Trade lunches and dinners are extremely interesting as I get to talk to some of the most influential sommeliers in the UK, and they have the pulse of the market, particularly at the top end of the business.

Of course we love showing our wines to buyers and sommeliers who can then go on and spread the word to their customers. However, the buzz in the air at the moment is “Social Media” and using new platforms of communication to reach new audiences. So, as well as our excellent lunch at Galvin at Windows (now getting heavily involved in Social Media themselves – follow them on twitter), and meeting the incredibly nice Angus McNab of Clos Maggiore too, I thought I’d put Rafael in the same room with a great bunch of London food bloggers … and see what happened.

What happened will be better recorded by them, so I’ll include links below to the excellent round-ups as they post them. It also meant that there were more cameras and bottles of wine consumed that there were diners.

I’ll leave the experts to comment on the food and restaurant (we dined at the always excellent and innovative St John in Clerkenwell, and booked just before they announced the Michelin star). To save them looking up the details though, here are the wines we tried on the night:

Vivanco Blanco 2007: this wine’s freshness surprised many of the bloggers, especially as many had not tried white Rioja before. It paired well with the starter dishes, many of which, being cuts of pork, had high fatty contents and the crisp acidity helped to liven things up.

Dinastia Vivanco Rioja Crianza 2005: the 2005 Crianza has just been released and has a wonderful violet perfume that lifts this wine. It matched well with the warmer meaty starters (like bone marrow salad!) and the more modern, fruity style of this wine appealed to lots of us.

Dinastia Vivanco Rioja Reserva 2001: the Reserva was saved for the main courses. This is now a mellow, mature Reserva with the toasty, balsamic aromas and tastes from its longer ageing. I think this group probably preferred the younger wines in truth.

Coleccion Vivanco Rioja 4 Varietales 2005: talking of younger wines, this is still an infant and benefited from decanting for a while and larger glasses for enjoying it fully. This is a style of Rioja wine most of the bloggers had not tried before; a powerful, modern wine, unfined, unfiltered and amazingly concentrated and I can say it went incredibly very well with my (shared) Steak & Kidney Pie.

Follow this link for pictures and more technical details on all the Dinastia Vivanco wines.

So in short, what happened was that Rafael Vivanco has a much better understanding about the exciting possibilities of Social Media interactions between wine and foodie types, and we are working on some pretty exciting projects along these lines already. Also, I hope, food bloggers now see wine as a new topic of interest and not something that anyone should be frightened of – and in particular, have a greater love of good Rioja.

Thank you very much to everyone who came, and you can share some more of the experiece by checking out the great reviews and photos below: [I'll update the blog links to their reviews of the evening as they post them]:

• Cheese & Biscuits (@chrispople)
• Hollow Legs (@hollowlegs)
• Helen Graves (@foodstories)
• Eat Like a Girl (@eatlikeagirl) – also responsible for the lovely food photo above
• World Foodie Guide (@foodieguide)

Wines from Rioja is sponsoring a campaign through regional newspapers in Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham and in Scotland. You collect tokens in these newspapers and get a chance to go out for a two course dinner, including a glass of Rioja, for only £10.

The way Duty is going these days, it can’t be long before the glass of wine alone will cost you that much, so it sounds like a good deal to me. Couple that with an economy in need of a little TLC, and this sounds like a very good deal.

I’m guessing that each restaurant is offering their own Rioja in the promotion, so I can’t suggest any one in particular, but it seems like an offer worth checking out. You can read more about the offer and how long it will be running in each newspaper/area on the Wines from Rioja site (and get a bonus token).

If you come across a great restaurant, or a particularly good wine, do let us know.

Wine blogging is getting more mainstream, with more wineries, journalists, marketers and wine consumers using it as a means to share information on wine and their experiences, but so far, in Europe at least, we’ve not managed to find ways to work together. This was the main driver behind getting bloggers together and you can read more about this here.

We (the organisers) were looking for a place to run the event, that fitted all these criteria:

• Somewhere to meet and discuss blogging matters
• Somewhere we could feed & entertain 20+ (eventually almost 50) delegates
• Somewhere with exciting wines that so many different bloggers would find appealing
• Located in a region that bloggers would find exciting

DISCUSSIONS:

The facilities at Dinastia Vivanco were, to me, the logical solution, and the Vivanco family wholeheartedly agreed to support this event.

I’ve never before had a chance to use the Conference room at the museum (this room is set up with AV, simultaneous translation, and everything – no wine on tap at each seat though!) but if you need to get 40+ in a room, you’ll need somewhere substantial and I think it worked well to give everyone a chance to participate. I must admit I quite enjoyed sitting on the stage even if my shirt was the main attraction! (this photo by Ryan Opaz)

ENTERTAINMENT & FOOD:

The lunch was great, even if it only took 1.5 hours, which by Spanish standards is a rush bordering on a human rights violation. Several of the bloggers asked me for a record of the wines and the food, so here was a run down on what we had (follow the links for information on the wines if you want more information).

For Starters:

JAMÓN IBÉRICO (the best kind of jamon)
COUS-COUS DE HORTALIZAS CON FOIE CARAMELIZADO (a dish of cous-cous with delicate fois gras on top, caramelized balasmic vinegar and chives- yum! Check our Ryan’s excellent photo)
VERDURITAS A LA PLANCHA (a welcome vegetal dish of asparagus, spring onions, tomato and LOTS of olive oil)
CROQUETAS DE JAMON (light and fluffy ham and potato croquettes)

To Drink:

Main Course, either:

CHULETILLAS ASADAS (lovely Rioja style lamb chops, cut thin and cooked over charcoal and vine cuttings)
MERLUZA A LA PLANCHA (hake, delicately grilled)

To Drink:

After lunch we went for a group photo (courtesy of Ryan and his excellent camera skills & a long lense), followed by a whirlwind tour of the museum. I say “whirlwind”, as a comfortable visit to the museum takes over 2 hours and I was trying to get everyone through in less than 1 hour. It is a shame I had to rush it as I heard over and over again how different people found separate elements of the museum fascinating to them. Cristina loved the wine aroma experience fascinating, Ricard loved the films, Thomas was explaining the ancient presses, Oscar loved the archaeology … I apologise again for my repeated use of the phrase “I’m sorry, but we really MUST move on!”

EXCITING WINES:

This was all so we could get to the winery to meet Rafael Vivanco and taste some highly unusual wines: single varietal wines from the Coleccion Vivanco range including the 2005 vintage Garnacha & Graciano as well as 2007 vintage barrel samples of Graciano, Garnacha, Tempranillo and even Mazuelo.

We bloggers rarely get to sample wines pre-release, and certainly not individual components of wines like these, and I trust this was another unique experience for participants to take away.

ATTRACTIVE REGION:

I will write up our visits to other wineries separately as there were great stories on Sunday, but I do believe that everyone who came to the conference went home with a different perspective on the wines, food, people, landscape, tourism and quality of life in the whole Rioja region. It is a region that we all know, bloggers and readers alike, but very few have visited, and I was very happy to hear how much my new friends had enjoyed it. Thank you also to La Rioja Turismo for working with us to spread this message and sponsoring the EWBC event.

All in all, I trust that we found the perfect place for our event.

Please visit the conference site to see how our discussion on blogging continues, and visit Vinus TV to see some of the interviews and proceedings, and maybe even follow a few new bloggers to see what they made of it. However, check back here in the next few days for a round up of 3 other wineries we visited.