Published 20 May 2012

Barely a week goes by without a journalist uncovering a new prediction about the effects of global warming – usually misappropriating scientific research in order to produce a headline-grabbing story. 

Marco Caprai is not a man who listens to speculation. Caprai, who took over as manager of the Arnoldo Caprai winery from his father in 1988, says that nobody really knows what will happen in 10, 20, 30 years – so he is trying to find out. “This is the first experiment like this in the world”, he proudly announced when I met him at his winery near Montefalco, Umbria (Italy), in January 2012. His interest is understandable: as the head of the family business which produces over 800,000 bottles per year, it’s important that he finds out how global warming will affect their future.

~ Marco Caprai, manager of Arnaldo Caprai winery

Run in collaboration with the University of Milan since 2005, the experiment simulates the effects of climate change on the vineyard’s most important grapes – Sagrantino and Sangiovese – by progressively covering the vines with fabric (to increase the temperature of the plants) and using aluminium mirrors (to increase the amount of solar radiation). Caprai says “the experiment is to understand what we can do with the increase of the temperature”. Initial results suggest that blackout drapes are able to reduce excessive accumulation of sugar, whilst maintaining the molecules essential for preserving the structure and colour of the wine during the ageing process.

Mattia Dell’Orto, a researcher at the University of Milan, told me that by using results from their research, alongside international studies on sustainability, they are currently finalising a unique viticultural protocol for the region that defines best production methods whilst at the same time ensuring “environmental, social, and economic sustainability”.

I visited the Arnaldo Caprai winery as part of the International Wine Tourism Conference 2012.

Published 28 April 2012

If you download an app to your iPhone then spend over £70 within 5 minutes, I think you’ve got to admit that the app has succeeded. Maybe I’d have spent the money anyway, but the app certainly made it happen.

Naked Wines’ new app completes their proposition in my eyes. I’ve been a fan of the company, their team, their producers and their wines since they began, but there has been a problem running alongside: I rarely posted comments about the wines on their forum. 

I have a bit of an issue with forums: I’ve already got Facebook, so why would I want to use other company-based forums with separate logins? Companies want customers to use their forums rather than Facebook because Facebook retains ownership of data entered on to it; with a forum, the data remains the company’s property. But, it’s just not convenient for me as a user to use multiple forums.

Over the years I’ve bought nearly 300 bottles of wine from Naked, yet only posted around 40 comments on the wines – and considering that I write tasting notes for fun, you’d expect a hell of a lot more. Even though 40 reviews might be more than I’ve left for other suppliers, the difference here is that Naked Wines built their business around consumer reviews – so, if there’s a barrier to reviews, that’s a problem for the company.

This is what the app smashes: the app makes it really easy to see my last order and to leave a review on any of the wines. There is no longer a barrier. I will happily leave reviews every time I open their wines [In fact, I’ve already left five reviews in just two days as well as a few comments on other people’s]. And ordering is just as easy: I didn’t have to re-enter my payment details that were stored on my account and with only a few clicks my order was placed. Although you might think this is pretty standard, you’d be amazed how many times you have to re-key stuff like this. 

But the app does more: I can see videos from the winemaker and engage them in a discussion about their wines, as well as see reviews from other people. Greg Banbury (Co-founder of Naked Wines) said “We hope that the app will bring winemakers and customers closer together: we've made it super easy to chat with winemakers from the app and, since launch last week, we've seen a 109% increase in interactions." Colin Smith (aka @grapefan) agrees that it's a success: "It's easy to use and has a nice feel to the interface. The major advantage for me is that I can see what others are saying in the various groups whenever and wherever I am. I don't just have to be sitting at home on the laptop."

The app, which took three months to develop and was designed and built entirely in-house at Naked’s Norwich office, has already had over 7,000 downloads.

Rowan Gormley (Naked Wines’ founder and CEO) added, “The wines we sell wouldn’t exist without customer investment and the app makes this relationship all the more real and all the more fun.”

It certainly gets the thumbs up from me. Nice job Naked Wines.

Users who download the free app before the end of April go into a prize draw to win a year’s supply of wine! For more information, go to nakedwines.com/iphone. Android and iPad versions are due to be released this summer.

