries, even. They’ve stopped supplying grapes to the local co-op, or selling their wine to larger companies, and trying to get added value by selling wines under their own labels. This will probably continue for a while, but in this economic climate, at a moment of international wine over-supply, I think there’ll be a slow-down. In 5 years I hope good Portuguese wines will have better international distribution, and more people know what unique flavours Portuguese grapes can give.

Your book is the “definitive” resource for a gourmand traveling in Portugal. What is the key point to remember when planning or taking a trip through the Portuguese wine country?

If you’re taking an ordinary-length holiday, I’d concentrate on one part of the country, rather than trying to cover the whole of Portugal in one gulp. If you take one of Portugal’s three main airports, in Porto, Lisbon and Faro, as starting points, you can cover the north, centre and south respectively. Plan as far ahead as possible, and make hotel bookings and appointments with wineries if you like to do things that way. If you can make bookings through websites, great. If not, remember that a lot of smaller Portuguese hotels and restaurants aren’t yet brilliant at answering emails. Phone is a better way to contact them, but you may well have to attempt speaking Portuguese!

Finally, what is the “long weekend” recommendation for a European traveler who finds a cheap plane ticket to Portugal? Where do you go?

What do you see, assuming this is their first visit? I’d start with Lisbon, a wonderful, historic city, with plenty of good food, bars, clubs and things to see. Lisbon will give you a snapshot of Portuguese culture. My next weekend would be in Porto, also historic, totally different from Lisbon, with boat-trips up the Douro and visits to port cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia.

Cortes de Cima has been a supporter in the form of wine of both the #EWBC 2008 and the #WBC 2009, and we were also the first Portuguese winery to start a winery blog over 1 year ago.

I think my first post from our blog sums it up nicely as to why we believe so strongly in these events:

Cortes de Cima is renown in Portugal as a pioneer and even a renegade. Perhaps because we arrived here as foreigners 20 years ago (Hans the winemaker is Danish, and I, the marketing manager, am from California) we’ve always tended to do things differently, even sometimes, downright ‘illegal’. We were Portuguese pioneers in creating our winery website back in 1999, and again pioneers in being the first winery to sell online. By once again being pioneers in Portugal by starting this winery blog, we will endeavor to live up to the Bob Dylan quote, printed on the back label of our ‘illegal’ Syrah wine,’ Incógnito’ – ‘To live outside the law you must be honest’ . We hope to give you an ‘honest’ insight into the daily goings on here at Cortes de Cima, even when we are a bit ‘outside the law’…(more on that later!)

Where Your Adventures Begins

We will start off with a guided vineyard and winery tour at Cortes de Cima, to work up your thirst and appetite. As the olive harvest, is sure to have started, you should also have the chance to see olive picking first hand!

Next, we will serve lunch based on the local Alentejan specialties, local lamb, fresh goat cheese, stone oven bread, and of course Cortes de Cima’s own extra virgin olive oil!

To accompany the buffet lunch, we will open the full range of our wines and do a live wine tasting with the winemakers themselves on hand! You can log onto our wifi in our tasting room, and Twitter while you Taste! (Don’t forget to enjoy the breathtaking views from our tasting room across our own vineyards and the rolling Alentejan plains!)

Afterwards, we will visit a nearby village, Vila de Frades, where the Roman tradition is still alive of making wines in old clay pots, or ‘Talhas’ (like the pot we use on the Cortes de Cima label). Goat cheese artisans and bread makers using stone ovens are also nestled behind the picturesque village walls, for those who want to have a quick peek!

Also in Vila de Frades, and not to be missed, are the amazing ruins of S. Cucufate, one of the largest and best preserved Roman villa in the Iberian peninsula.

If you are driving, plan to stop in Évora on the way back to Lisbon, a unique UNESCO world heritage site!

Transport: If you have your own wheels, it’s a 2hr drive from Lisbon. http://cortesdecima.com/tourism/visit-us/

Alternatively, take the train (www.cp.pt) and we will arrange a pickup and drop-off from the Cuba train station, 15 mins away.

• Lisbon – Gare do Oriente Departure: 09h10 Arrival to Cuba: 11h19
  • • There is also an option of leaving the Entrecampos station, near to the VIP Grand Lisboa at 9:21. More info here)
• Cuba – Departure 17h33 Arrival to Lisbon – Gare do Oriente: 20h36

If you would like to join us, simply sign up on our Open Wine Consortium Event page.

And if you need any additional information, please don’t hesitate to contact us at: wine at cortesdecima dot com or on twitter at @cortesdecima

At DOC- DMC we are not winemakers, but we are wine lovers. We believe that whoever loves wine, also loves to discover!

