Portugal back to the Winefuture

The future is here, but not for many Portuguese winemakers. I just attended a weekend wine fair in Lisbon, Encontro com o Vinho,  where I had a great chance to not only talk directly to consumers and trade customers, but also many fellow Portuguese wine producers. Although the conversation with my winemaking friends was focused on the economic slowdown and depressed sales, what surprised me most was their reaction of disbelief to learn that our winery has it’s own Blog, a Facebook Fan page and a Twitter profile!

These same winemaking friends had also not heard about the highprofile wine conference ‘Winefuture‘ which was held last week in Rioja. Despite criminal charges sullying the conference’s organizer, MW Pancho Campo, the Who’s Who of the Wine World clamored to be present, either as invited guests or by forking out big bucks. Rumour has it that there were even 2 Portuguese wineries attendees who weren’t scared off by the high conference fees. We were scared off and stayed away, wondering if we were missing a fantastic opportunity to rub shoulders with Robert Parker, Gary Vaynerchuck, Jancis Robinson,etc. However we sent an ‘Ambassador’ in the form of some bottles of Cortes de Cima 2007 personally carried to Rioja by André Ribeirinho of Adegga, who used it to educate these opinion makers about the usefulness of his AVIN which when combined with a QR Code renders our backlabel into a dynamic tool linking the wine lover to online social interactive tasting notes sites (like Adegga). Even Mr Robert Parker himself was apparently fascinated with the concept, as he mentioned it in his closing speech at the conference!

‘Wacky’ Gary Vay.ner.chuck (@garyvee) was the speaker who created the biggest waves at Winefuture. He slammed wine producers for failing to take advantage of social network sites like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with their consumers. “I don’t give a crap about Facebook and Twitter, but I care about consumers.” “you should be embarrassed if you don’t recognize that this platform allows you to talk to them.” ”Do you realise how much money, time, and effort it would have taken to share your story and business with these many consumers before the advent of the internet. It has changed, and business has changed”  Invest in building brand equity because it is your “friends” who will buy your wine, but the message needs to be communicated with passion.  You have been pumping out 3,000 in print ads and it has gotten you ZERO, but these online tools are free and should be used.  You now have for the first time to directly connect with the consumer. No more editor, no more gatekeeper, no more filter!  Wineries need to stop letting others tell their story. Tell your story everyday. (decanter.com)

We are listening, Gary! And thank you Catavino and Robert Mcintosh for bringing the transcripts of the Winefuture conference to us via Live Blogging and Twitter, and to Vinustv.es via Video podcasts!