Robert Parker is arguably the most powerful voice in the wine world, or at the very least in the  US wine world today. His point system, which is both heralded by some and scorned by others, nonetheless causes markets to shift and wines to sell. Personally, Robert Parker is also one of the reasons I first started to get interested in wine some 12 years ago. At the time, I read his books and often purchased the wines he rated well. Ironically, this exploration and education by Robert has led me to follow his suggestions less and to trust my own palate more when it comes to buying wines. (photo by gastromia y cia)

As a result of new media bubbling to the surface, wineries, wine consumers and wine media are looking towards the rising influence of blogs and as a result this has led at times to tension between both the old media and new media, at times coupled with unfair attacks on all sides, often without good information. Last year, this came to a head with several online “scandals”; one of which consisted of Dr.Vino questioning, quite fairly in my opinion, the ethical standards of Robert Parker’s writers. The follow-up scandal involved Robert himself claiming that “blobbers” (derogatory for bloggers) are in some way in bed with the industry. Read the full story here. Both of these events resulted in more bad blood than serious dialogue.

At the time, when I saw Robert’s statement, I was hurt that someone I respected spoke so poorly of bloggers, claiming they lacked of ethics without properly investigating his remark. Seeing that it was on a forum, I chalked it up to a bit of frustration, posting the comment without enough forethought and consideration. Thus, I was excited to meet Robert this past year at the Wine Future Conference in Rioja, and although we didn’t have time to chat one on one, I was able to garner more insight as to who Robert is, rather than who the media portrays him to be.

Robert Parker is a wine lover. Yes his palate has been given too much power by what is largely a lazy wine consuming public; but whether or not you agree with him, Robert has a pretty damn consistent palate. I don’t always agree with it, and feel that some people tend to follow him blindly, but I do hold great respect for what he has done in his life. For this reason, after hearing him laud the internet as fundamental to wineries self promotion at the closing roundtable of the Wine Future Conference, I knew I needed to offer him a place to respond to the wine blogging world. What follows is a short video on his thoughts about blogs taken from Wine Future, followed by a short interview we sent to him by email, and finally, a second video on wine and the internet.

If you are winery reading this, please listen carefully. The internet is no longer an “option” to sell your wine more effectively, it is a necessity.

Ryan Opaz

1. At Winefuture, you spoke of the future and how important it will be to communicate about your product directly to the consumer. Blogs are one way to support your vision. Since blogs are simply another form of the printing press, what do you see as their benefits and weaknesses as pertaining to: publicity devices, personal journals, wine reporting tools and educational platforms?

Blogs are like any journal, although they tend to be much more personal, and one does see an enormous variation in quality, from excellent ones that are informative, balanced, and very well-researched, such as Catavino.net, to ones that are axe-grinding, vicious, and largely irrelevant. Certainly, blogs are here to stay, and the good ones will rise to the top and become more and more successful and read by people throughout the world. People have to remember that blogs can reach anyone on the internet, and clearly have an instantaneous worldwide impact.

2. You yourself started as an amateur wine lover, learning much of what you know on the job. Some have even called you the first blogger. From your journey, what do you think is most important lesson for the next generation of wine communicators to hear or learn? What advice do you have for amateur wine lovers who want to follow in your steps?

I think responsible journalism, whether it is on wine or any other specialty field, is first and foremost the obligation of any blogger. The good blogs benefit from writers who are conscientious, who do their research, and who present informed opinions. People want personal opinions, but they also want fairness, balance, and accurate information, and this is the most important message wine communicators need to provide on their blogs.

3. The Internet was change dramatically in 5 years. What do you see as the Internet’s role in the wine industry in the short term? What technologies, or tools, do you think are fundamental to a winery suceeding today? What technologies do you hope to adopt and use in the future?

Certainly the wine industry has continued to lag behind in the use of blogs and the internet to the extent they should. Every winery that produces a wine should have an informational website explaining their vineyards, how they make their wines, the differences in vintages, the terroir, growing conditions, and some family history if deemed relevant. They should also have a message board for fans of their wines to post and get immediate feedback from the producers of the wines. This is what the wine world is moving to — instantaneous dissemination of information, accountability, and important feedback from the producers themselves. Unfortunately, too little of this is done, most of it today is primitive and speaks to an already captive audience, providing very little in the way of meaningful information.

