Jealous of Il Soave

One of the best parts of the recent European Wine Bloggers Conference in Brescia, Italy is the post trips. Wine regions like Franciacorta (the primary sponsor for the event), il Soave (the region I visited on Sunday), and many others invited bloggers to tour wineries, see historical sites, and taste local food and wine. These trips tend to be very informative, offering a window into the typicity of an area’s wine, the culture that surrounds the vines, and a lot of fun memories. My Sunday trip to Soave was also notable for making me really really jealous.

Jealous of Communication Efforts

Amazing sense of style

First of all, Soave had a great sense of flair for receiving people.  They understood how to use the beauty of the land and how to play it up a little.  A lot of the time, I feel like winemakers in my region forget how beautiful the place is.  I’m reminded of a promotional trip billed as a walk in the Pic Saint Loup where we just walked a few yards in some vines in one of the valleys.  And only when several of the journalists expressed disappointment did our resourceful winemaker/guides realize they could take us up on one of the higher plateaus from which we saw the entire area.  Thankfully that trip was salvaged, but it came close to being a dud (if it weren’t for the resourcefulness of the locals).  On the other hand, Soave did everything right.  With a name like soave, it makes sense that they’d be smooth operators.

But I mean we’d visit a gorgeous vineyard overlooking the valleys below.  And then we’d be confronted with a really unique style of winemaking like the Recioto di Soave.  The tasting was held in the room where they hang all the grapes on string to dry them out before making their pasito.  It is such a stunning site.  Or later in the day, we were received in a beautiful old building in Monteforte d’Alpone with a piano in the courtyard before ascending to a tasting and lunch in the cloister of Carvaggio’s Palazzo Vescovile.  Because that’s just how they roll in Italy.

In short, Soave demonstrated an amazing sense of style and even dramatics without falling into caricature.  They didn’t try to cling to any “spaghetti and meatballs” kind of stereotypes to impress us.  (Ask me about how often I have to eat cassoulet with journalists who visit my region).


video by Ignacio Segovia

But it’s not just fine aesthetics that made me jealous.  Actually, that’s the least of the things I’m jealous of.

Increasing Visibility of Communication Efforts

What I loved most in Soave was their common sense approach to increasing visibility.  They had gone to great expense to impress us and share their amazing culture and wines with us.  So they went a little bit further and hired a video crew to film the entire trip and IMMEDIATELY put it online.  Things were going up almost instantly.  That video at the top of the page where I’m talking about soave was filmed at 10 AM and it was online before I could fill my face with risotto at lunch.  😀

When you put money into impressing journalists/bloggers, you should also think about immortalizing that effort and experience on the Internet.  That way, the small experience that went to a group of 20 journalists can now be rehashed over and over by hundreds or thousands on the Internet.

Using Local Brand Ambassadors

Futhermore… I feel like I’m buring this in the middle of an article when it’s really the most important point in here.  Soave works with local brand ambassadors to amplify their communication efforts.  That’s a fancy way to say they invite their biggest supporters to piggyback on promotional efforts for journalists.  Such a simple idea.  I wish my region did it more effectively.  Right before we arrived to the first winery, our guide let us know that a small group would be joining us.  I wasn’t sure what that meant.  But I talked to members of that second group and it turned out they’re just locals who frequently communicate on the soave brand.  Or people from other parts of Italy who are good spokespeople for soave.  So any time Soave is undergoing the expense of having a group like the EWBC in, they send an email to their best brand ambassadors and allow them to join in on the fun.  The CIVL has asked me to do this once or twice and Sud de France has as well.  I’m grateful, but I think I’m in the minority.  I really wish that I’d run into the people who contribute most to this region’s online communications.  People like Rosemary George, Graham Tiggs, Chez Loulou, Nina Izzo, Michel Smith, Louise Hurren, and so on live really nearby.  They should basically be kept abreast of everything.  Actually some of the people on that list will be at many events, but that’s only because they’ve crossed some imaginary threshold to officially be labeled press or PR people.  The marginal cost of inviting ten more people to a large tasting area is rather negligible.  Of course, if you start including seated meals and hotel rooms, the costs are totally different and you can’t always offer those to everybody.  But anyway, I’m jealous because I feel like the promotional bodies in my area don’t respect their local brand ambassadors as much as Soave does.  That’s the heart of it.  I don’t want somebody to misread this and think that I’m lamenting my personal travails.  Again, several organizations have done really remarkable things for me and opened doors into fascinating events.  But more could be done to make other brand ambassadors feel like they’re really appreciated.

