Drum roll please…  After an online vote against steep competition, Charlottesville, Virginia has been selected to be the host of the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference to be held July 22-24.  Coming off a successful 2010 conference in Walla Walla, Washington, the selection of Virginia is a win for local wine and demonstrates the growth and maturity of the other 46 states.  Selection is based on a wide variety of factors including geographic diversity, strong wine community, eager local partners and most important, your vote.

Conference registration is already open to the public.  The cost of the conference is $95 for citizen wine bloggers (those unaffiliated with a business or organization), $195 for industry wine bloggers (those whose blog is affiliated with a winery, retail store, or other business or organization), and $295 for non-blogger participants (industry, media relations professionals, friends and family, etc).

A special thank you to the many who voted and to the Virginia Wine Board, Virginia Tourism, the WBC, and last but certainly not least, Charlottesville, Virginia, the birthplace of American wine.  Cheers!

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4,000,000 is a large number.  It also represents the points of contact made from tweets, re-tweets, and other social media messages sent from attendees during the DrinkLocalWine.com conference.  An impressive number, especially considering the conference is in it’s infancy.  If memory serves me correct, I believe the number was around 200,000 from the inaugural conference in Dallas, Texas.  It’s safe to say that Jeff Siegel and Dave McIntyre were definitely onto something when they started Regional Wine Week in 2008.  The growth of local wine is astounding and the momentum is greater than ever.

The bottom line is that with the little event we staged, we had a potential audience of 1570 people; with points of contact over 4 MILLION! Quite powerful. ~Kenton Fabric

Tasting rooms are crowded, local wine sales are up, and the locavore movement is gaining momentum.  A strong media presence, both online AND print, are helping to tell the story.  One of passion, drive, and commitment.  Buying decisions are based less on score and more on terroir.  Baby steps become giant leaps.  Yes, local wine is headed in the right direction.  And websites like DrinkLocalWine.com are helping to lead the way.  Let’s keep the momentum.  Drink local my friends…

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The second annual DrinkLocalWine.com conference has come and gone, but the friendships formed are here to stay.  Held in picturesque Loudoun County, Virginia, the 2-day conference included a reception/winemaker dinner on Saturday night (invitation only) followed by Sunday’s activities which included a series of panel discussions and the popular Twitter Taste-off featuring some of the best pours across Virginia and Maryland.  The brainchild of Dave McIntyre (Washington Post) and Jeff Siegel (Wine Curmudgeon), the conference proved to be a big hit and helped to spotlight the wines and people that have helped put Virginia on the global wine map.

Conference aside, the real treat for me was meeting the people and hearing the stories behind some of the best regional blogs and wineries. Over the next few days I’ll recap the conference, along with the stories and wines that have firmly cemented Virginia’s status as a premier wine growing region in the United States.

Virginia Wine Mafia (Photo courtesy of Dezel Quillen)

The dedicated and passionate group of wine writers led by Dezel Quillen (My Vine Spot), Lenn Thompson (New York Cork Report), Frank Morgan (Drink What You Like), John Witherspoon (Anything Wine), and last but certainly not least Paul Armstrong and Warren Richard (Virginia Wine Time) or otherwise known as the Virginia Wine Mafia are helping to fill the void of local wine coverage so often neglected by mainstream media.  A great group of guys and quoting Lenn Thompson during the social media panel, “the Virginia wine industry is lucky to have them”.  I second that!

Of course, any trip to Virginia isn’t a trip without jumping on the wine trail.  Stay tuned for more on the conference, the wines, and wineries that represent the heart and soul of Virginia wine.  Cheers!

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DrinkLocalWine.com this week announced it will hold its second annual conference April 24-26, 2010, in Loudoun County, Virginia.  The event, presented by the Virginia Wine Board, will focus on the diversity and quality of the 157 wineries in The Old Dominion.

“The Virginia Wine Board is pleased to sponsor the second annual Drink Local Wine Conference,” says Rock Stephens, the wine board chairman. “In 1979, Virginia had only six wineries and today we have well over 150. From the Shenandoah to Jefferson’s Monticello to George Washington’s birthplace to Virginia’s Eastern Shore, we are proud of the diversity and quality of wines produced in Virginia and look forward to providing attendees the opportunity to experience, as well as, sample some of our outstanding vintages.”