4. Finally since Catavino is an Iberian Wine Blog, what do you think of Spain and Portugal’s future beyond Rioja and Port wine?

As I have written many times in my journal, Spain and Portugal (and especially Spain) have extraordinary potential in terms of wine quality in the future. Spain already has extraordinary terroirs, lots of old vines, a winemaking history, and a remarkably diverse climate, with an amazing array for different wines, from dry, crisp white wines to full-bodied, powerful reds. Portugal is still somewhat of an unknown, but based on some of my tastings, it is another country with enormous potential from varietals that most consumers know very little about. All of this plays to the internet, where the dissemination of information and so much teaching can be done through the internet.

Thanks again, Ryan, for the chance to respond, and congratulations on a great wine blog.

Robert M. Parker Jr.

Related posts:

• The Grand Garnacha Tasting of Robert Parker – Wine Future Conference
• Portuguese Wine Writer, Fernando Melo's Tribute to Robert Mondavi
• Why Should Readers Care about the European Wine Blogger Conference?
• Iberian Wine Resources: Which Winery Blogs and Wine Resources are Relevant to You?
• SITT Tasting in London and an Interview with Jamie Goode from the Wine Anorak

Yesterday, Ryan and I had the incredible opportunity of attending the SITT Tasting, also commonly known as the Speciality Importers Trade Tasting at the famed Vinopolis. Built around a Victorian Railway Viaduct, Vinopolis is situated at the world famous Borough Food Market in the bustling Bankside area, just a stone’s throw away from London Bridge station.

The tasting itself is a business to business event, allowing small importers to showcase their wines to journalists, retailers, distributors, etc. Consequently, the wines featured are very unique, small production wines that are generally very hard to come by. And for two Iberian based wine journalists to taste unique grapes from Chile, rare blends from New Zealand and even old favourites from the Port region, we couldn’t have been more content.

But above and beyond that, it was great to see both old and new wine media milling around the tasting, exploring wines in their own unique way. We encountered wine bloggers such as Wink Lorch, Brett Jones, Andrew Barrow, Jamie Goode, Ultimate Wines and Andrew Chapman; and legendary wine writers such as Jancis Robinson, Olly Smith, Steven Spurrier and Oz Clark. For me, this was an incredible opportunity to see how each of us brought our own unique talents to the table. New media with our flip and digital cameras, audio equipment, moo cards, 12 second videos and twitter applications close at hand, and old media with their pen and paper and decades of wine experience behind them, the blend was not one of oil and water, but rather rich and hearty stew – melding spices and flavours throughout while still retaining its own shape and consistency.

However, as I am new media, allow me to cut to the chase and present a short video we were able to capture with Jamie Goode of the Wine Anorak. Jamie is a UK based wine blogger Ryan and I have been following for quite some time, and we were honoured to run across him yesterday.

Thanks Jamie for taking the time to talk with us, and we hope that one day in the near future, you’ll finally take that big leap to Portugal, living among the wines that you clearly  adore

Don’t worry we’ll be putting up some tasting notes, and wine commentary once we get back to Spain and resettled. Seriously this was a super fun tasting, and we feel honored to have taken part.

Cheers,

Gabriella and Ryan Opaz

Catavino interviews Jamie Goode of the Wine Anorak from ryan opaz on Vimeo.

At the SITT tasting in London we interview the wine writer/blogger who we all love!

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At the end of the year, I can’t help but look back and ask myself, “Have I done enough in my life? Have I truly accomplished the goals I’ve set out for, or have I let them slip to the wayside getting snug and comfortable in my safe daily routine”? If I’ve fallen in the latter, I give myself a quick kick the keister and start taking more risks. This precious gift called “life” isn’t something to be messed with, and for me, one of the best ways to celebrate it, is by getting uncomfortable through travel. By stripping away normalcy and accepting the odd and unpredictable, I change, grow, evolve and see both life and myself differently. And as I take inventory of 2008, it is without a doubt, that we wholeheartedly launched ourselves into the strange, the wonderful and the utterly unpredictable.

