Today, December 18th, 2008 the New Casavides Wine Labels Arrived!!!

Labeling a wine is part of my job as an export director of a small family winery. And what I think we have here is a very interesting label in that it expresses the winery for what it truly is: modern, colorful and historical, in that it reflects the family’s Mediterranean and agricultural roots.

After three very long months of anxious waiting, the labels finally arrived. Next month, we will bottle the new Casavides range of our 3 young wines of 2008: white, rosé and red. Each style is highlighted with its own unique color; however, the entire range shows continuity through the design of the label and shape of the bottle, and more importantly, uniform in price as well.

The bottle will have a white synthetic cork with “casavides.com” stamped on it. For now, a screwcap is not possible, although in the near future, I would like to start with that as well. We might have to change the bottle however.

Please tell me how much you like it :-)…or dislike it We’re open to all suggestions here!

We might start using a QR code on the back label as well, but that’s still a secret, so don’t tell anyone!

Look here at the casavides wines for all the other new labels that belong to the same range!

I can’t wait to start sending the new wines to the importers. They still have to wait a bit until January.

Thanks again for your comments!

My Twitter Taste Live “LIFE”

I thought it would be nice to add some of my experiences as a export director for a winery about this new trend called Twitter Taste Live, which has become part of my twitter tasting life!

It started on the 29th of October, 2008, in Boston with binendwine and Craig himself leading the show. Exactly a month later, on the 29th of November, a new twitter friend Weiguokong, better known as Chinewinelover, organized the first Chinese #ttl in the city Guangzhou. In the first two #ttl tastings I could be present myself.

This first Chinese wine tasting, was followed by a second, where our wines participated in the second #ttl in China in Shanghai. Now, as of yesterday, our CVP 2007 was one of the wines participating in the #ttl in London.

Four completely different kinds of  wine tastings thanks to Twitter. This is something the wine world should pay attention to, not because it was casavides participating, but because twitter changes the way small wineries like ours can do international wine tastings. It opens up a new world, and I predict many wineries will have to welcome this form of web 2.0 wine tastings whether they want to or not.  Wineries who don’t pay attention to this new trend are missing out not only on new business opportunities, but also some serious FUN. Within a few years, every tasting will have a virtual component, because even if the winery is not initiating virtual events, the participants will, most likely without asking for permission.

As a small winery, these tastings are worth experiencing, even if the direct results from a commercial point of view are not that obvious. Nevertheless, each and every tasting I’ve participated in has resulted into new leads, new projects and new friends. I am sending samples to importers I’ve never heard of prior to these tastings, not to mention the enormous amount of free publicity through blogs, twitter, and even in a local newspaper.

Check out the posts on:

wine conversation1, blog meetup, wine conversation2, flickr photos london, flickr photos london 2,

Twitter and #ttl show that wine tastings can combine real consumers tastings wines with the virtual presence of the wine producer. This is great, even if you can’t take a way a possible language barrier. Consumers meeting wine producers is the goal, and this is just the beginning. I’m curious to see how wine tastings will take place in a few years from now…

See you on Twitter!

Emilio

November INTERWINE and Wine bloggers tasting in China, Guangzhou

It started as something unexpected. I was exploring the Chinese wine websites and blogs, as a part of my market study for my upcoming trip to Guangzhou, where la casa de las vides will participate at the INTERWINE wine fair. As I asked around on twitter about a wine bloggers in China, weiguokong, a Chinese wine blogger offered me his help to set up a tasting.

I am writing this at the airport of Charles de Gaulle where waiting for 4 hours in terminal 2E is not my favourite way to spend my time. I was glad to find a good internet connection here, although the French keyboard is difficult to zrite on, you see, I cqn0t find the q, the , qnd the w and the z are qlzays turned qround, but qpqrt fro, thqt it)s ok, i guess:

So back to typing with two fingers and some extra attention to my keyboard, tomorrow 26 November I will arrive in Guangzhou, where on 27 to 29 November the INTERWINE Canton wine fair takes place.

I know it will be very difficult to enter the Chinese market, and this fair will be tough one for our wines. Nevertheless it is important, especially now, to keep on investigating and trying to make new contacts.