Published 14 April 2012

Can a successful online wine retailer in the US replicate their business in the UK using the same formula? The wines they feature may be different (to cater for different tastes), but is it more complicated than that? Does a UK customer respond to certain marketing strategies the same as our friends across the pond?

These are interesting questions, and some which will soon be answered thanks to online wine retailer Lot18. With successes in the US and France, the company is attempting to replicate their proposition in the UK. A “members-only marketplace for the discovery of exceptional wines”, Lot18 was founded in New York in late 2010 by Philip James (creator of snooth.com) and Kevin Fortuna. Will Armitage, General Manager of Lot18 Europe said,"We are all about access, curation and discovery of exceptional wines, sourced exclusively for Lot18 by our fifteen-strong global team of curators."

Lot18 launched on 2nd March 2012 with a very impressive selection of wines (including Pontet-Canet 95, Rubicon Estate Blancaneux 09 & Sesti Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Phenomena 05). They have since featured wines ranging from £10 to £100 a bottle, but they’re certainly not going to be doing a 3 bottles for £10 in the near future. However, with specialist suppliers in the UK already covering all price points (think Berry Bros & Rudd, Bibendum, Corney & Barrow, Majestic, Naked Wines, Laithwaite’s) and all selling online, where does Lot18 fit in? What is their unique selling point? 

Armitage says that Lot18 is the only UK wine business offering a private sales concept to wine buying: “this is a very popular means of purchasing wine in France and the US, and is already proving to be popular with our early members. We only ever offer a small selection of expertly sourced wines at any one time, so that our members need not get lost in a wine supermarket, rather trusting us to deliver the best possible wines to their door.” He validates this by adding that “only 6% of the wineries tasted by our expert global team of curators will appear on our website. Our members can trust us that for any particular price range and grape varietal, we shall only offer the very best wines. Whether hidden gems or household names, we only offer wines we like. In essence, we take the risk out of buying wine.”

I can confirm that their wines are of outstanding quality (I’ve tasted them on two occasions already and subsequently bought from them), but will be interested to see how the UK audience takes to their unique selling approach.

Follow the company on Twitter at @lot18uk

Published 30 March 2012

How does a company like Pernod Ricard approach social media? Their enviable situation poses a number of challenges. How do you make a global brand regionalised? And how do you implement social media across multiple brands? Fortunately, Tim Cunningham (Digital & Media Director, Pernod Ricard) was at the Social Media World Forum in London this week and he was happy to explain.

He started by acknowledging that Pernod is far from ‘finished’ in its implementation of social media. In Cunningham’s own words, they are ‘primarily focused on Facebook, but Twitter is coming out shortly’.

At first glance, Pernod’s desire to have brands take a global approach whilst also being regionalised, appears contradictory. But what they mean is they want global consistency, a global strategy, the benefits of aggregating users, yet they also want content to relate to each user according to their specific location. Cunningham says their mantra is “think global, act local”. Some may say that Pernod want to eat the proverbial cake.

Yet this approach makes a lot of sense. As a user I may want to experience the global brand that is Champagne Perrier-Jouët, but also want to hear about what they are doing in the UK. As a business, it makes even more sense. It is suggested that pages delivering content specific to a user’s locality get 36% higher engagement than a single global page. Also, by having only one FB Page for a brand, the brand aggregates fans, creating momentum and making it much easier to find in a search. As an example, imagine if a brand was to have a separate FB Page for 20 different regions (think Perrier-Jouët US, Perrier-Jouët UK, Perrier-Jouët Germany, Perrier-Jouët Australia, etc). Each Page might have 2,000 fans and, when a user searched for the brand, they’d see 20 different pages to choose from. Compare this to a single brand Page for Perrier-Jouët which would centralise the 40,000 fans and return a clear, single page to follow in a search.

Unfortunately, a single global Page usually means losing that local feeling. To avoid this, Pernod Ricard chose Vitrue to power their social media. Their software allows a brand like Perrier-Jouët to deliver global content AND some local content too. What many of the Pernod Ricard brands use is a single global Page, but with geo-targeted content on top. This means, as Cunningham explained, that “in markets where they have sufficient resource, the region takes control; where they don’t have sufficient resource, it will default to the global page.” So, for example, UK users will usually see the global content for Perrier-Jouët but, in the summer, they may receive UK-specific content to promote the brand in association with certain events. Then, once summer’s over, it reverts back to the global content without the users ever knowing this is going on. I’m sure the London-based software company isn’t the only creator of such software, but it’s certainly not a standard offering from the providers I’ve looked at recently.

