Today I met Jean-Claude Rieflé, owner and wine maker of the Domaine Rieflé in Pfaffenheim, near Colmar. The Rieflé family goes back to 1850 in the history of Alsace wine. Jean-Claude is also an expert in international commerce. As many of his peers, Domaine Rieflé produces Riesling, Late Harvest and all the varietal wines of Alsace.

Jean-Claude is very aware of a coming European regulation that will be operating in 2013. By then, producers will be able to create varietal brand, such as Riesling, from any place and apply on their label “Riesling”, “Wine of France” or “Riesling “Wine of Germany”, whether the grape was harvested in Languedoc, Mosel or Alsace. Those wines could be sold as low as 1,50 euros when a good Riesling on the right terroir can sell for up to 7,00 euros.

To counteract this problem, some Alsace wine producers, led by people like Jean-Claude Rieflé who have a vision, decided to stage the terroir more than the grape, as their Burgundy or Chateauneuf-du-Pape counterparts have always be doing.

In fact, as jean-Claude explained to me, this strategy is such part of the real Alsace tradition. Until the end of the 19th entury, Alsace wines were known by their terroir more than their grape. This change gives the Alsace producers the possibility to go back to their traditional roots and to make them express their terroir more than the variety.

Today is devoted to new technologies with the conference of the Bordeaux School of Business (BEM) in the morning and the Great Wine Capitals in the afternoon.

The focus of the morning was on Prof. Gregory Bressoles’ new study on wine e-commerce. My readers know about Gregory’s first study conducted in 2007 and presented at Vinexpo the same year. This e-Performance Barometer showed some improvements in some sites while others are doing poorly. Wine.com is the winner as in 2007 while winehcateau.com becomes second and the French vinatis.com is third. The portrait of the wine buyer on Internet stays very similar to the previous one: a CSP+ male, 35 yr-old and +, buying mostly for his pleasure. More surprising: the market shares of online wine sites are growing by 30%! The complete study is available for 249 euros to wine professionals.

In the afternoon, I had the privilege to speak at the Great Wine Capitals conference on New Technologies and Wine Tourism: social networks, Twitter, blogs were on the menu and suggested interesting questions to the attendees. All the conferences are available on the site of the Great Wine Capitals.

Today was my “organic” day. Organic wines are a growing category in many countries and attract the attention of the wine consumers. I was a little confused about the differences between organic and biodynamic wines. Very basically a wine is considered organically grown when not using any pesticides, chemicals, fungicides or herbicides. Some countries have certification regulations but a wine producer might choose not to get the certification to avoid bureaucratic bothers. Biodynamic wines are made using the biodynamic process created by the German Rudolf Steiner based on understanding the ecological, the energetic, and the spiritual in nature. Practical minded wine producers say biodynamy is mostly based on the observation of ancient rules and nature processes, such as the influence of the moon on growing cycles.

Famous wine makers and consultants are now relying on organic and biodynamic processes to improve the quality of their wines while preserving the soil against the negative effects of chemicals. Michel Tardieu and Olivier Dauga teamed to create an organic wine, in fact a new wine brand, Dixit at Château Vieux-Pourret already in biodynamy. This red wine, from a biodynamic Saint-Emilion Grand Cru chateau, reflects the respect of both men for the terroir and the future of the land. It expresses the best of man and nature united in a bottle of a great wine.

Vinexpo is this year again bubbling with activity and people: 2,400 exhibitors representing 48 countries, some new to Vinexpo (Poland, Sweden, Belarus and Egypt). In the halls you meet a lot of Eastern European professionals as well as people from India, Maghreb or Middle East. A fascinating medley of languages and styles.

But a girl has to focus on an activity a day in order to keep a minimal sanity. I went to the Malbec Summit where British and American wine journalists and experts conducted comparative tastings between Cahors and Argentine Malbecs. Dangerous exercise? Not so much since both places have very different expressions of their terroirs. There is indeed no way to compare the Argentinian and Cahors terroirs: different climates, different soils and different wine making techniques.

The panel went through the tasting of the wines. They all agree that the wines they chose were very good in quality but so different. When Argentina is lusher and made for immediate consumption, Cahors Malbecs’ new style is fruit-forward as their Argentinian counterparts but more structured, allowing a better ageing potential.