As an extra event Casavides will organise an extra tasting on Friday evening especially for wine bloggers in China as a way to get new and above all different contacts. Last month in Boston a similar tasting resulted in has some great contacts, and in the end it doesn`t really cost me a lot of extra effort to open a few bottles and taste the wines in a downtown restaurant. Actually I love opening our wines, the more the better, especially for those who never before tasted our wines before.

I was told that there would be somebody to translate for me from english to chinese, because I have not been able to find the pomegranatephone yet in the stores here in Paris

The tasting has been prepared by CHINEWINELOVER. To know is behind this carefully selected name: check chinewinelover on twitter on 29 November (chinese time), and his blog http://blog.sina.com.cn/tigerlikewine to find out who Weiguokong, the most active Chinese wine blogger is.

I will publish some INTERWINE AND BLOGGERS TASTING photos soon on this blog!

How Social Media and Social Networking Has Helped Wine Exports in Valencia, Spain

Late August 2008, La Casa de las Vides introduced its blog under the name Casavides.com. The idea of the blog was to create a marketing tool for the export department.  And by default, as a blog is a marketing tool, we also agreed to add all the necessary Web 2.0 tools as well, such as Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Dopplr, OWC, Linked in, Youtube, Delicious etc.

So, how did we use the various Web 2.0 tools to export our wines? And have we, as a winery, seen any results in the past 3 months? I am writing this post to evaluate my own choice in involving an entire winery in a Web 2.0 strategy that is starting to become a part of our daily life. I am almost 40 now, and I am stuck in between the enthusiasm for Web 2.0 and the lack of knowledge about it to be 100% sure how Web 2.0 works best for me. Convinced as I am to follow the guidelines as lined out in Catavino’s pdf Social media for wineries, I have committed myself to welcome just about everything that comes along my Web 2.0 path. In three months, the strategy has had its ups and downs, like who is writing what post and when and above all why? Well, we do know why, in theory I mean, but our lack of discipline and not having our priorities straight is probably keeping us from doing the things we have to do. This post is about what happened over the last three months at La Casa de las Vides and how Web 2.0 has helped us to export our wines?

In short, we are not exporting yet! Zero, niente, nada, nichts, rien du tout. BUT we do have some very interesting leads, and many of them came through the web 2.0 tools I use!

Do you want to know how? read on…

Introduction at EWBC 2008

The unique event that helped get started was without any doubt the European Wine Bloggers Conference. In one weekend, I received enough contacts to get started on Facebook, OWC and Twitter at the same time. Without all of these invaluable contacts I made there, I probably wouldn’t have had the feedback and comments I needed to get me focused on all these tools.

TWITTER

Twitter was probably the tool I was most obsessed with. In the first weeks, I was watching every single message from everyone I was following. After a while, I understood that life goes on, even if I don’t follow Twitter on a minute by minute basis. However, my astonishment regarding the amount of information coming at me at once, and the dynamics behind it to have a conversation in 5 continents at the same time, was something inconceivable for this export director till now. Now after more than 400 tweets, I use twitter in a more moderate way. I do follow some of the interesting links some leave in their tweets. One of the better posts I read lately came from Wine Brands. Twitter now has become a source of information, a place to hang out, and a great way to get response, like when I introduced a new label for our new casavides 2008 wines. Or the twitter wine box of Slijterijmeisje in Holland who interviewed me at a wine fair Megavino in Brussels, and who will now put some samples of our wines in her Twitterwinebox. Twitterwineblox is an idea that Petra de Boevere put into practice when she discovered that she could get more clients through twitter offering them a six wines in a box that can only be ordered through twitter on her account (slijterijmeisje).

Meisje van de Slijterij meets Emilio Saez van Eerd from Slijterijmeisje on Vimeo.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

During the  month of September, I spent many free hours on checking out all the profiles on OWC, Linked in, Facebook, of interesting people, directly or indirectly engaged in the wine industry. I am still amazed how easy it is to contact people through these social networks. Off course, as an export director, my job is to sell wine.