So congratulations to Pernod Ricard. They may only be at the start of their social media adventure, but they’ve considered their needs and goals, done their research, and now have the tools to deliver an impressive social solution.

Published 10 March 2012

We all like the thought of being looked after by someone who’s competent in their line of work. I think this was why Oddbins was so popular a decade ago. Upon entering one of their stores, you knew that you’d be helped by a wine nerd who was knowledgeable without being scary (think of a wine version of Dick from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity). I loved that the shop’s staff hand-wrote their own tasting notes and stuck them to the shelves.

Unfortunately, as you probably know, Oddbins went into administration in 2011. But Whittalls Wine Merchants, part of European Food Brokers Group, bought the Oddbins name and 36 of the shops, and re-launched the company in October last year.

It’s still got some way to go and it’s certainly not going to be plain sailing for them, but I think they’ve definitely started off on the right foot. With a catalogue of just under 700 wines (the core range being around 400) and a team of excellent buyers, the wines I’ve tasted so far won’t disappoint – my blog on wineblo.gs will go into more detail on specific wines.

But will they still have their fun/informative angle. I am happy to say that, according to Emma Nichols (Oddbins’ Head of Buying), they’ll still be putting up hand-written tasting notes in-store. And, looking at the new Oddbins website which launched this week, I think it’s safe to say that this erudite yet personal approach is being carried onto their online presence. Their target customers are what I call ‘progressive drinkers’: they’ve moved on from solely buying their wine from supermarkets, have a little knowledge about wine, but are still enthusiastic drinkers rather than wine zealots – and Oddbins’ site hits just the right spot.

In addition to the easy-to-use navigation (allowing you to search by country, grape, price or style) you also have the option to search by mood: adventurous wines, adversity wines, contemplation wines, convivial wines… you get the idea. And another lovely touch is found when looking at a wine’s “more info”. As well as being given a decent description and all the technical info you could hope for, you also receive a light-hearted suggestion of when to drink it (“Planning your house extension”), what music to listen to (“Nick Cave”), the kind of things to think about (“About Isambard Brunel”) and a food suggestion (“Roast Poussin”) for each wine.

Furthermore, although it’s too early to have much content, it allows you to leave reviews of each wine. I have to admit that I don’t care for other people’s reviews very much. I’m in the Tim Hanni camp of believing taste to be a personal matter so, unless you know a person has a similar palate to you, there’s not much value in someone else’s notes. But, it’s what is expected nowadays, so I don’t blame them for building it into the site.

So, take a look: www.oddbins.com. It’s not the most technically advanced site, nor is it the prettiest, but I really like it. It’s easy to use, does exactly what it needs to do, and makes you smile at the same time. What more do you need?

Published 26 February 2012

Although I’ve loved my many trips to Umbria over the years, I’ve never thought of it as a particularly progressive region. Its output is predominantly agricultural, and it is common to see industrial facilities made out of grey concrete amongst the beautiful Umbrian countryside. The people, although very hospitable, seemed happy with century-old methods of farming.

So I was surprised, during a recent trip to Umbria for the International Wine Tourism Conference, to find a number of wine-makers who are embracing technology, considering the future and making their wineries beautiful without loss of functionality.

The first was Castello della Sala which stands on a rocky cliff over 500m above sea level close to the Tuscan border. The Antinori family, a well-known producer of Tuscan reds, bought the castle in 1940 in order to make white wines from mainly native Umbrian grapes. They restored the 14th-Century castle and built an avant-garde fermentation cellar (which focused on controlling temperature, in order to preserve the grapes’ aromas longer).