This year, Ryan and I have jotted down our top 4 trips that we’ve taken together. We hope you have fun reading our fond memories, and if you feel so inclined, please don’t hesitate to add your favorite trip of 2008 in the comments below.

The Rioja Report: A Breathless Jam-Packed Week Long Tour

Although our original intention with our sponsored Regional Reports was to dedicate every month of the year to a region, we soon realized that our idealism was beyond the realm of practicality. But before we came to this realization, we dove into this report with every ounce of curiosity, passion and gusto we had available to us. Prior to our trip, we asked Dave Worthington from Tinto y Blanco to let us know his perspective of Rioja wines from an Aussie standpoint. We gleaned from Blame it on Rioja’s author,  Adrian Murcia, as to his perspective as to how American’s are viewing the region and wines of Rioja. Not to mention, the series of articles we wrote prior to our trip tackling our assumptions before we left, as well as the general consensus of Rioja wines in Spain. Therefore, by the time we finally got to Rioja, we were not only primed with information, but we were excited to see whether or assumptions of the region and style were true to form, for which they were not! The flavors, blends, and concept of “Rioja” was nothing as we had anticipated.

What did we learn? Well, after a week long trip to La Rioja, interviewing people such as Rafael Vivanco from Dinastia Vivanco and Maria Jose Lopez from Lopez de Heredia, we saw a region with diversity, complexity and vision. To say that Rioja can be defined by only one style, is like saying Spain is one cohesive cultural entity. Rioja has both modern and traditonal, with several variations in between, and depending on which winemaker you speak with, “traditional” can mean a variety of things. And between the incredible culinary experiences, hidden restaurant gems, fun tapas tours, walks through gorgeous vineyards,  great chats with winemakers, conversations with new friends, and an overall lovely experience, you can easily see why the Rioja Report easily found its way to list.

Essencia do Vinho – Oporto, Portugal

Essencia do Vinho is the annual Portuguese wine fair hosted in Oporto by Blue Wine Magazine. What made this particular trip so enjoyable was the fact that we thought we were asked  to be part of a press junket not a month before the event; however, upon arrival, we soon discovered that we were more than just press, we were judges for the wine tasting. Having been our very first experience as judges, it is fair to say that we were a bit (very) intimated at first, but as the first round of wines led to the second and third and so on and so forth, we soon relaxed. Granted, having José Peñin and Charles Metcalf, two internationally renowned wine critics, sit infront of us didn’t necessarily wrap us in a sense of belonging, but we took the most from the experience, enjoying each and every opportunity to learn from the best. From brief walks along the quay on the Douro River to an entertaining dinner with the Douro Boys, it was a trip to remember.

European Wine Bloggers Conference

Despite the initial setback of getting to the rental car agency in Terrassa, a day before we were scheduled to kickoff the first European Wine Blogger Conference in Logroño, and finding out that our car may not be available to us (insert heart-stopping panic here), the event was an incredible success. Having brought together 50 wine bloggers from around the world who exuded an intense curiosity, passion and love of wine blogging within the first 10 minutes of the event, we couldn’t have been more pleased. It was an experience of a lifetime, and one we can only hope to repeat in 2009 with the II Annual EWBC event. And if we can be so lucky to have our roundtable sessions, meals and bodega tours run with the same level of ease as we did in Rioja, you’ll find Robert McIntosh, Ryan and I on bare knees thanking the omnipotent wine gods that be. Photo by Winzerblog)

