Here we are as customary to provide to you a brief outline of the two most recent wine geek events I attended. The tags for these events were WINE, WEB, RELATIONSHIPS, INTERNTIONAL – in short the EuropeanWine Blogger Conference 2011 and Vinocamp Paris.
I don’t feel like giving you a detailed and precise summary of what exactly took place. If you need to precise information all you have to do is search via key words on Twitter or just go to the 2 event’s websites or see videos and photos on Flickr, YouTube or Vimeo. Furthermore to my great regret I did not participate in any ofthe post conference trips due to time constraints.
The main topic during the EWBC clearly was storytelling, how important it is for bloggers to tell stories that appeal, involve and engage. The storytelling must be interesting and compelling. One of the dangers of the internet is not finding the time to be able to properly record and share with one’s audience what is happening.Things happen at such lightning speed you can find yourself out of time to narrate your story. And if one keeps accumulating things to write about, events, wines, people and more, you end up losing key facts, memories fade and words also lose their meaning….sigh.
Funnily, despite all the new technology available to us, things in essence haven’t changed that much really. Man has been telling stories since the beginning of time, to relate, share information and mark down history and storytelling takes time.
Speaking of storytelling there is a very interesting article, if you can, please take the time to read it: E. Havelock,” Preface to Plato”. In ancient Greece, prior to when man was writing, the only source of information and cultural morale was found in poetry. These epic poems were narrated by cantors and recognized as being tales and histories that bridged the gap between what was real and imagined, sung and narrated in a personal and subjective voice.
The birth of writing (long before keyboards) took place during a period when Plato’s philosophy symbolized apeak of introspection and analysis for man. With writing comes a shift from a highly personal and subjectiveview to a progressively neutral and objective voice: Storytelling narrated form a personal point of view isn’t important!
This was a big change in direction and it affects western European history ,philosophy, literature and law in aprofound way.
With regards to wine however, each story is personal each wine producer tells his or her story, through wine they create their past, their present and their future even, whether it’s a small producer like Cascina i Carpini or a big industrial winery such as Berlucchi. Every winery has their story to tell, and wine is the vehicle by whichthey narrate themselves becomes a privileged conduit of such tale. Wine has no voice, but its aroma reminds
us of memories and the label, often quite creative, expresses poetically their personal story.
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The European Wine Blogger’s Conference gave me a chance to meet many of my French, Portuguese, English,American blogger friends and I met lots of new people who blog about wine and hail from other countries including Italy as well.
I thoroughly enjoyed Maria Grazia Melegari’s article after the event about the evolution of the identity of bloggers, I highly recommend everyone read this post on her blog Soavemente.
At the beginning the vast majority of bloggers wrote as a hobby to talk about their passionate interest in wine. Now often the bloggersare professional and they use their blog as a digital media outlet or showcase vehicle, a kind of business portfolio or card if you will.
During Vinocamp (the same tags apply, please see the 1st paragraph of this post) we dealt with one of the keyissues that is near and dear to professional wine blogger’s hearts: monetization. Can a pro blogger earn his orher living blogging, if so how? Producing fresh, innovative and cutting edge content requires time and effort, lots of time for the most time. There are different answers to this question, so elegantly asked by Maria GraziaMelegari in Soavemente. It is becoming more common place for marketing or communication firms to hirebloggers to write articles or conduct interviews on clients or products that they market and promote. It is alsonormal to be invited on press junkets, tastings and even to occasionally receive “samples” ….So….does thatmean that bloggers are just like journalists? No alas no my dear bloggers, not quite the same thing.
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t sell articles on my blog, but I love wine events and wine related trips and tastings and meeting with other fellow wine geeks. So whilst tastings and wine events that require travel are infact work, they don’t feel like work.
At the EWBC event I am proud to have collaborated with SAVELI and helped the wineries they represent.Thanks to SAVELI and my having supported their clients I was able to get sponsorship to the conference.The conference cost 205 euros, and they paid for lodging at a hotel for 3 nights. Not bad at all for a Ph.D.candidate thank you very much 😉
Good, so in keeping with the subject matter of this post wine, here is a list and some comments about some ofthe wines at the events:
I am now a convert, a true Merlot lover thanks to the Nero Assoluto Merlot by Cantina di Castelnuovo delGarda.
The Monte Saline Bardolino Brut Rosé is really quite decent, good job!
Nicosia, Fondo Filara, Etna Rosso DOC, fruity and ruby red.
Marques de Casa Concha, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chile
Genio del Pago, Tirinto, Amarone
Genio del Pago Oltar, Veneto IGT
Cantine Barbera, Nero D’Avola IGT 2010
So in closing a big thank you to Gabriella, Ryan and Robert, thank you to the sponsors with a special shout out to Berlucchi, I loved their winery and the live demo of the disgorging of the sparking wines…. I wasn’t able todo a quick video because I forgot to recharge my digital camera…aahhh technology, can’t live with it, can’t livewithout it!
And thanks to Dea Elmi for english translation support, without her I would be “lost in translation”
LE JOURNAL À BORD DU VIN PARFAIT 