But it was in 2004 that they broke the mould when work began on a type of underground cellar never before seen in Italy. It is a simple concept which uses gravity to transport the grapes; rather than pumping them from one stage to the next. By building on a slope, they were able to construct the cellar’s floors on successive levels, so the grapes (or juice or wine) can just fall to the next phase of production. The benefit of this is that it ensures a gentler treatment of the grapes. But, it is also progressive in that it shows a respect for the surrounding countryside: as opposed to a huge concrete building that they could have built, Castello della Sala’s cellar seems to sink into the hillside with only parts of it being visible. Being just down the hill from the 14th-Century castle, you get a sense of the historical blending with the modern – without any constraints on beauty or functionality.

~ The Castello della Sala winery on the slopes

~ ... eventually ending up in these gleaming stainless steel tanks.

Footnotes

Castello della Sala’s cellar was opened in 2007.

The Castello della Sala property covers 160 hectares of vineyards of mainly traditional grape varieties, Procanico (a clone of Trebbiano, but less productive) and Grechetto (an Umbrian variety that is gives an acidic wine with spicy/grassy flavours, which ages well); but also Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Nero.

The wines produced by Castello della Sala include:

• Cervaro della Sala
• Bramito del Cervo
• Conte della Vipera
• Muffato della Sala
• San Giovanni della Sala
• Pinot Nero

Published 3 February 2012

On 1st February 2012 I delivered a couple of presentations at the International Wine Tourism Conference in Perugia, Italy. One was a paper on how new technologies could benefit the wine tourism industry (the other was a workshop to build wine tours – you’ll be able to hear more about that on blog.insightvacations.com in the coming weeks).

After a bit of background on technology in the tourism industry, we got down to the nitty-gritty of what new technologies were around. I picked three: augmented reality (AR), near field communication (NFC) and QR codes.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Why is he saying these are new when some of them have been around for over 20 years?” Well, the technology might not be “new” but, until recently, it hasn’t been a ‘practical possibility’ for many industries to implement them: people just didn’t carry around the required hardware. Yes, we had laptops, but they weren’t exactly convenient and the webcam usually pointed inwards which isn’t much use to the tourism industry – we want to look out at the world, not inwards. Therefore, with millions of smartphones in people’s pockets everywhere they go, these are now interesting options.

After a quick definition of what augmented reality is (“AR takes the real physical world and adds – or augments – it with sound, video, graphics, GPS data, etc. It 'enhances' one's current perception of reality”), I started with a short video montage looking at how other industries have successfully used augmented reality. You can see it by clicking on the link.

I then let wild fantasy take over with a few illustrations of how AR could be used in the wine tourism industry. Please note that these haven’t been built; they are just Photoshop mock-ups to try to give an idea of a few possible uses.

It’s unlikely that this technology will be taken up for a while; the costs are pretty preventative. And this is where QR codes could come into their element. I’ve already written a blog post about these, so I won’t cover old ground again here. But, I would argue that much of what I’ve suggested above could be implemented to some degree through QR codes (e.g. trips around vineyards could have QR codes giving info on the grapes being grown and what they are used for). Ok, they’re not as user-friendly or impressive as what AR can offer… but they are free!

Finally, I had a quick look at Near Field Communication (or NFC). Basically, NFC allows two devices to communicate (e.g. a smartphone and a checkout in a shop) from close range (within c. 4cm). It is already being used as a contactless payment system in shops and bars (i.e. by holding your phone up to a payment point in order to buy something), social networking, ticketing at place like the Pompidou and Stade de France, public transport around the world, as hotel keys, and much more. There are possibilities here for wine tourism (e.g. the transference of images, wine tasting notes, etc.) and it becomes even more exciting when you find out that only one of the two devices needs to have power – so one could be a sticker, tag, card, etc.

I’m not expecting the industry to rush out and invest in these technologies; I think a few companies in various industries will prove what delivers the best ROI before that happens.

There is also a cautionary note that needs to go with these technologies too: bad implementation does have negative effects. Not just a waste of time and money, but also a loss of trust in the technologies: a few bad examples of QR codes results in them all being deemed “rubbish”. So, please think about what you want to achieve before you start implementing QR codes or talking to developers about a new app of any kind… don’t just produce something “because it is shiny”!

Published 20 January 2012

In 2010, I wrote an article on the position of the wine industry in relation to technology. In short, it said the industry in the UK was in a pretty sorry state. There were obviously exceptions, and the huge online wine community was certainly not representative of how wine businesses were using it. So, one year on, is it any better? Have companies in the wine industry got their act together by the end of 2011?