New Delhi, India

Albeit not wine related, this trip was by far the most interesting and awe inspiring vacation we’ve ever taken in our lives. Arriving in New Delhi to the welcome arms of Ryan’s parents, the four of us, plus our driver, exited the airport into a hoard of men who encircled us on all sides asking to take our bags. Immediately, as most travelers are prone to do, we kindly refused their requests thinking that they were going to take our bags and run, but in reality, they waited to carry the bags to the car in order to get tipped. This experience in conjunction with our trip to the hotel where taxis, buses, motorbikes, cars, horse drawn carts, bikes, pedestrians, cows and dogs all fought for equal space on the road, gave us a raw and viscerous understanding of what the following 8 days would consist of: beautiful chaos. From bustling and insanely intense market squares filled with vendors eager to sell you their wares to long and lingering dinners under brightly colored tents with musicians filling the air with sultry tones, it was an experience we will never forget. It is also one we hope to repeat in the future, but the next time, with more local wine!

If you have some favorite trips of the year that you would like to share with us, please do so! We’d love to hear where our readers find themselves bounding around the planet drinking wine.

Cheers,

Gabriella and Ryan Opaz

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• A Portuguese Passage to India
• How is the 2008 Iberian Harvest Shaping Up?
• EWBC in photos
• Back from EWBC2008
• 1st European Wine Bloggers Conference

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Gabriella and Ryan would like to welcome all of you who read the recently published article in the Star Tribune, our hometown paper from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Bill Ward, the Star Tribune’s wine and food writer, was kind enough to meet with Ryan, while sending some additional questions to Gabriella, in order to profile our entertaining and unexpected journey.

Having just read the article, we feel that Bill did a great job overall, and despite some left out content and a few errors (such as the word el enchufe being misspelled as el enfouche), we’re ecstatic to have all of you join us from the Twin Cities. That said, we’d like to personally introduce ourselves and direct you to some of our favorite links, sites, and stories! Oh, and for those of you who only caught the article in the paper, continue on to Bill Ward’s blog to read some quotes from our lunch!

So welcome, one and all, and we hope that a few of you stick around and continue to follow us. If you know what RSS is, you can subscribe to Catavino here, and if you want to just sign up for our monthly newsletter (completely independent content) you can do so in the side bar to the right of this post.

About Catavino – General links to info about who we are

• People – Who we are, and the various guest contributors we have pitch in from time to time.
• The Story of Catavino (more or less) – A short recap of why and how we started blogging.
• Ratings Policy – As Bill mentioned, we don’t like rating wines. Hence, here is a description of our ratings policy as it stands right now

Favorite Stories – A few of our favorites!

• Ryan’s story of a very memorable dinner in La Rioja
• Gabriella’s retelling of Spanish Bureaucracy
• Wine Gadget Meme – We’ll go first
• The Fear of Sherry

Friends of Catavino, and Sites/Things you Might Want to See

• Winecast – Time Elliot, a fellow Minnesotan and wine blogger
• Tinto y Blanco - Dave Worthington is based in Australia, but only reviews Iberian wines.
• OWC – If your a wine geek, this is the place to learn about and talk about the Wine Biz!
• Adegga – Need a place to store your notes? Check out this start-up from Portugal.
• Snooth – Hands down one of the best ways to find out what wines are available in your area!
• Ablegrape – Wine only search engine! It’s all about wine, wine, wine, wine….
• Domaine547 – Buy our wine pack at Domaine547, a wine retailer who does things different.
• For the Love of Port – Roy Hersh is not only a friend, but also a Port wine addict! If you love this noble beverage, make sure to stop by his site!
• World Class Wines – Minnesota based importer, distributor and now blogger! Great job guys, and let’s hope we inspire more people to jump on the blogging bandwagon!

Videos – Some very Amateur, and Some Rather Professional, Videos. Take a Peek at Our Appalling Acting!

• Danny the Catalan Chef
• An Interview with Bruno Prats
• Oz Clarke on Iberian Wine
• Do you Think Wineries Should Focus on Adaptation, Rather than Prevention? Interview with Richard Smart and Miguel Torres
• YouTube – Assorted attempts at videos, all done by us, some better than others. Many a happy dance can be found here!

Wine Education

Wine education is near and dear to our hearts, especially when they involve Spanish and Portuguese wines. Therefore, we’ve compiled a small list of foundational articles, which have become integral in explaining the basics of Iberian wine.

