We have been working for years to bring the Wine Bloggers Conference to New York and are pleased to announce the 2015 event will take place August 13-16, in the town of Corning, Finger Lakes region, New York. Registration and the hotel room block are both open now. See below.
We first had the Finger Lakes region on our radar in 2010 when we worked with then-president Morgen McLaughlin of the Finger Lakes Wine Country Tourism Marketing Association to bring the WBC to the region in 2011. That event eventually went to Virginia, Morgen moved to Santa Barbara and helped us organize this year’s conference, and Finger Lakes was put on the back burner.
Until now. We have been working for months to find the proper venue, communicate with Morgen’s replacement Laury Ellen Poland and her team, and finalize a date.
The Finger Lakes Wine Country boasts over 100 wineries centered around the region’s four main lakes: Cayuga, Seneca, Keuka and Canandaigua. These wineries are responsible for yielding 90% of the total New York wine produced each year. For those of you who were at this year’s conference, here are some of the wines you tasted:
- Wagner Vineyards – 12 bottles of 2012 Sparkling Riesling and 12 bottles of 2012 Single Vineyard Dry Riesling
- Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars – 6 bottles of Gruner Veltliner, 6 bottles of Rkatsiteli, 6 bottles of Dry Riesling, 6 bottles of Blanc de Blancs Sparkling
- Fox Run Vineyards – 12 bottles of 2013 Chardonnay (Unoaked), and 12 bottles of 2012 Cabernet Franc
Our host town is Corning, New York. In addition to being in the center of wine country and the home of Corning Glass, the town was named “Best Fun Small Town in America” in 2013 by Rand McNally. In Corning, our host hotel is the Radisson, where we have a room block and special rate of $159 (king or queen) or $169 (two doubles).
Reservations may be made by calling the Hotel directly at 607-962-5000 or by calling Radisson Reservations Worldwide at 800-333-3333. Please request the “Wine Bloggers 2015” Room Block to receive the special rate. You can also make your reservation online by going to www.radisson.com/corningny. Once on the website, select your dates, select “more search options”, and input the promotional code WBC15. As always, the room block is limited so book now to reserve your room.
We have kept our Citizen Wine Blogger prices the same at $95 – without increase since our first conference. To qualify as a Citizen Blogger, you must have an active (i.e. at least three posts within the last three months) blog that does not promote a business and must be the owner or be listed as a contributor on the blog. To sign up as an Industry Blogger for $295, you must have an active wine-related blog connected to or promoting a business and be listed as a contributor on the blog. All other attendees – including those not actively blogging – should register as a non-blogger participant at $395.
In exchange for the discounted rates for Citizen and Industry Bloggers, we respectfully request that you blog about the conference at least three times (Citizen Bloggers) or one time (Industry Blogger) for the $300 / $100 discount you are receiving. You can blog about anything you want – the conference, venue, host city, sponsors, speakers, wines, wineries, whatever. This is what keeps our sponsors attending and what allows us to give you a discounted rate.
Registration for WBC15 is open now and space is limited to approximately 300.
We are super excited to be heading to The Finger Lakes in New York!
Our rooms are now booked, including the room for the potential winner of one of the #WBC15 grand prize draw presented by Quini. Hotel plus registration, and another grand prize of registration plus iPad mini. The rules are below. If you attended #WBC14, you qualify:
– WBC14 conference registrants use the Quini app to review a wine or multiple wines tasted at WBC14 (including wines on the pre-conference tour and on the post-conference activities).
– Bloggers are required to write a blog post about the conference and
wine/wines they review using the app and have until August 15, 2014 to publish and submit their blog posts.
– Two Quini users will be chosen, at random, in the drawing on August 15 for either two nights of accommodation + registration for WBC15
OR registration to WBC15 + iPad mini.
– Links to your blog posts for the
two grand prize giveaways also need to be emailed to Quini in order to fulfill the contest requirements. Send your emails to Ashley Hargreaves at ashley@quiniwine.com. Again, more posts equal more chances to win.
Thanks Allan!
Check out the Details page.
What airport should we fly into?
The correct prices should be $159 and up. My fault and I corrected the blog post. The Radisson site is showing the correct numbers, I believe.
I did notice there were a bunch of prices for different options, none of which seemed to be $149…the lowest was $159. Perhaps this time it will include breakfast for the higher rate?
It seems they may have the prices wrong at Radisson, they are claiming it is $169 for Double and $179 for Queen/King. I just called into the hotel and they informed me of this.
Thanks Allan. USER ERROR! didn’t put the code in correctly. Works fine now 🙂
Let me try again — maybe it’s a problem with the chrome browser
I am not seeing any problems on the site. Do you want to email me directly so I can help?
According to the hotel website, no rooms are available during that time period.
Just made our reservations! Looking forward to it.