Confessions of a Wino

Most people think of Portugal and think of Port. But, when it comes to table wine, this is an outdated view. Dirk Niepoort is a pioneer of new Portugal. Fabulous non-fortified wines made from indigenous grapes that I can’t even pronounce, let alone spell. I first discovered his wines in Lisbon in 2009 at EWBC. And stuffed this into my luggage at Lisbon Aiport on the way home for €33.10.

Very subtle for a 14% ABV wine, rich yet refined with tawny autumn fruits and spicy tomato. Goes just great with a rich meaty steak like ribeye and sirloin.

The popularity of the European Wine Bloggers Conference is growing so fast I am expecting it to be leading the voting on X-Factor next week.  Yet it is going through something of an identity crisis.

For a start, I am not sure any of the attendees would define themselves as bloggers; such an old-fashioned term that covers perhaps 10% of social media these days.

It is not really a conference and struggles to find themes that blend the wide varietal of participants together, other than the ubiquitous enthusiasm for drinking wine. As one of the forefathers from 2008, I was a bit confused as to why I enjoyed the event so much and I am still not sure why I find it so compelling, having now attended all four.

I must admit that I did question, and was shocked by the defensive reaction, that the 2011 edition had attracted about 50% of its audience from outside Europe. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered this week that the 2012 “conference” is to be held in Turkey, which is neither politically nor geographically part of Europe (not yet, anyway).

I even hear rumours that the scope is being widened to include those that use social media to communicate about things other than wine – food for example.

All fair enough, but if it is not in Europe, attendees come from all over the world and are not exclusively focussed on wine, blogging forms only 10% of content, and it is not really a conference, don’t we have a problem with nomenclature?

As if to rub salt into the wound, the European Wooden Boat Club has stolen the acronym.

So, I propose that it should be renamed “Social Media Unconference on Taste”. But do Gabi, Rob and Ryan have the balls to turn EWBC into SMUT?

A free day in Vienna and a hatful of recommendations for lunch, many of which were either closed or impossible to find.  My iPhone had given up on data so my life-raft (Google maps) was not the usual powerful tool in my weaponry. Relying on analogue techniques from ancient history: Metro maps, street plans and gut feel, I stumbled across a very posh place next to the KK Hofburg Theater.

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I’ve just placed my first order with Naked Wines.  Is this news?  Not really, I suppose, but the strange thing is the reason why.  Naked has persistently pestered me, offered free samples, discounts and special offers and I have resisted for over a year.

I attended EWBC 2010 and witnessed something very interesting.  Naked founder, Rowan Gormley,  (fortunately wearing clothes in front of several hundred people) standing side by side with Willi Klinger of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board, a top guy by any standard, running a mass taste-off between 11 Austrian Wines.

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If you are at the intersection of wine and social media, then you were probably at EWBC 2010 in Vienna this October.

It’s a diverse and eclectic group of folk: Wine-makers, journalists, blog authors, wine educators, PR people, sponsors.  All have their own reasons for attending.  Mine are manifold but the two most important are to meet really interesting people and to learn about really interesting wines.

Partly due to my own ignorance, and partly due to the lack of wines available in the UK, Austria has been a bit of a blind spot for me. The best I could say of most Austrian wines is that they broke the spellchecker.  However, in a 3 day blitzkrieg of wine tastings I learnt that Austria has so much more to offer the world than Grüner Veltliner (not that ‘Gruvee’ itself is boring or ubiquitous).

I write this to capture a few favourites and, if I may, offer a few suggestions to the rare few amongst you with even less Austrian wine experience than me. These were some of the wines that torpedoed my subs…

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Blimey.  I travel all the way to London to meet up with a few EWBC fellows at Le Bouchon Breton for dinner and all I did was mention my controversial WART campaign…

Thanks to Daniel, the manager, for sharing a couple of super magnums of Châteauneuf-du-Pape with us.

The food at Le Bouchon was excellent and good value – much better than the “upmarket Café Rouge” it is accused of being, although the wine list seemed expensive (with due exception to the CdP!).

There’s always a danger that things can get a tad introspective at conferences like EWBC, so it is great to get the opportunity to broaden ones horizons out in the field, or terroir, if you will.  A trip to see how cork is produced was, inevitably, sponsored by Amorim, who almost silently supply one quarter of the world’s natural wine closures.  A heavyweight, if there were ever such a thing, in the cork world.

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If you eat out in the UK you might be interested in a new website aimed right atcha… Here is the press release:

An online portal, which brings people with a passion for food together to share their dining out experiences, has been launched. iStarvin, a site that combines the convenience of a restaurant directory with in-depth content and eye-catching photos, connects individuals with an interest in food and dining, allowing them to follow each other’s activity or seek recommendations for a special occasion.

Unlike the launch of many of their competitors, iStarvin has already done an adept job of creating a highly comprehensive restaurant directory.  There are few, if any reviews yet, and there are one or two website glitches, but it looks like a great start.  Clearly they hope to create a community to contribute insights and recommendations, but the business model relies on restaurateurs taking the opportunity to embellish the offer (for a price) and include, for example, the facility to book tables online.  Like any advertising model this depends on Muggles like me and you using the service.

Being a mobile kind of guy, I rarely search a website unless it is apped up.  I am getting increasingly dissatisfied with Urbanspoon, Opentable, and AroundMe, so I hope that when iStarvin launches the iPhone app, it will be a truffle amongst mushrooms.

This is a well worn business model with no clear leader so I admire iStarvin’s balls in entering the market.  Having said that, they have learnt from their competitors’ mistakes and it looks to be the best attempt yet from a consumer perspective (and that is the critical success factor).

iStarvin is using social media well to publicise the new site.  I learned of it on Twitter from the excellently erudite Oliver Thring, one of the many food bloggers I met at EWBC.  If you are a foodie, you should also follow Niamh, Chris, Lizzie and Douglas, charming chaps and chappesses all.

I’ve just returned from EWBC in Lisbon with a newfound passion for Portuguese wine.  The whites impressed me most, even though they represented a mere champagne flute to the magnum of reds on display.

Espoṛo Reserva 2007 was a leftover bottle of tinto that found its way into my luggage by means not requiring wallet surgery РI can reveal no more than that.

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I am in Lisbon for the European Wine Bloggers Conference and there are a few missing faces from last year which is a shame.  The Italians are notable absentees, for example.  However, the event is at least twice the size of last year’s and superbly well organised by Ryan and Gabi Opaz and Robert McIntosh.

If you are sad enough to want live updates you can follow me on Twitter at @tiptoptaps.

If you are even sadder and want to see everyone at the conference tweeting on exactly the same event every other second, follow the hashtag #EWBC.