On a positive note, I’m relieved to say that we haven’t been subjected to a wealth of pointless apps or an overuse of unnecessary QR codes (although there have been a few misguided attempts, such as the app of an Italian wine producer which contained tasting notes and a gimmicky screen where you could swirl a virtual glass of wine). A cynic may attribute this to the current economic climate curtailing non-essential expenses, rather than businesses making considered decisions; but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

However, many wine companies (from producers to distributors) still seem to be floundering around. Some improvements have been made but, on the whole, the wine industry is still straggling behind most other industries.

For example, let’s take a look at how well the top 24 wine brands in the UK off-trade (as listed in the OLN Wine Report 2011 sourced from Nielsen’s Scantrack Service) are using Facebook and Twitter.

In summary:

• 17 out of 24 (71%) have a Facebook page
• 11 out of 24 (46%) have an active Twitter account (although only 4 of those seem to be actually using it – see ‘The Mystery Shopper’ section)
• An alarming 6 out of 24 (25%) have neither a Facebook nor a Twitter account

More about Facebook

• Only 2 of the top 5 brands have a Facebook page
• Only 6 of the top 10 brands have a Facebook page 

Of the 17 brands that have a Facebook page:

• 4 have over 10,000 likes
• 6 have less than 1,000 likes
• Only 10 have a clear link to their Facebook page on their website

Top 5 Facebook pages:

1. Blossom Hill (72,586 likes)
2. Jacob’s Creek (24,605 likes)
3. Echo Falls (21,509 likes)
4. Brancott Estate (13,036 likes)
5. Canti (4,356 likes)

More about Twitter

Twitter is even worse:

• None of the top 5 brands has an active Twitter account
• Only 2 of the top 10 brands have an active Twitter account

Of the 11 brands that have an active Twitter account:

• The average number of tweets is 474
• On average they follow 423 people
• On average they are being followed by 640

However, it’s actually even worse than it looks because these stats are being skewed by two brands (Wolf Blass and Concha y Toro) which are way ahead of the others. Only these two brands:

• have tweeted over 400 times
• are following more than 500 people
• have more than 1,000 followers

But, this could just mean that some brands have discovered Twitter recently. So, I decided to check...

The Mystery Shopper 

To see how well the brands use Twitter, I sent in a mystery shopper. The test was simple: the mystery shopper posted a tweet addressed to the brand asking them a simple question; the brand just had to respond to the shopper (the brand should really have engaged the user in a discussion, but a response was all that the test required).

Disappointingly, only 4 of the 11 brands responded – that’s a 36% response rate. This means that 7 brands were mentioned in a tweet (which even a Twitter novice would see), but failed to capitalise on it. Unforgiveable.

Top 4 Twitter accounts:

1. Concha y Toro (3,088 followers)
2. Wolf Blass (1,624 followers)
3. Jacob’s Creek (941 followers)
4. Rosemount Wines (642 followers)

Blanca Bustamante, Head of Corporate Communications for Concha y Toro UK, told me that they wanted to engage people by focusing on "interesting stories about our wines and the industry. Interesting and useful content is the key. We want to be perceived as a reference for consumers who are interested in Chilean wine and Concha y Toro." My last blog tipped 2012 to be the year when South America not only increased its share of the mass market, but also got a foot hold in fine wine too. So send @conchaytoro a tweet and find out more. At least we know that they are listening.

Overall

As you can see, although some brands are using either Facebook or Twitter well, none of the top 24 brands is nailing both – but Facebook is certainly being used more proficiently than Twitter. It is fair to say that the majority are falling short… and the worst-performers are failing consistently. For example, to ensure that this article was accurate, I emailed all 24 brands to confirm the details of their social media accounts: 5 brands didn’t even reply to my email.

And remember, these are the top 24 wine brands in the UK off-trade. Come on wine industry, you can do better than this.

Published 8 January 2012

Only the brave would make predictions in such tumultuous times, but I’ve managed to find quite a few willing to put themselves on record for what they think 2012 will throw up.

I only have one: that the divide between wine brands who use social media and those who don’t will increase. That is, those currently using social media effectively will continue to do so, and get even better; whilst the others will continue to bury their heads in the sand. I’ll do what I can to change this, but I’m not expecting a seismic change.