And a final note: In Soave, even larger organizations like Borgo Rocca Sveva are on board with the importance of social media.  I am seeing glimmers of hope and interest from Sieur d’Arques, Anne de Joyeuse, and so on.  But the vast majority of the medium sized coops right up to the UCCOARs seem to be totally uninterested in communicating direct to consumer online.  There are obvious exceptions like Embres & Castelmaure, master communicators who are keenly watching the Internet space.  But these are exceptions.  Borgo Rocca Sveva is enormous, but they still realize that it’s possible to have unique voices online even in an organization of that size.  I wish we had co-ops with websites like Borgo Rocca Sveva’s blogEDIT: okay, so while fact checking (I do that occasionally) I discovered that Sieur d’Arques does have a blog? http://sieurdarques.unblog.fr/  Updated on and off since 2009 with lots of different subjects that go beyond the typical “we won an award” type of post.  How did I not know that?  Anyway. Foot in mouth. My bad. 

The region is also working strongly on communicating with consumers online.  Find il Soave on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and so on.

Franciacorta’s efforts

I should also mention Franciacorta’s colossal effort in receiving the conference. We really had a top notch experience in the Santa Giulia in Brescia. Even the hotels chosen had a lot of character. No bland, corporate moments. An entire trip full of charm and quirks. And an enormous sense of cooperation between winemakers (perhaps reminiscent of the strict military style formations in Champagne houses) I’ll probably write about all this on a separate occasion.  But let it be known that I can’t think of Soave’s hospitality without thinking of Franciacorta’s as well.  Italy on a whole was very very good to me.

The Wine is Good Too

Let’s not allow the communication efforts to overshadow the wines.  Simply put, I wouldn’t be writing about soave at all if their wines weren’t amazing.  The reason I chose this trip in the first place is because I thought I could learn a lot about the calcareous soil whites (although I did fall for a few volcanic terroir wines too).  And it was an added bonus that Soave faces a similar challenge to the Languedoc’s.  Soave is a word that was used to describe vast amounts of generic Italian white wine of forgetable quality.  And now the best winemakers in the region are trying to rebrand themselves without abandoning this once degraded name “soave”.  If they can do it, so can the Languedoc.  PS – I’m making white wine on limestone and clay soon so I wanted to steal some techniques too. ;D

Jealous of everything?

Well now, I put a question mark in there. I loved the wines we tasted, especially around lunch time (no big surprise, Ryan likes wine more with food ;D).  I loved the communication efforts.  I loved everything.  But despite all my jealousy and the tastiness of their wines, I’m still very happy in the Languedoc.  I think we have all the opportunities in the world.  It’s just a good idea to look at neighbors like Soave to see what’s being done right in other regions.

The 2011 European Wine Bloggers Conference (EWBC) happened in Brescia, Italy last month.  I had the honor of moderating a session on Saturday and here is the video recording.

Blogger’s Stories – Storytelling in action from Vrazon on Vimeo.

The entire conference was themed around storytelling and we had lots of sessions about how to improve our storytelling.  My session was devoted to actually telling some stories.  I think it went really well and I’m hugely grateful to everybody who stood up to share a story as well as the hundreds of people who attended the session. And a big thanks to Brescia and Franciacorta who allowed us to share our stories in this marvelous venue, the Santa Giulia church, a place all-too-epic for a silly little blogger like me.

Summary of stories told

Name – title – time stamp in video
my summary

Ryan Opaz – Introduction – 0:01
Brief intro to the storytelling session

Ryan O’Connell – Judge a book by its cover – 2:00
I told a story about writing my book on the Cabardes wine region.  And the help I got from my neighborhood winemakers.  Or lack of help.  Or in some cases ridiculous amounts of criticism they gave me.  And the most hilarious criticisms.  Spoiler: “Why is there an asian child on the cover of this book?!”