• Interpreting the Spanish Wine Label
• Interpreting the Portuguese Wine Label
• Top Five Mistakes in Serving Sherry
• Wanted: Tawny Port
• Wanted: Ruby Port Wine
• The Odd Couple – Late Bottle Vintage and Colheita Port Wines
• Tempranillo: A Noble Wine Grape
• Sherry 101 – Basics of this Noble Wine!
• What Should I Know about Cava Wine?
• Portuguese Sparkling Wines

Catavino’s Many Side Projects

• European Wine Blogger Conference: Together with Robert McIntosh from the Wine Conversation, we will be hosting the first international wine blog conference in La Rioja Spain on August 29th. The conference is devoted to not only help wine bloggers enhance what we already do, but also as a means to expand our network across languages and cultures.
• WineBlogger.Info: Created as means to unite wine bloggers around the world by creating a comprehensive list of every wine blog ever created, Wineblogger.info has now turned into a resource for wine bloggers looking for information on strategy, technology, content creation and overall blogging techniques.
• Wine Blog Writing Workshop: One of the main critiques of wine blogs is that they lack scholastic training in journalism. Albeit a highly controversial claim, we decided to face the issue head-on by creating a online workshop dedicated to one objective: to improve wine writing through peer reviews.
• Regional Reports: Occasionally, we are able to schedule enough time, and drum up enough financial support, to study a topic in depth. So far, our grand adventures have led us to dedicate a month to Portuguese Table Wines, another month to Port wines and Cava (Spain’s sparkling wine), and finally two months to the wines of La Rioja.
• Lingus TV: Lingus TV is a Spanish based website designed to teach people Spanish through videos. Gabriella is copywriter for the Lingus TV blog, sharing stories of both our struggles with the language, as well as our everyday experience as expatriates in Spain.

Social Media Links – For those who know

• Facebook: Gabriella / Ryan
• Twitter: Gabriella / Ryan
• Open Wine Consortium: Gabriella / Ryan
• Flickr – Check out Ryan’s ever expanding attempt at photographing the Iberian Peninsula and beyond

Our Bread and Butter

Catavino Internet Marketing: We help wineries to use social media to better connect with their customers. This is what allows us to live in Iberia, and we are proud to be working with several great wineries in order to do it!

Contact

Finally, we would love to hear from all of you. Old friends, ex-work mates, job offers, solicitations (well not for viagra. We get enough of those in our spam folders), here’s what you do.

• Email us: Gabriella or Ryan
• Skype: catavino or gabriellaopaz
• Click here for a nice form where you can send us a note

So to wrap it all up, we hope you enjoyed a look around our site and that you might have even learned something! We’ll keep writing, and we hope that some of you come back again and say hi from time to time!

Cheers,

Ryan and Gabriella Opaz

Related posts:

• Catavino Jumpstarts the 2+1 Iberian Wine Survey
• Txarli says it's Time to Check in with our Readers! What have you been Drinking?
• Why Should Readers Care about the European Wine Blogger Conference?
• The Catavino Rioja Epic Continues!
• Iberian Winery Hall of Fame

You can’t do it all at once. Life is a series of small steps. And if you believe that any project that kicks off today will have success tomorrow, well, be prepared for disappointment. This is my mantra to every client we take on, “Start your blog today, work on it, and eventually, if you invest enough of yourself, people will reward you by paying attention.” Clearly, our friends at Adegga, a Portuguese startup, are firm believers in this philosophy.

Bootstrapping is when you start a business without venture capital, or a heavy investment, building instead, from good old elbow grease and a bit of self sacrifice. You look for help where you can find it, and you trade services with others who are in a similar position. Catavino is an exercise in bootstrapping, and we are proud to call ourselves friends with the Adegga team – united disciples of this philosophy. Over the past few months, Andre Ribeirinho, Andre Cid and Emídio Santos, have paved the way in exemplifying how a little vision and lot of persistence can eventually lead to success.