So what have others said?

Countries

England, Australia, Italy, Spain and Argentina are amongst those predicted as winners in 2012.

• English sparkling wine is a hot topic this year, with many people predicting an increased interest in 2012 – and I’m with them on this. Author Matt Walls (@mattwallswine) says, “English sparkling wine will get better known and more accepted as a quality product. Especially if we have a good summer.” Spittoon’s Andrew Barrow (@wine_scribbler) adds that this will be helped on by the Olympics, however, “high prices will temper interest”. Tom Harrow, (@WineChapUK), agrees that quality is not the problem; it’s the pricing that is going to cause difficulties. He sums it up by saying that the top English producers “are not affordable alternatives to Champagne.”
• Australia gets a vote from wine writer Robert Joseph (@robertjoseph) and Harrow. Joseph sees “Australia making a comeback (and Semillon Blanc becoming a “real category” – see wineblo.gs), while Harrow envisages Australia “fighting back” with their top-end Chardonnays challenging Burgundy in 2012.
• BBR buying Director Alun Griffiths MW predicts that Argentina will continue to make huge strides, with Joseph seeing the country having success due to supermarket own-brand Malbecs. While Concha y Toro (@conchaytoro) thinks that both Argentina and Chile will "make great inroads into the on-trade this year, fine dining in particular".
• Italy should be a winner due to all the Moscato that is going to be drunk in 2012 (see later). Joseph adds Pinot Grigio and Prosecco to the list of wines that will succeed from Italy. Harrow predicts that the East might start to get in on the action at the top end (as well as continuing to snap up Bordeaux’s top growths). 
• Spain is a hot tip across all price points. Alison Dillon (@alisonedillon), of wine PR specialists Dillon Morrall, predicts that Spanish wines will increase their market share in the next 12 months. Griffiths agrees, saying that “Spain will be a region to watch in 2012 with its well-made, attractively-priced red and white wines”; Joseph simply says that customers will benefit from “great value cheap red”. Harrow anticipates a greater focus on higher end Rioja which he considers the “best value fine wines in Europe”.
• Wine producer Randall Grahm (@randallgrahm) thinks many new world wineries “will (very tragically) bite the dust. Those who can get closer to their end customers will be most successful.”
• As well as these established countries, Thierry’s (@thierryswine) thinks lesser known ones (such as Moldova and Turkey) could be the source of “good value” wines that customers are going to be looking for in light of the ongoing purse-tightening. Barrow supports Turkey, saying that being the hosts of EWBC 2012 should get them talked about - “at least amongst wine bloggers”. Harrow adds Croatian (Istrian) wines to that list. However, although Joseph agrees there will be a lot of talk about these ‘new’ countries, he thinks very few bottles will actually be sold. Caroline Henry (@carohenry) thinks that Brazilian sparkling wine may make the big time: “half the price of Prosecco but so much better”.

Government regulation – “The Rise of Moscato”

2012 is likely to see quite a few changes to the law: whether it’s minimum pricing or taxing drinks per unit alcohol (for more info on these, see alcoholpolicy.net). Most people accept that the new regulations will have an impact on buying patterns, with many tipping Moscato as a major benefactor.

• Thierry’s says that regulations will see lower alcohol wines becoming popular.
• Joseph says that “sweet, grapey Moscato (usually 5.5% but up to 11%) will be HUGE”; Harrow simply says that 2012 will see “the Rise of Moscato”. Walls agrees, specifically saying that “Moscatos will begin to take market share from White Grenache/White Zin towards the end of 2012.”
• Dillon thinks that further “alcohol clampdowns” will be made by the Government during the year.
• Despite the increase in costs (from unit pricing and duty increases), Robert Joseph still thinks that “the sub-£5 bottle will survive.”

Retailers

After a terrible year for independents, nobody is brave enough to predict a significant turnaround in 2012. The general consensus seems to be that those independents still in business will survive due to a niche customer base, but also that online sales across the board will see an increase.