The conference is a great opportunity to showcase the wineries, winemakers, and people helping to put Virginia wine on the global wine map.  I’m hearing a rumor a few Maryland wines will also be on display.  Yours truly, TheOther46.com has already made travel plans!  For more information or to register for the conference call (978) 276-9463 or send an email.

Day 1 of the GOTEXAN DrinkLocalWine.com Conference is in the books, with today’s action including a series of seminars focused on the Texas wine industry, capped off with the Texas Twitter Taste-Off!  I’m watching the action from afar leveraging such technologies as TweetDeck and Twitter Search (hash tag #DLW09).  Russ Kane, who will be moderating the Texas Twitter Taste-Off, thought it would be interesting to have a few industry bloggers monitor the action from afar and tweet and/or blog live.

The analyst in me, thought it would be interesting to collect the data and slice it into a few charts (thank you Google Charts).  The tweets are in and a quick visual recap is below:

It’s easy to see the wineries that made the biggest impression at last nights reception and winemaker dinner at the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute in Dallas, Texas, led by Flat Creek Estate Vineyard and Winery, Brennan Vineyards, and Llano Estacado Winery.

Interestingly, TweetDeck was the Twitter client of choice for attendees.  I plan on adding more charts later this week as I make my way through the data.  I also wanted to take the opportunity to include a few tweets that stood out from the rest…

VintageTexas: #DLW09 Equation for TX – 5th in wine production; 4th in consumption, 170 wineries and 4000 acres of TX grapes – Need more grapes!

mwangbickler: John Griffin: Wrong writers have been targeted to review TX wines.

VintageTexas: #DLW09 #Wine Biggest change in past ten years – Susan Coombs TX Ag Comm – winery sales in dry TX counties; Qlty improvement What Grows Best

mwangbickler: All I can say is: HOLY SHIT! They can make wine in Texas!

The action continues this evening with live play by play from the Texas Twitter Taste-Off along with a tasting of Texas wines!

After much press, the 2009 GOTEXAN DrinkLocalWine.com conference is here!  Starting Saturday, August 15th, the conference will include 3 seminars focusing on trends in Texas wine, the distinctive grapes that Texans are using to make those wines, and how consumers can work to get more regional wines in stores and restaurants.  The final event includes a Twitter Taste-Off of Texas wines!  Led by Russ Kane of Vintage Texas, conference goers will have the opportunity to taste the best of Texas and Twitter, blog or social network their comments live from the event.

I had previously announced the conference on TheOther46.com back in May (see my earlier post) with all hopes of attending.  Unfortunately due to a scheduling conflict, I had to decline.  But fear not, I will be monitoring the incoming Tweets and blogging from afar on my MacBook with a glass of Texas wine in hand!  I’m very excited about the opportunity and look forward to sharing my thoughts live on TheOther46.com.  Check back later this week for more details.  Cheers!

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DrinkLocalWine.com will hold its first-ever conference and tasting on Aug. 15 in Dallas. Called the GO TEXAN DrinkLocalWine.com Conference, the event will focus on Texas wine, featuring some of the state’s best wines, top winemakers, and leading growers.

The conference follows the success of the Web site’s Regional Wine Week last fall, in which more than 40 wine bloggers, writers and columnists from the U.S. and Canada wrote about their favorite regional wines, ranging from Ontario to New York to Florida to Texas to Colorado.

Texas is the fifth-largest wine producing state in the country, with 177 wineries and 280 commercial vineyards. The Texas industry has made important strides this decade, focusing on Italian, Spanish and Mediterranean varietals. As presenting sponsor, the Texas Department of Agriculture’s GO TEXAN program sees the conference as an opportunity to tell the Texas wine story.

“Local wine is no longer a novelty,” said Dave McIntyre, wine columnist for The Washington Post and co-founder of DrinkLocalWine.com. “The conference will show that Texas – along with at least a dozen other states like Virginia, Missouri, New York, and North Carolina – produces quality wine.”

For registration and schedule information, go to DrinkLocalWine.com. For more information about the Texas wine industry, go to www.GOTEXANWine.org.