I used to go wine fairs to try to meet up with importers. Mailings, cold calls, whatever was necessary to get attention, I did it. In general if you are doing a good job, the average response on those mailings would be  around 5% - 10%.  My experience after many wine fairs is that a good wine fair gives you more or less 25 leads, of which 10 are really interested, and if you are lucky, one or two want to start working with you. For that you have to wait until the fair, be lucky and have patience.

Now, with social networks the amount of interesting contacts I got through the above mentioned Web 2.0 tools are much more interesting than the few contacts you can get from a wine fair.  First of all, if you connect with somebody through a network, you already share two of the same interests; the social network itself AND wine. Whereas on a wine fair you only have wine in common. The fact that you both belong to a new and exciting network, makes the cnnection even stronger, because from both sides you want the networks to give you results (why else do you spend time on the social networks?)

The second advantage is that through a social network the communication is relaxed, without the pressure of the wine fair, where most of the visitors already have to work down a list of producers they want to meet, before they want to spend time on you.

The third benefit is that you can be “direct”. You get direct questions and answers if you are both online. In this sense social networks are not less personal, especially if you imagine that you can send al the relevant information about the winery and wines as you speak to each other, share a video of the winery, send technical details, show tasting results on tasting note sites. No way that you can do this on a wine fair. But also for my own information as an export director, I want to know who I am really talking to, and that I don’t waste my time talking to somebody who pretends to be bigger. Internet gives you normally enough information to get a good first impression. No information, or a crappy website, is a serious warning for me. I do spent quite some time on checking out an importer’s website or blog, if he has one (although, until now I haven’t seen many importers with a blog. Does anybody know why importers don’t have blogs?)

In my free time I often follow links and comments through OWC, facebook and linked in, and I found some valuable information read between the lines in the comments of for example linkedin answers and questions section. If an importer is looking for a wine, or an exporter offers his wines, have a look at the comments!

I trust that there are  much more advantages I did not descirbe here! Feel free to add them in the comments.

DOPPLR

The tool that convinced me less, until now is Dopplr, not because of the philosophy of the site, but more because of I don’t find other dopplr users as easily as I find people on twitter, facebook or OWC. For me, Web 2.0 starts when I travel. On Dopplr, though, I can’t find how to use the site on a more frequent basis. I have tried out a few things (read the post about dopplr here), but am still researching Dopplr’s best use. Where Dopplr has helped me to change my perspective is the way in which I view travel.  I now travel around the world with an easy to reach new goal: I force myself to open at least one bottle of my own wine during a trip to anywhere, and share that bottle with bloggers, any blogger, that I can meet through any Web 2.0 tool.

Reflection on Dopplr: probably I need to give it more time, and be more active myself. Check out my next trip to China and Singapore

Web 2.0 EXAMPLES

This led to the best example of how Web 2.0 tools has aided me as a wine exporter: the Casa Vides tasting in Boston. I try to imagine how it must have been in the pre Web 2.0 era to organize this type of event. It probally would have taken years. We (I did not do this all by myself) organized a tasting in Boston only 2 weeks before I went to the US. How did we do this? Simple!

I was looking for Boston bloggers on Twitter, and within seconds, I got a response. Check out “how” through this Boston tasting post I wrote in October.  In the end, two great posts were written about the Casa Vides Boston Bloggers Tasting. One by the hand of Passionatefoodie and the second by Bloviatrix

Casavides got a lot of attention on twitter through many posts, we did a Twitter Tasting Live thanks to Binends. It went all so fast, and being a Web 2.0 dummy, I couldn’t understand the impact at the moment itself.

Bloggers tasting: THE RESULTS

For me, the blogger’s tasting was a success by itself, because it received some great feedback from people stemming from different backgrounds. Food, media, marketing, wine, sales, retail, etc. Put this mix together and you receive more information than you can process.

My surprise was even bigger when I got an e-mail from a major Boston wine importer, who contacted me two weeks afterward. He was seriously interested in our wines after hearing about the tasting notes from one of the participants.