In Portugal there is still a considerable amount to discover. Historically, Portuguese wine has slowly gained traction outside of the country’s borders, but as a result of a new generation of winemakers rediscovering the many autochthonous grapes which give a unique character to Portuguese wine, our fame has begun to spread like wildfire.

Our team at DOC-DMC has come a long way in organizing events, incentives and trips. This know-how combined with traditional gastronomy and the beautiful countryside makes wine trips to Portugal an irresistible choice.

This is why we are sponsoring the EWBC. We are fully aware that Portugal needs all the help it can get in spreading the word about our local treasures. From our varied and distinct traditional cuisine to our vast and changing landscapes, we can only hope that you as bloggers will fall equally in love with our wine, food and culture as we have.

And how do we convince you of our unique treasures? We will bring you on a full day adventure on Sunday through the wine regions of Setubal and Terras do Sado, where you will visit 3 wineries varying in size and style, a traditional tile factory and dine on a vast array of traditional Portuguese foods. It is our hope that by the end of your trip, you will not only have a fundamental understanding of these two regions, but also a desire to come back and visit again. Full Schedule of Sunday Trip is listed below

What else can DOC-DMC offer a passionate wine lover?

• Gastronomic trips to Portugal for individual travellers or small groups to all well known DOC Areas from the Minho to the Douro and from the Dão , to the Ribatejo, Alentejo or the recently “re-animated” Algarve.
• Offers for weekend stays combined with a round of golf, or even a relaxing day spa.
• Events related with wine: team building and wine courses, eno-gastronomic dinners or wine tastings in charming settings.
• “Winelands of Portugal “, are travel books which will allow you to discover the best wineries, cellars or other selected tasting venues of the most important DOC areas, as well as a choice of restaurants in order to enjoy the best of local gastronomy. Based on the suggestions of “Winelands” you will also be able to make your own itinerary choosing from the suggested venues, enjoying wine tasting, lunch or dinner using the vouchers included in the travel book. This product will be available on the internet this year and is currently sold in the reception of over 30 of the best hotels of Portugal.
• Moreover we are the exclusive dealers of the Enomatic Wine Serving Systems in Portugal, a technology we import from Italy which is a leading product for conserving and selling wine by glass.
• Our small selection and distribution of “Vinhos de Quinta”, wines with an excellent price – quality relationship produced by smaller wineries. Similar to a boutique sales, “Vinhos de Quinta” has found clientele among Lisbon’s best restaurants and hotels who love to introduce and discover new brands and tastes of Portuguese wines.
• Clube Doc aims to promote the Portuguese DOC Areas and wines to people in Portugal. Be it a gastronomic dinner to discover flower and fruity notes in red wines, an excursion to the unknown wine area east of Lisbon, or a trip to the wine harvest in Douro, the Clube Doc Calender organizes monthly gatherings!

We are elated to have you join us, and hope that we can be a resource for you if you should ever have questions about the wine, food and culture of Portugal!

Sincerely,

The DOC-DMC Team

Schedule:

09:30 – Pick up

10:15 – The Day will start with a visit of the prestigious winery “Bacalhôa Vinhos de Portugal”, which is the result of nearly 82 years of dedication to the production of wine. The innovative character of this winery is the combination of tradition with state of the art technology, which results in an annual average production of nearly 12 million litters of wine. This magnificent winery is part of the “Grupo dos Sete” (Group of Seven), a unique organization which gathers seven of the most significant private companies of the Portuguese wine industry. The winery is owned mostly by one of the most important Portuguese patrons of modern art, José Berardo and has a large art collection spread all over the property. Finalizing the visit you will have the opportunities to taste some of the renowned Bacalhoa Vinhos.

11:30 – We will next visit the historical and traditional winery José Maria da Fonseca, a family run business established in 1834, with a background of two centuries in the art of wine making. Piriquita is their most famous brand, in fact ,the first of all table wines produced in Portugal. A further hightlight of the visit will be the Moscatel Wine cellar with thousands of precious well aged bottles or this sweet fortified wine. This winery indeed has some stories to tell !  A tasting of several of their red wines and of course Moscatel  will follow the visit, accompanied by the no less famous cheese and the traditional bread of this charming village.

12:30 – Our next stop will be by the “São Simão” workshop, where the ancient tile painting tradition is still carried on to this day. We will be able to see the artists at work and thereby learn some of the secrets of this trade. The exhibition rooms display glazed tile panels and porcelain pieces decorated with the patterns and colors of the 18th century.

13:30 – A fantastic buffet, prepared by the famous restaurant Alcanena, is awaiting us now. On the table you will find a selection of Portuguese cheeses, sausages and smoked meats, 16 traditional cold salads, various soups as well as several different Portuguese meats and fish, such as hare with white beans, partridge pie, pork meat Alentejo style, duck rice, fried entrecote with rice and beans, seafood “açorda”, spiritual codfish, calamari Algarve style and many others. But the meal is only finished after the dessert: egg pudding, milk cream, chocolate mousse, almond cake, orange cake and cheese cake are some of the delicacies we will be able to taste.

