Wine Blogging Wednesday 55: North vs South – a bipolar roundup

It’s always fascinating to see the many ways people can interpret a proposition. So what did the participants in the 55th Wine Blogging Wednesday make of this idea of confronting North vs South?

From Michigan Riesling to Tasmania Pinot Noir, from Spanish Garnacha to Tennessee Chambourcin, there sure were a lot of possible pairings (and threesomes, and foursomes) put together by the 33 participants who took up the challenge. Three of those, I’m happy to say, were first timers in the world of Wine Blogging Wednesday (this one, this one and this one), showing how the concept is still going strong and breaking new ground.

Hola, bloggers del vino! (Wine Bloggers Conference begins in Spain)

If you’re looking for a clear sign that the wine blogging world is getting more serious, committed and professional, look no further than the European Wine Bloggers Conference, which is starting just about now in Logroño, Spain.

A few dozen bloggers are gathering over this weekend to discuss wine blog writing, blog technology, monetizing (some of us dreamers actually think we could make a bit of a living out of this…) and, in a related question,

Meeting of the Creators

Talk about a modest proposal.

One of Spain’s top wine writers and a pioneer of the Priorat region, reflecting on the apparent convergence of taste that is gripping the wine industry, decided to discuss the trend with a group of the world’s top winemakers and a group of the world’s top wine writers for a two-day conference to be held in Ronda, Spain, on April 18-19. Their efforts have been rather successful, judging from a list of participants that include winemakers Peter Sisseck, Alvaro Palacios, Carlo Ferrini, Paul Draper and Denis Dubourdieu and wine writers Michel Bettane, Stephen Tanzer, James Halliday and Jancis Robinson, who is honorary president of the event.

The name of the event? Nothing less than WineCreator (told you it was a modest proposal…). Wanna go? It’ll cost you a measly 2,000 euros – just for the conference, for wine professionals. Non-professionals pay 4,000 euros including meals and lodging for two days.

With that kind of pricing, I’m hoping somebody will publish the proceedings or put videos online. It is a remarkable gathering of minds, and it would be very much worth sharing their thoughts with the world. There will be enough wine writers present to do that, right?

A last taste of Canada (for the week)

I’m sitting at the Montreal airport, getting ready to take off towards Barcelona and Perpignan, for a week of grape-picking, vineyard and winery work at Domaine Matassa, one of Roussillon’s hidden gems. Tom Lubbe has been kind enough to welcome my underqualified self for this, and I thank him kindly.

I’ll also be visiting Laureano Serres, a young producer in Terra Alta, 200 kilometers west of Barcelona. He’s done picking, but I should see the winemaking at work and get a sense of how he works old vines of macabeo and garnacha and all.

Both producers are biodynamic, which should be a lesson in natural winemaking and ecology.

In the meantime, I’m having a glass of Inniskillin chardonnay – the truly Canadian one, I think. It’s not overly wooded, nor overly fruity. It’s not bad. But I should be drinking better stuff, and learning much more about winemaking, over the course of the next few days.

So cheers to all. I’ll post about the experience soon.