Other examples include a trip we did to Ireland with Bubbelbrothers, a.ka. the blogging wine importer. I met Julian through an interesting conversation last year about undisclosing the process of exporting wines through internet, when I did some blogging for Tintoralba, another Spanish wine producer with a blog.  Actually this conversation even got the attention of some wine marketers in Spain. Julian was so kind to invite some Cork based bloggers and clients for a tasting and the effect of this gathering was absolutely felt at the winery.

It’s been one month after the tasting in Boston, and three months after the introduction of the blog. I assume that you would like to see some concrete results. So does my boss! We can’t live from the great feedback we get, do we? More important questions have to be answered soon like, how many bottles were sold this month? When is the importer going to order at all? etc etc.

It’s kind of contradictory that the most non Web 2.0 activity, the wine fair itself, in a way is the driving force behind my trips, which allow me to do some Web 2.0 activities along the way, like blogger’s tastings. Costs for these extra Web 2.0 activities are almost zero, taking into account that the two major costs items, the trip to the country and sending samples are counted as costs for the wine fair. And although Web 2.0 something I almost do in my own time, let’s after or before working hours. So yes you must like to give up hanging out with friends and family, or do as we did and unplug the tv. But hey, if that means that your (net)working time is becoming more effective and fun, then it makes a lot of sense.

So, my conclusion as a export director for now is that Web 2.0 has not yet taken over my non Web 2.0 activities, but it sure helps me do my job better, quicker, directer, and above all, with more fun.  And as I feel we have so much more to tell and to share, the whole Casa Vides team is getting more and more involved in what they are doing on a daily basis. Videos and photos, stories and comments has makes us realise how lucky we are that we can work with wine, every day!

Comments are more than welcome.

Keep you posted about our interesting discoveries about using Web 2.0 for wine exports!

Hasta luego

Emilio

Twitter for Wine Producers

Twitter is becoming more and more accepted. I saw that even BBC and CNN uses Twitter for the comments from voters to back up the election news. So it most likely won’t take long before Twitter will show up for other mass media activities.

Maybe twittertastelive.com is not a mass media thing, but it certainly will an important role in the wine sector. And the good thing is that the traditional printed media starts to admit it as well. See photo from article in Wine Enthusiast. So I guess twitter and internet marketing are becoming a part of today’s reality.

I just hope it helps to break down the wall between producers and consumers, as I experienced it during a blogger’s tasting at Melissa’s Main street Bistro, a nice little restaurant in Stoneham.

Yesterday’s tasting of Casa Vides wines was a great way to get some honest feedback from my Boston blogger friends.  11 bloggers participated together with several other bloggers in the world from the US,  China, Spain, the Netherlands to name just a few countries, who watched the livestream set up by binendswine.

We tasted four wines. The white Vallblanca 2007 with Verdil, Macabeo and Gewürztraminer. This wine was a surprise for most of the bloggers.  Verdil is a grape that is produced by only a handful of producers in Southern Valencia. And the Gewürztraminer certainly gives the Verdil what it needs to become extra attractive. The blue bottle conversation was a definite NO ,in favor of a white or green bottle. The shape (Rhine style) was perceived as attractive.

The rosé Rosa Rosae 2007, a combination of Garnacha and…no not syrah, but Cabernet Sauvignon to give it structure. I really have high hopes for this wine, as I am a big rosé lover.

Both the white and the rose will be priced around 10 to 11 dollars in the US

Third wine is the CVP (Roman/Latin way) or CUP 2007 red. Here Syrah does play an important role as part of a  50/50 blend of Syrah and Tempranillo and is doing very well in Valencia. With 6 months of oak, it is still a fruit driven wine.  At the tasting, this red was a bit too young to drink, but it certainly showed a lot of potential. This wine will sell for around 15 dollars.

The Aculius was the best wine of the evening, according to most bloggers. Although I personally think this wine still needs some time to develop, it is a great blend of Tempranillo, Syrah and Merlot with an expected price level of around 18 to 20 dollars.

It was great to get all the feedback on the wines. As a export director of a fairly new winery (2008 is the 4th harvest), Casavides is eager to get as much feedback as possible from wine professionals and wine lovers around the world. As their Export Director, I have to transmit this feedback to Ana Martin, our wine maker, and Fran, the owner of the winery, currently studying wine at the University of Orihuela (Alicante).

