EWBC 2010 - Vienna - Austria

Last year EWBC was held in Lisbon, and Vinixá was helping the organization and attending the conference as well. It was a unique experience, and we learned a lot about this wonderful tool called blog!

This year the venue is Vienna, Austria, and we are going to attend once again! It will be time to see old friends and to meet some new ones too! We'll be representing the growing number of portuguese wine lovers that write about wine on their blogs.

We are very excited, and as last year we'll bring you all the highlights of this coneference. Stay tunned!

Cheers

Vítor Mendes

EWBC 2010 - Viena - Aústria

Ora aí está uma notícia esperada com alguma ansiedade... Depois do sucesso que foi a edição de 2009, que decorreu em Lisboa, foi anunciada este semana a EWBC 2010 (European Wine Bloggers Conference). O palco será a belíssima cidade de Viena. Sem duvida uma excelente oportunidade para visitar um local extremamente romântico, e desfrutar de excelentes vinhos da região, bem como tomar o pulso ao mundo europeu dos blogues.

Portuguese Wineries – Wake up!!!!

After 8 long months of negociations, sample sending, a lot of commercial work and dedication, at 7 February the first pallet of wine, from our partners Quinta da Carregosa, will begin is journey towards USA, that market wich is so demanding but also very palatable. Through Vinixá´s mediation, it was possible to find an importer, motivated to sell our portuguese wines, whom we already consider as a good friend, Michael Grisley, trying this way to give to our partner the possibility of internaciolization that their wines deserves.

Making a balance, we can say that it was a very difficult birth for various reasons. In first place, the USA regulamentation is extremely hard with foreign products, and the taxes aplied makes the prices rise, exagerating the value of our wines, diminuishing our competitivety ability with other wines from other countries producers. Beside that, we can say that also our aproach to this market was very dificult, mainly in the way of adapting our methods and logistics, issues to be improved by our producers. We allways heard that”time is money”, and for US wine importers this is motto, concerning businesses. When an importer has the finantial capacity, and intend to buy a certain product, ends up to get what he wants, where he wants, and most important of all when he wants! And this is the issue where portuguese wineries have to improve their performance. They are used to deal with the velocity imposed by national distribution channels, and they dont have generaly the conscience that today to reach international markets, we have to equip ourselves in a adequate way, to respond to the “velocity” and logistics that these markets demand from us.
Of course, life itself is full of lessons, that brings us experience, that we should keep and guide us into the future. And the future of Portuguese Wines is undoubtably the internacionalization, because everyday i see more and more people curious to know, taste and buy what the critics and wine lovers call as “The Next Big Thing”. Let´s get a grip on this unique chance, and spread the quality of our wines, aswell as our countrie´s image, an unique country, fantastic, full of good people and products.

Vinixá has some more outgoing projects many samples in possible wine importers from EUA to Hong-Kong, and our commitment is to do our share in this cruzade... we challenge others to follow our example!