The format of the Summit, organized by the UIVC (the professional Cahors producers organization), is original. It shows that this rising grape, malbec, has a great potential for various expressions. Regions don’t need to be competitors. They can, on the contrary, work together to express the best of a promising grape now planted in several countries.

For more information on Malbec.

Today, June 21st, Vinexpo opened its doors. Thinking naively it would be a very quiet day, I took the tram and the shuttle to the Exhibition Park and… started feeling sorry for myself! In spite of the early hours, a lot of people were walking on the footbridge on the lake linking the Congress Center to the Park. In Hall 1 thousands of people were already tasting, talking, walking and being busy.

Anyway I had my first look at what a lot of experts thought would be a poor Vinexpo. In fact all the booths were filled up, new exhibitors were present, like the Chinese Dynasty and a lot of wine countries from easter Europe are represented: Romania, Poland, Russia, etc. In the press room I already met several journalists I know and a lot of foreign correspondents were getting their badge at the same time as I did.

A bad year for Vinexpo? I don’t think so but I’ll let you know more as tomorrow I’ll spend a full day working and talking to people. My first impression is good.

I’ll be speaking on Wine Tourism and New Technologies at Vinexpo on June 24th during the seminar organized by the Great Wine Capitals Network. Here is the program for those who will be in Bordeaux at that time:

Great Wine Capitals Global Network (GWC GN) is pleased to announce, in partnership with the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a conference on:

Wine Tourism: New Trends, Benefits & Challenges faced by Wineries.

The purpose of this conference is to inform participants about new marketing tools & strategies, their uses and impact on a winery’s wine tourism strategy, the marketing of their service towards tourism operators, social networks and blogs, wine clubs and best practices.

The conference, held in English with simultaneous French translation, will take place during the VINEXPO professional wine trade fair (21st-25th June), on
Wednesday 24th June, 2009 at the Palais des Congrès in Bordeaux Lac, Bordeaux

Speakers are all experts belonging to one of the member cities of the Network and have a wealth of experience in the wine tourism field, an important basis for them to give an insightful and knowledgeable talk on their specific subject of wine tourism. There will also be a questions and answers period at the end.

The conference speakers will be:
André Morgenthal, Communications Manager, Wines of South Africa. Moderator

1. Terry Hall, Napa Valley Vintners, Communications Director.
Bringing forward the Wine Tourism concept

2. Karine Quéron, Château Fonplégade, First Rank Growth of Saint-Emilion.
The adaptation in Bordeaux vineyards of a typical Californian tool: creation of a Wine Club at Fonplégade.

3. Raquel Perèz Cuevas, Bodega Ontañon, Rioja.
Return on investment of the opening of a museum in a winery.

4. Steffen Schindler, Head of press office & Director marketing, German Wine Institute.
The Marketing Strategy of German Wine Institute to develop wine tourism.

5. Vincent Lhoste, International Wine Travel Market (IWTM).
B2B: How to market your service product to tourism professionals.

6. Evelyne Resnick, RESMO, International Web Strategy wines and brands, Bordeaux.
Social networks and blogs influence on traveling in the vineyards

7. André Morgenthal, Communications Manager, Wines of South Africa.
International Best Practices: ‘Best Of’ Wine Tourism.

About Great Wine Capitals Global Network
Great Wine Capitals is a network of eight major global cities in both the northern and southern hemisphere, which share a key economic and cultural asset: each is an internationally renowned wine region. It is the only such network to encompass the so-called ‘Old’ and ‘New’ worlds of wine, and exists to encourage travel, education and business exchanges between the wine tourism centers of Bilbao|Rioja (Spain), Bordeaux (France), Cape Town (South Africa), Florence (Italy), Mainz|Rheinhessen (Germany), Mendoza (Argentina), Porto (Portugal) and San Francisco| Napa Valley (USA).

For further information, visit www.greatwinecapitals.com
Contact: Catherine Leparmentier, Permanent Secretary
+33 (0)5 56 79 51 64
cleparmentier@bordeaux.cci.fr