The pioneers of the European wine bloggers tasting

The wine bloggers conference gave me a real boost to get started with my blog.

What did I expect from the European Wine Bloggers Conference? Not much and everything at the same time. After the conference, I find that I am still a little bit confused about the whole blogging thing. I know that a blog does not guarantee me anything from a commercial point of view. It will, without any doubt, cost me time, which I will not have as I will be traveling a lot. Nobody here in Europe seems to care about it, and those who do are labeled a “geek”. So where does that leave me? I am not a geek - or am I ? - and I don’t get  much out if it, at least not in the short term, and my clients don’t care at this point, as I haven’t posted anything (yet). So why do I want to blog, spend precious time, money and energy, WHY?

I think I got the answer in Logroño!

I guess it is the same as with learning about wine. When you start you get enthusiastic about it. Then you really need to go into it to fully understand all the concepts. I remember when I was studying wine, I had some moments when I thought: “I am never going to learn everything about wine”. But when I found myself talking to winemakers a few years later at wine fairs or tastings and contributing to detailed wine conversations, I must admit that I have come a pretty long way.  Something similar, I hope, will happen with wine blogging. As a new wine blogger, I’m really excited about my own blog, casavides.com. The more I get into it, and the EWBC helped a lot, the more I know I have to learn more everyday. But in the end, I hope I will be able to say that blogging has become a part of my way of working, that many of my new contacts are made through my own or other bloggers´blogs.

Of course, it was great to meet a few more wine bloggers in person, but what I like the most from the conference was the drive behind them. Some are doing some amazing technical things on the Internet like Doug from ablegrape and the guys from adegga. Others are completely focused on their own winery, one country, or one region, a grape, whatever. In the end, what counted was that approximately 40 bloggers from Europe gathered to exchange experiences on how to use a blog to communicate wine and wine culture. It was one of the most dynamic get togethers in the wine world I have ever had.

For me the big question remains: how will the blog casavides.com help me to get our brand known in the big world, and how will its presence be translated into sales. On the Internet, I am pretty sure I know what to do to get better rankings etc., especially after a few sessions at the conference when I heard some pretty interesting things about ratings, micro retailing, and so on. But will that help me to get better known in the “real world”? Of course, I will talk about my winery, and about wine from Valencia and Spain, and I will even talk about other wines on my page - although I still don’t know how to sell this to the owners of the winery. They probably think I am the crazy guy running around with the camera all day, asking them if they have a good story.

I guess all bloggers are pioneers, which is probably the best part of the conference: sitting together with fellow passionate pioneers knowing that what we do will make a difference.

Hasta luego

Emilio