So what is Adegga? Well at its core, its a social tasting note site. In Adegga, you can leave notes on wines, manage your personal wine cellar, and participate in a community that is growing daily. Granted, we know there are plenty of social tasting note sites out there, and trying to keep track of them all is an exercise in futility. That said, this post will not attempt to answer the question on which one is best, but rather why Adegga is useful.

In truth, we at Catavino use three different tasting note sites for 3 separate reasons: Cellartracker, the behemoth site with a gigantic database where we can find just about any wine we’re tasting is perfect for our main note taking; Snooth, where we can find merchants anywhere in the world for any wine we mention (a task that is gigantic in proportion and I thank Phillip for his hard work on this task); and finally, Adegga, where we support its inclusive attitude towards wine bloggers.

The AVIN
At the root of what will eventually lead to Adegga’s future successes is a number called an AVIN. This 13 digit number is their solution for wine data organization problems. All of you bloggers/wine lovers out there know how notoriously difficult wine can be to define when looking at a label. There are different quality classifications from country to country. Some countries will allow the winery to mention grape varieties, while others cannot. There are instances when the wine name is very different from the winery name, or the names are the same but displayed in different ways. Obviously, this is a nightmare for wine sites that try to build a comprehensive database. User generated wine information ends up a mix of all systems in the end and duplicate wines are par for the course. The AVIN attempts to solve this issue by assigning a “barcode” to every wine, which will later cull any of the mis-entered wines and merge them together. Additionally, permanent redirects have been installed allowing the user entering an incorrect wine name to be redirected to the correctly entered name.

Apart from this, there is another neat and relatively new tool that Adegga has added to their site in an effort to reward wine bloggers for their contributions to the online wine community. If you are a wine blogger writing an article on a wine, add the AVIN for that wine in either the tags or in the post itself. Once published, the AVIN will signal Adegga to automatically reference your article as a resource on that specific wine page in Adegga. Check out this Port wine and notice how Catavino shows up. For bloggers, this is a great way to make sure your posts are appreciated and discovered by other wine lovers. Not to mention Wineries can add these to there blog posts so that current information can be provided immediately to wine consumers.

Another great service on Adegga is the ability for wineries to manage their own profile. This tool acknowledges that wineries should be a part of the conversation, allowing them to not only be better informed of what people are saying about their wines, but also ensures that if a winery chooses to participate, they can check to see if: the photos for the wines listed are correct, that their winery profile is up to date, and that they can then drive users to their own sites to learn more. Now wine lovers can follow a winery they love in multiple ways and wineries can see brand loyalty grow.

However, I do have a few problems that I know are being worked on but that throw a small wrench in the usability of their site. Number one is design. This is being corrected, and thanks to some fellow bootstrapping friends, the design should be revamped in the near future. Number two is data, Adegga is still young; therefore, the number of wines in the database is still relatively few. And although this is changing fast, it’s an inevitable problem with this type of site in its early stages. But at this point, as you add wines to Adegga, your notes and blog posts will be some of the first that people will see. Finally, a few other things that I think should be added:

• Varietal information on wine entry forms: For some wines, this is very important.
• Better personal cellar management: I want more locations, drinks, and sorting options. Currently, I’d suggest Adegga for wines consumed, and not your extensive cellaring goals
• And a personal annoyance for me: Keep me logged in! I really don’t mind being logged in, and I hate having to log in each time I visit.

Otherwise, I’m excited by what they are doing, and I would urge people to check them out. Like I mentioned before, we’ll be using multiple systems, but for someone just getting into wine, this is definitely not a bad place to start. If you are a winery, especially one with a blog, I would HIGHLY suggest you VISIT this site. There are too many good tools here for you to ignore, and by participating in a site like Adegga, you are only helping to spread your image further.

So in recap, Adegga is still growing, as a result of the team’s never-ending energy and drive to make the site more user-friendly, more stream-lined and more social. Not to mention that Andre, the lead developer, is always open to feedback. And if the AVIN tool interests you, you might want to read the conversation happening over at the OWC about it’s usefullness.

