On Saturday at the 2012 Wine Bloggers Conference, we will have three hours of breakout sessions with three sessions each hour. The nine sessions in total are broken up into three different categories: Wine and the Wine Industry, Wine Blogging, and Wine Tasting. We’ll have one of each category per hour.
Here we present the three Wine and the Wine Industry sessions. We hope you like them! See the Agenda page on this website for details on when each session will be presented but since these three are all at different times, you can attend all three if you choose. We’ll present the Wine Blogging and Wine Tasting breakout sessions in upcoming posts.
Biodynamic, Organic, Natural, and Sustainable Wine: What do these terms mean, do they matter and why, and can you taste a difference in the wine? This is a hot topic in the wine world and this is your chance to learn more about it from three experts.
- Katherine Cole is a Portland writer who authored Voodoo Vintners, a book that “explores the mysteries of biodynamic winegrowing and explores its practice in Oregon vineyards”.
- Darryl Joannides owns Cork, a Portland retail bottle shop that was named Best Portland Wine Shop by portlandfoodanddrink.com in both 2010 and 2011.
- Jason Lett is winemaker and vineyard director of The Eyrie Vineyards, which in 1965 did “the first planting of Pinot noir, Chardonnay, and related varieties in the Willamette Valley, and the first Pinot gris in America” and whose wines are made exclusively from grapes grown without the use of irrigation, insecticides, herbicides or systemic fungicides.
The Winery View of Bloggers: We’ll hear from three industry experts (two winery representatives and a blogger turned winery marketer) who will explain whether they work with bloggers, how they cooperate, and whether bloggers have an impact on the winery’s visitation, sales, or image.
- Ed Thralls from the Wine Tonite blog is now the Social Media Manager for Vintage Wine Estates (includes Girard, Kunde Family Estate, Cosentino, and Windsor Vineyards as well as several boutique brands)
- Christopher Watkins from Ridge Vineyards runs the winery’s blog, 4488, a finalist for Best Winery Blog in 2010 at the Wine Blog Awards
- Sasha Kadey is the Director of Marketing for King Estate Winery in Oregon, one of the largest and most active wineries in the state
Neuroscience of Wine Tasting: Take your winetasting to a whole new level by hearing from Tim Gaiser, Master Sommelier and previously the Director of Education for the American Chapter of the Court of Master Sommeliers Americas. He will explain his large-scale project involving the use of behavioral and neuro sciences to teach and improve olfactory and palate memory and synethesia in relation to wine. His cutting edge research in this area is increasing the awareness of how our minds recognize and code smells and tastes.