I was very pleased to receive some great comments, and it confirmed my trust and belief that the wines of Casavides have some good possibilities in the export market. Maybe the presentation doesn’t convince all bloggers at the tasting and wine professionals I talked to at the Miami Wine Fair, which is why I decided to show the latest design. Some OOOHs and AAAHs again confirmed that Casavides certainly is going into the right direction.  See photo new wine labels white-rose-red above.

Thanks Craig of Binendswine for the effort to organize this TTL in just a few days,

Thanks Leslie for initiating this tasting in Boston. If it wasn’t for your first reaction, this tasting could have taken place somewhere else.

Thanks Richard for bringing me back to the hotel!

Thanks all other bloggers for your great comments!

Thanks to all watchers for staying up that late, if you were in Europe, for waking up early in China.

And last but not least A Big thanks for Ryan and Gabriella, who are guiding me and protect me from doing anything stupid on the web.

Oh yes, if you are a wine importer and you stumble across this post, even if this post is already some months old, feel free to contact me. Casavides is still looking for importers and distributors. ( What do you expect, we started just 2 months ago to export our wines!)

Hasta luego

Emilio

New Spanish Bodegas at Megavino in Brussels

This week, from the 17th to the 20th of October, Brussels will be the center of Spanish Wines in Europe. Megavino an expansive wine fair will be hosting hundreds of Spanish wineries, including Casa Vides. Actually, my idea was to create a small video for the wine importers in Belgium saying something like:

“Hi, I am Emilio Saez van Eerd, export director for the La Casa de las Vides winery in the DO Valencia. All Belgium wine importers, and other visitors of the fair, are welcome to visit me at stand number 3508-11, etc etc.”

I could then add who we are, what wines we make, and that Ana Martin Onzain is the winemaker, but who has the time to read it. I know that I DON’T have time, so why should a wine importer in Belgium have time? Shooting a video is nice if you have a beak in your day to set it up the camera and bottles, while finding a nice angle, good light etc etc.  Unfortunately, in 3,5 hours, I have to be packed and leaving the winery for my trip.

Wait a minute. I can use 12secondsTV!

See if I can set up something, hang on…

12 seconds later: Ok done!

I promise I will dedicate some more time to it next time, but in the meantime, enjoy the 12 seconds video.

Saludos,

Emilio Saez van Eerd

Coming Up: Miami & Boston Blogger Wine Tastings

In a previous post, I mentioned the possibility of hosting some blogger wine tastings on my trips abroad. Here is the follow up:

Next week, I will fly to Miami. The Miami WIne Fair has collaborated with IBERWINE, which has attracted quite a few Spanish wineries that will be present in Miami from 25 to 27 October. It will be Casa Vides first trip to the US with our wines. Our aim is clear: to find serious wine importers who want to import our wines. OK, so the wine fair is nice to meet importers, but why should you care? What’s important for you to know as a blogger is what I am doing when I am NOT at the wine fair.

I think it would be great to do some bloggers tastings like the one I did three weeks ago on my trip to Cork (Ireland) or in Valencia at Enopata.

Wouldn’t it be fun to have at least one in Miami on the 25 or 27 October?

IMPORTANT: If you are a blogger and like to taste some Spanish wines from Valencia in Miami, please contact me, I am still open to any suggestion for the Miami Tasting.

The second blogger wine tasting will be held in Boston, although preparations are still in progress. Why Boston?

Thanks to Twitter some bloggers (note: not only wine bloggers) have showed interest to meet up in an informal way to taste our wines and have fun talking about wine and drinking it. The place and the hour will soon be announced, and I’ll be sure to bring along at least a Valencian rosé and a red wine to taste.

If you read this and you are interested in meeting with me, please do contact me with a comment below.

My only concern is that the laws in the US will make it too difficult for me to ship the wines to Boston. I can use some help from somebody in Boston to guide me how to get my wines there, because it is incredible how many rules each US  state invents to make things more difficult for wine exporters to get their wine samples into the US. Maybe I will have to share my experience with you after my US trip, and dedicate a post to “how you get your wines to the US”.