To hear more information about Adegga, take a moment to watch Andre Ribeirinho’s and Moses Mehraban’s interview at the Going-Solo Conference held in Lausanne last month.


Andre Ribeirinho and Moses Mehraban at Going-Solo Lausanne 2008 – video powered by Metacafe

Cheers,

Ryan

Update! Andre just pointed me to a post on the Adegga blog that is worth looking at. Turns out for Wine blog wednesday this month they did not have time to participate, but Andre did want to contribute. So he took the idea that Dr.Debs had of a tag cloud and made it even better! Check out the wine tag cloud he created where each tag links to blogs that use the tags listed! Pretty cool and just another example of how Adegga cares about the blogs that will eventually feed it.

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Seriously, we promise that this will be our LAST interview from the II International Conference on Climate and Wine. We realize that we may have exhausted your attention span with this, but we had to at least give you the opportunity to hear our recently edited video clip with Miguel Torres chatting about what Bodegas Torres is doing to be a more sustainable winery. We hope you enjoy the clip!

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• 2005 Miguel Torres S.A. Catalunya Nerola

In January, for those of you who weren’t following our play by play of the II International Conference on Climate and Wine, Catavino spent three days cornering wine celebrities, in order to get a better sense as to how wine is being affected both now and in the future by the fluctuating climate conditions. Stubborn and wonderfully determined people such as Richard Smart, Bruno Prats, Miguel Torres, Pancho Campo, Carlos de Jesus of Amorim, Dr. Gregory Jones, and of course, Al Gore, all vented their fears and frustrations with the current lackadaisical attitude held throughout the wine world regarding the impact of climate on wine. Each passionate in their own right, but there was one in particular that I had been pining to interview for months.

Having been previously introduced to Oz Clarke through his books and articles, it wasn’t until I saw his charismatic nature in Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventure that I was hooked. This BBC television program, first aired in 2006, and was undoubtedly one of my favorite wine programs, if only to see Oz flirt with yet another woman. His coy and passionate nature was fun and made learning about Bordeaux and Languedoc-Roussillon entertaining, rather than intimidating. Therefore, to have the opportunity to not only see him in person, but to interview him, albeit a little daunting, was great fun. Add a camera and question that impassions him, and Oz will keep going for hours, interweaving personal stories and jokes with highly specific wine facts that will eventually leave your head spinning.

That said, we would like to thank Richard Gillespie for filming and producing our interview, and hope you enjoy the clip! Next up a special interview, but will share that one with you later!

Cheers,
Gabriella

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Last month, when we were in Portugal for Essencia do Vinho, we had the fortunate experience of meeting Paulo Amorim, Vice President of ViniPortugal. Well, to be perfectly frank, we didn’t just “meet” Paulo, we were required spend several days glued to his side, since he was one of the organizers of our press junket. For the whole of the fair, and many days on either end of it, Paulo literally breathed the event. Every moment was spent consumed with its creation, organization and completion. For many, an event of this magnitude would be self destructive, but for Paulo, it was ecstasy. Because Paulo is not only a person devoted to Portuguese wine, but also someone who appears to have it coursing through their veins. Founding member of the G7 a group of wineries who work together to promote their wines internationally and an active voice for ViniPortugal, Paulo is a jewel in the Portuguese wine world.

Taken from their site ViniPortugal’s mission statement:

Created in 1997, ViniPortugal is a trade association whose aim is to promote Portuguese wines, brandies and vinegars on the domestic and target international markets.

ViniPortugal provides strategic support to the Portuguese wine sector, bringing together organizations representing trade (ANCEVE and ACIBEV), production (FENAVI and FEVIPOR), cooperative wineries (FENADEGAS), distillers (AND), farmers (CAP), demarcated regions (ANDOVI) and government bodies (IVV).

Our promotional activity is financed by a variable sum made from payments by producers to the Institute of Vine and Wine (IVV) for certifying their wines, brandies and vinegar.

Below is a short video we conducted with Paulo during Essencia do Vinho. In it, I inquired into Portugal’s strengths and weaknesses in the world market and possible solutions towards raising awareness of Portuguse wines. Enjoy!!

