Wine Tasting at the London Bloggers Meetup
Well folks, it’s been another great London Bloggers Meetup and this time I actually have 5 minutes to blog about it. It was no reflection on Melanie Seasons’ presentation from the November meet that no post has appeared to date, in fact I thought Mel delivered an engaging and entertaining presentation. The lack of posting was purely down to a lack of time – I know, lame excuse. I’m still waiting to see the video footage from BitchBuzz, maybe it’s coming soon…
So it’s with the same excuse that I have apologise to the generous wineries involved in last nights meetup for the lack of blog post up here pre-event!
And so, I’m sure everyone who attended will agree, last night’s meetup was great. We were treated to a short and sweet presentation from Rob Macintosh at Wineconversation.com coupled with a wine tasting session – which was a first for the London Bloggers Meetup. A huge vote of thanks to the wineries for providing their fine tipples, which in no particular order were:
1. Vivanco Viura/Malvasia 2007, Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco – courtesy of thirstforrioja.co.uk
2. Riesling Kabinett Trocken 2007, Weingut Clauer (and if you are really nice to me, a taste of Riesling Auslese 2003, Weingut Clauer) – courtesy of winzerblog.de
3. Higueruela 2007, from Sta. Quiteria – courtesy of tintoralba.com
4. Dinastia Vivanco Crianza 2004, Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco – courtesy of thirstforrioja.co.uk
5. Bellamarsilia 2007, Poggio Argentiera – courtesy of poggioargentiera.com
6. CVP 2007, La Casa de las Vides – courtesy of casavides.com
7. Syrah 2004, Cortes de Cima – courtesy of cortesdecima.com
8. Antique Oloroso Sherry from Fernando de Castilla – courtesy of jerez-xerez-sherry.blogspot.com (who also writes about sherry here)
9. Special Reserve Tawny Port, Quevedo Port – courtesy of Quevedoportwine.com
After tasting them all, I can safely say I was loving the CVP 2007 from CasaVides (Rob – how can I get hold of a couple of bottles of this one?), the Syrah from Cortes de Cima and the Tawny Port. The Antique Oloroso sherry was the most controversial drink, I think you either loved it, or you hated it, but it’s certainly the first time I have tasted such a dry sherry.
Rob’s short but interesting presentation was about why wineries are blogging. It seems there is a real challenge in the wine industry of dealing with a defragmented audience and vast vast competition. Blogging seems to be a great way of building a rapport / audience by differentiating the wineries offerings and showin a real passion for their product.
One thing seemed interesting to me was that there are over 1000 wine blogs in existence already which means each will only have a tiny share of voice. Perhaps there needs to be some combined and concerted effort to develop a collective voice for a number of independent wineries..?
Rob kindly popped his slides up on slide share, so here you go. I’ll also link to all of the winery’s videos ASAP, some are well worth watching!!
Overall I had a really enjoyable meetup last night. Nice to see some regulars, from Jaz to Mel, Tim, Mehrdad, The Clog Blogger, Peter, Tony, Jason and more. I’m pleased you are all still coming along and hope to see you all again in January!!
If you’ve had difficulties getting a place for recent meetups I suggest you join the meetup mailing list, which will ensure you receive the promo emails and also follow me on twitter (abarge). Also, keep checking back here, there will be some inporvements to the site over the coming month or so as I’ll be adding more features to help make this more of a London Bloggers community resource. Drop me a line if you have any ideas for features you would like to see…
Merry Christmas and a happy new year everyone!
Cheers,
Andy
PS please everyone, don;t mention the fact that I toasted the start of the wine tasting with a glass of beer…
- The December 2008 wine tasting London Bloggers meeting | Tony Scott
- Where beer and cider worlds collide. With wine* | Tony Scott
Hi Andy, good to read you liked the tasting and the CVP 2007 of La Casa de las Vides in particular. I have followed the tasting through twitter and now I am reading the follow ups through the various blogs and websites.
I am looking for a solution to make our wines available in the UK. I keep you informed. Feel free to contact me directly on my email, or call.
Cheers
Emilio Saez van Eerd
export director La casa de las Vides
tel:+34 689009368.
Dear Andy,
I’m very glad that you all enjoyed this wine tasting and we hope that it made your event even one. The Cortes de Cima Syrah is available at Waitrose both on the stores and on the online shop.
Cheers from sunshine Portugal.
To all the team of London Bloggers, a huge thank you from Quevedo for this opportunity to taste our Special Reserve Tawny Port.
Looking forward to meet you in Douro, Portugal!
Robert and myself had an interesting discussion during the wine tasting on the connection between the worlds of wine, beer and cider.
I’ve posted our conclusions, along with a proposed social event.
Feel free to add a comment!
Hi, thanks for the good “Tasting at the London Bloggers Meetup : LondonBloggers.net” post. Would it be possible, that i can write a story about this post in our local newspaper? I would be really happy if i can do this and i will give you a link from a german blog too. Please answer. Greetings Goldpreise
Hi Emilio, Jose and Oscar, thanks to you all for providing your wines and videos. It truly was a great London Bloggers Meetup!
I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled in Waitrose for the Syrah and look forward to seeing the CVP and Port available soon.
Goldpreise, feel free to write about our event. Drop me a line from the contact form if you need any details.
Cheers,
Andy
I hope our wines will be available soon in London.
As soon as I have more details, I will inform you!
Emilio