Follow casavides on twitter and stay tuned. Maybe the next bloggers tasting will be held in your town.

Saludos

Emilio Saez van Eerd

Vote for the new Casavides label

Casa Vides would like to receive your comments and suggestions on our new label for our new range of young Mediterranean wines. Positive and negative comments are welcome, as long as you can explain your reasoning behind them so that we can follow your logic. We still have a little time to make these labels better, so please chime in with your thoughts!

Here are the details. We will use a light purple to indicate a young red wine against the trencadis background. The trencadis is used to indicate a classical Mediterranean image.

The white wine will be turquoise, and the rose will have the exact same design but in light green (Pistacho). Evidently, it is very difficult to imitate the color of our rosé, so Juan Carlos, our designer, told me yesterday that green was our best option. Finally, instead of the green bottle for the white and rose, we will use a white bottle, but the shape will be identical for all three wines.

So, let us know what you think.

Do you think the label is eye-catching?

Do you like the color?

Do you like the shape of the bottle?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Saludos

Emilio Saez van Eerd

Spanish Fashion Designer Creates New Casa Vides Wine Labels

This is Juan Carlos. He prefers to stay away from the camera, but I managed to take a shot of him when he wasn’t looking. Fortunately, he’s working, despite his broken arm, on a new range of wines that will be introduced by the end of the year.

I asked Juan Carlos to publish some posts on label design, as well as some other topics he’s excellent at. And to be honest, I am looking forward to his posts, as he knows A LOT not only about design, but about the history of the region as a whole.

As you can see here he’s still in a very early stage of the designing process. But he’s promised to have a prototype ready for the next wine fair in Belgium. He still has two weeks. So I guess I shouldn’t worry too much.

By the way, all the labels of our existing wines were designed by Juan Carlos as well.

Cheers,

Emilio

Dopplr me and let’s taste some wine soon!

I just read a great post about Dopplr from Ryan Opaz of Catavino. He claims that every (wine) export manager should use Dopplr, and I totally agree with him. Of all the tools on internet, I know Dopplr is probably one of the most interesting ones for people who travel a considerable amount like me.

Dopplr is a tool that can be used to meet people in cities where you are traveling to.  Thanks to Dopplr, you can see who’s going to the same events, same cities, and even the same hotel as you are.  So it’s perfect way to keep in touch with people you know on your trip abroad. Plus, they not only explain the tool in a very simple, and user-friendly way, but the actual use of it is equally painless. The effort that’s required is that you discipline yourself to use it.

I am an export manager, I blog, and now I am trying out Dopplr as well.

One of the great things of being an export director for a winery is that you always have wine in your neighborhood (or “close by”), especially when you travel. When a wine export manager travels to a client, a wine fair or a tasting, normally he takes along a few bottles extra, just in case. But one thing a wine export manager hates to do is to bring unopened wine bottles back home.

Important tip for bloggers who like wine!

What bloggers should know about a wine export manager who travels, because there is a good chance that he/she has some extra bottles on hand. So what happens if I’m interested in meeting up with a few wine bloggers, or if a few bloggers want to meet me? Nothing easier than a short message saying, “Hi Emilio, I see you are in London. Why don’t you come over with a bottle of your wine and we’ll pair it with some food”.  Everybody who travels has to eat, don’t they? And eating alone can be very unpleasant sometimes. So, night time, after working hours, is the perfect time to meet each other, anywhere.

I will be the Mr. Nice Guy that brings along some great wines, just so that we can chat about wine together. I think this is a much more attractive alternative than sitting alone in your hotel room watching a stupid movie you actually don’t want to see anyhow.

So I invite bloggers around the world, traveling or not, to following me through Dopplr. And If you share your Dopplr with me, or send me a message that you are interested to meet up on one of my next travels, please let me know, and I guarantee you a bottle of our wine - assuming that I have some with me. If not, we will send a sample afterward.

See my dopplr here: http://www.dopplr.com/traveller/Emilio

And do contact me.

Cheers

Emilio