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• ViniPortugal – A Wine Lover's Utopia in the Heart of Lisbon
• Interview – Eric LeVine of CellarTracker
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A few months ago, Ryan received the first of many email correspondences from Excel Wines, asking for more information about Catavino. Who is Excel Wines, you ask?! Anna Axén from Sweden, Sandy Tay from Malaysia and Ane Miren Lambe from Ireland manage and run this Internet Spanish wine retail shop in the incredibly windy region of Bilbao, Spain. I’d say the windy and rainy northern region, but sadly, rain seems to be a distant memory of Spain’s past. Having spent several years lovingly devoted to the growth and development of their children, in 2006, both Anna and Sandy decided it was high time to get off their haunches and start on the road to their true passion: wine (smart women!). Having no experience in the wine trade, little understanding of the Internet and few connections (or enchufes) in Spain, they decided to take from the guidance of Sandy’s husband, a Spanish national, along with the trusted support and friendship of Miguel Merino to create Excel Wines in 2006. It wasn’t until many months later that Ane came on board with her intense and professional style to both support and bolster the team. Together, these three have created a perfectly interwoven team that is bound by the inescapable desire to both explore and educate Europeans about Spanish wine.

What makes this company different from your average online wine retail shop? As I see it, two very important factors: unique Spanish wines and exceptional customer service. Let’s start with the obvious, Spanish wines. As a result of their rather convenient location in the heart of Spain, Excel Wines has worked hard to compile a portfolio of wines that not only represent a vast diversity of Spanish wines including Cava, a barrel fermented Godello from Galicia and a 100% Picapoll from D.O. Pla de Bages in Catalunya – not to mention their 237 different Spanish red wines as well, but also which come from producers for whom they both respect and trust. The only issue, from their point of view, is that with so many highly recommended and unique wines, it is difficult to persuade their customers to break out of their familiar rut to try wines that may expand their palate and ignite their taste buds, such as:

2001 Baron de Magana by Viñas Magañas
2006 Ceps Nou by Pasanou
2002 Unnum by Miguel Merino

The second way in which Excel is unique is their approach to customer service. As we’ve voiced on several occasions, Ryan and I are sticklers about good customer service. Having had some rather poor experiences here in Spain, we are happy to support any company that places their customers before the bottom dollar. What this means, at least to us, is that the company is attentive to our needs, open to feedback and continually assessing both their own service and the services of their suppliers. Therefore, when I asked Excel Wines what they ranked as the number one service they offer that differs from their competitors, it thoroughly pleased me to hear that customer service were the first words uttered from their lips.

We want our customers to be happy with our service. This is why we only sell wines that we believe in, offer competitive pricing, follow-up every request with a personalized email, and track every delivery so that our customer is always informed where their wines are in route. ~Anna Aixen

This said, we do have a few minor suggestions we hope they’ll embrace and change in the near future. One, is a blog, to keep us up to date as to where they’ve been, where their going and what their carrying. We’ve had several conversations about this subject, and trust they’ll be launching one in the very near future (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)!! The second suggestion is a small makeover of their website, as it is a little Web 1.0 at the present moment. Although the information is there, it’s not very user-friendly when searching for a specific wine, exemplified by my frequent use of their search field.

However, we do suggest that if you’re located within Europe to take a moment give Excel Wines a look! Or, if you’ve used their services before, we’d love to hear what your experience was like!

Thanks to both Ane and Anna for taking the time to chat with us, and wish you the best of luck!

Cheers,

Gabriella

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• Podcast #16 – Interview with Andy Booth of The Spanish Table
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• Catavino's Most Popular Articles in 2007

If your not a reader of the excellent wine blog Fermentation you should be. For the past few weeks Tom has been posting interviews with wine bloggers that he feels are important to pay attention to. We feel honored that today our interview went up on his site. Make sure to check it out and let us know what you think.

Thanks Tom for recommending us, and we hope that we can continue to provide good Spanish wine information, oh yeah and that stuff we do about Portugal

too!

Cheers,

Ryan Opaz

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