Brett Jones – Don’t let a prostate prostrate – 7:20
Brett shared a very moving story about how he handled the discovery of his prostate cancer.  And his wine tasting on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square to promote awareness and early detection of prostate cancer.

Jason Kallsen – Feel the fear – 14:18
“The counterfeit innovator is wildly self confident. The real one is scared to death.”  A good story about how Jason learned that Ryan Opaz was moving to Spain without any real plans.  And how to create something beautiful we have to go out and embrace the scary world out there!  The book he mentions is Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art”

Anders Aberg – I bought a vineyard! – 18:20
The story of how a successful Swedish film producer bought a little property in the south of France.  And how he was a bit surprised by developments of his first vintage.  And how much his friends will lie to him about the wine being great! 😀  Follow his adventures in Swedish on his blog Livet i Languedoc.

Louise Hurren – Story of a ball of string – 22:25
Louise talks about how her life has intertwined with wine and drops some twine around the room with every step.

Agnes Nemeth – Bordeaux Lock Out – 30:32
This Hungarian wine writer talks about an epic trip to Bordeaux where everything goes wrong and she ends up treading through the muddy clay vines in the pitch darkness of night until somebody found her in the morning.

Wink Lorch – A Shaggy Dog Story – 39:01
Wink tells a hilarious story full of beautiful and irrelevant details about an American winery that does EVERYTHING possible to make their wine the best on the market. It’s fun to recycle and retell stories and embellish them and all that jazz. Wink shows us how it’s done.  Read more of Wink’s serious work at Wine Travel Guides.

Magnus Reuterdahl – Archaeology tells a story – 45:04
This Scandinavian talks about the history of wine in Sweden and how some very old symbols come and go over time and how archaeology tells a story just as interesting as any person can.  Read more of Magnus’ wine blogging at Testimony of the Spade.

Oscar Quevedo – Don’t challenge me -49:09
This winemaker in the Duoro Valley talks about how they tread grapes in the lagares and how he almost drowned as a child.  And now, people battle in the lagar and Oscar’s near death experience has given him the power to win every time.  Follow Oscar on the Quevedo blog.

Joao Roseira – En Memoire de Joe Dressner – 52:09
This portugese fellow decided to talk in French (which was hilarious and awesome) in a tribute to Joe Dressner the wine importer and unconventional blogger who recently passed away.  I think Dressner would have loved the spirit of rebellion to Joao’s story and choice of language.  He blogs in Portugese on gotaepinga

Thomas Lippert – Recovering from cardiac arrest – 54:50
Thomas suffered a major cardiac arrest and discovered the first EWBC online while he was in hopsital.  His incredibly speedy recovery was partially fueled by a desire to attend that first conference and share with other people who love wine.  A really touching story.  More of Thomas’ blogging on winzerblog.de

 

 

 

How to find us

Domaine O’Vineyards, located in the North Arrondissement of Carcassonne, is just minutes from the Carcassonne train station, the Medieval City, and the Carcassonne Airport.
GPS coordinates: 43.259622, 2.340387

O’Vineyards
Wine, Dine, Relax at our Boutique Vineyard
Unique thing to do in Carcassonne
Wine Cellar. Winery Visits. Wine Tasting.
Wine & Food Pairing

North Arrondissement of Carcassonne
885 Avenue de la Montagne Noire
11620 Villemoustaussou, France
Tel: +33(0) 630 189 910

  1. Best by GPS.
    Follow the signs to Mazamet/ Villemoustaussou using the D118. At the end of the last straight part of D118, you will come to a roundabout with the Dyneff gas station.
  2. Take the exit towards Pennautier. Continue 500m to a small roundabout and go straight over.
  3. Look out for the second road on your right, Avenue des Cévennes which curves up hill (about 1km) to Avenue de la Montagne Noire on the left.
  4. At the last juction, bear left. the road sign “Ave de la Montagne Noire” (confusing as it seems to show a right turn)
  5. After another 500m you will see our red brick color building in the middle of the vines.
X