15:30 – When this superb meal is finished we will proceed to the nearby winery “Horácio Simões”, in order to taste the Moscatel de Setúbal and the Moscatel Roxo, still made in traditional grape presses, as well as the Aguardente Velha.

16:30 – Return trip to the hotel.

New Faces

First off ,when you get 250+ living, breathing avatars in the same room, it can be quite surreal. Purely from a branding point of view, we highly suggest that all you bloggers out there adopt avatars for your twitter accounts and gravatar identity which show your face. This is not purely for the sake of people recognizing you at the EWBC, but because I tended to connect in a more significant way with people who were already displaying their real identity as their avatar. Maybe it was subliminal, but it did matter! That said, the biggest benefit and result of the conference was vast amount of networking opportunities. This was driven home by all the great “out of session/on the bus” discussions, which both Gabriella and I participated in. We knew this before going into the event, but it’s nice to have it reinforced. The lesson: provide ample downtime or break time to network. With hundreds of bloggers in the same room, overflowing with ideas, it’s impossible not to appreciate and add to the conversation.

Get into the Vineyards

At the EWBC 2008 in Logrono, there were suggestions that we spend more time in the vineyards and among the grapes. We knew this going into the event, but having been the first conference, frantically scrambling to make sure all points were covered, we failed to remember that we need to physically connect with the natural elements that make the wines we love. At the WBC this year, we landed in the vineyards most of Saturday; and while we wish we had been with larger groups, we were able to breathe the fresh air and feel the terroir which crafted the wines we drank. Lesson learned: although we would love to have the entire group together, smaller groups can be both effective and useful.

ViniPortugal Tasting

Speaking of wine, the entire reason why we even found ourselves in CA was as result of ViniPortugal, our Premiere sponsor of the EWBC. And because of this relationship, we had the pleasure of hosting a Portuguese wine tasting on Saturday night – a highlight not only for us, but for many of the participants as well. With over 40 wines poured, ranging from light Vinho Verdes to the dense Port wines of the Douro, people continually voiced what a pleasure it was to taste wines with so much distinct character. Having spent the last 5 years writing about them, we’re already sold, but to know how eager and excited other people are to try them only makes this year’s EWBC all the more interesting. And let’s not forget that ViniPortugal graciously offered an all expense paid trip for one lucky blogger to come to the EWBC in Lisbon this October. To enter, simply write a post on the event and link it up here! Can’t wait to see who wins!

Breakout Sessions

Sunday brought us a chance to discuss wine blogging in a series of parallel sessions, where everything from law, to video, to SEO was discussed. This is the heart of both conferences. However, when you have 2 streams of sessions, it’s impossible to attend every one. We were fortunate, because as we were two, we could split ourselves up and attend every session. For me, the Search Engine session with Doug Cook of Ablegrape contained content everyone should know about, while Gabriella felt that David Honig’s (founder of Palate Press) session on legalities of blogging was equally important. Lesson Learned: videotape all sessions! The EWBC will also have parallel sessions, but we’ll now ensure that everything is recorded and archived online. 2nd Lesson Learned: make the sessions either longer or the talks shorter. Why? Questions! The question section can often times be the most exciting, and sadly, there was little time for them at the WBC. This is hard for any conference organizer, but we are going to do our best to figure it out.

Speakers

We have always struggled with this. Winebloggers are by their very nature strong willed and verbose. Consequently, the EWBC has always supported the unconference model, which allows anyone to be a speaker, and we have considered having Keynote speakers. It was great to see how the WBC pulled it off. There were 3 speakers over the weekend: Chris Alden of SixApart, Barry Schuler of AOL, and Jim Gordon of Wines & Vines magazine. Each and every one offered quality content, and generally, in a very engaging manner. While we still don’t have plans to bring in a Keynote, we were very appreciative in seeing firsthand how effective it can potentially be.

Internet

I need to preface my argument by saying that WIFI is notoriously difficult to organize for a large group. And although the organizers are partially to blame, the Flamingo Hotel royally failed by not having an adequate connection for all 250+ people, receiving a big #FAIL sign by all attending participants. Lesson Learned: it is fundamental to a tech conference to make sure that we’re logged in at all times, and we promise to do our very best at the EWBC in Lisbon!!!

So there you go a brief wrap up. Now, we suggest you surf over to Delicious and search wbc09, not to mention the wide range of both photos and videos uploaded from the event. We want to wholeheartedly thank Joel and Alan for the great time we had, and we hope that next year, we might be able to get to Walla Walla for the 2010 version!

Cheers,

Ryan and Gabriella Opaz