• Thierry’s says that, due to many factors such as duty rises and minimum pricing, wine is being forced into “a different retail pricing environment”. They think that this will cause a decline of mass market wine sales and a reduction in physical shelf space in supermarkets. They also predict a “drift away from loss-leading promos”, and think that retailers will need to get smarter (giving M&S’s move of putting wine specialists into their stores as an example).
• Rowan Gormley of Naked Wines (@nakedwines) thinks that we could see a social media-driven "wine Spring" where Facebook and Twitter discussions lead consumers to realise that supermarket offers really are too good to be true.
• Joseph also predicts that supermarkets will reduce the breadth of their in-store range, but doesn’t think that this will bother many customers.
• Many see these in-store changes pushing the more savvy customers online or to the independents. Dillon thinks that “good independents will continue to flourish” while Joseph adds that this will “increase the polarisation of the UK market”.

Packaging

Will we hear the death toll for the bottle in 2012? No, but there’s hope that advancements will be made into alternative packaging.

• Dillon and others predict that we are likely to see innovation in packaging (e.g. PET and paper bottles).
• Contentiously, Joseph believes that (unfortunately) natural cork will continue its fightback against alternative closures, but also sees the likes of Diam and Nomacork synthetics growing in popularity. 
• Personally, I can’t see cork taking market share from the screwcap. UK consumers are pretty happy with screwcaps, so producers aren’t going to scrap production-line technology (in which they’ve invested heavily) without good reason; and the scientific developments in Brett and TCA aren’t good enough reason.

Organic/Biodynamic

There’s been lots of noise about natural, organic and biodynamic wines over the last few years; but there are no regulations for these definitions. What changes will 2012 bring?

• Swedish author Erica Landin (@ericawinetrips) sees a “growth of Bio segment” but adds that early adopters will criticise the ‘Organic’ label.
• Walls believes that Natural wines will begin to “clean up its act at the wilder fringes of production as serious faults are no longer tolerated.”
• Harrow thinks a “synthesis of opinion and ideally codification of requirements” is possible.

In January, I’ll be presenting at the annual International Wine Tourism Conference & Workshop. This is the fourth year the conference has been running, but it will be my first. As if this isn’t exciting enough, it will see me revisiting the Italian region of Umbria; a region very close to my heart as I got married there in 2006.

I will be presenting twice at the conference: a paper entitled “How new technologies will change the future of wine tourism” (looking at how Augmented Reality and other technologies could be used in wine tourism), as well as running a workshop to build a new series of wine and food tours (on behalf of one of the tour brands I work for).

Obviously these alone justify the 3-day ticket price of €250, but the programme is littered with excellent sessions that make you wish you could be in two or more places at once. Here are ten that I’m particularly excited about:

1. “Wine tourism does not exist. There is only tourism” - Michael Wangbickler proposes that many wineries and wine regions make the mistake of thinking that visitors are only interested in wine; he proposes that they need to be looking at a much bigger picture.
2. “The Accidental Wine Tourist” - Bill Eyer tells us the motivations of today's wine tourists and the challenges, trends and benefits of wine tourism.
3. “Italian Wineries Speak and a New Tourism Strategy is Born” - Chiara Lungarotti unveils the findings from a huge research study on consumers visiting wineries.
4. “Surfer to Sipper: Website Characteristics That Inspire Real-Life Winery Visits” - Donna Sears reveals her research into winery websites, including her proposal of a code of best practice for design, implementation and promotion.
5. “The Innocents Abroad” - Diane Letulle looks at what happens when Americans (who are used to glitzy experiences in their home country) visit European wineries.
6. “Winning the American wine tourist dollar” - Stephen F. Fallows discloses the needs and expectations of one of the fastest growing segments of the European wine tourism industry. 
7. “New opportunities & challenges of wine tourism in France. A special focus on Burgundy” - Laurence Cogan from the Dijon Business School, France, looks at a variety of issues that caused a recent study to conclude that wine tourism in France is still relatively underdeveloped, then reveals the best practices being used in Burgundy that could help change this.
8. “Shut up! Let your wine tourist do the talking! Discourse analysis in the tasting room” - Anthony Swift takes a practical workshop to demonstrate how wineries should get their customers talking (rather than the winery guide).
9. “Is formal wine education important for tasting room tour guide staff?” - Robbin Gheesling considers what qualities winery guides should have.
10. “Getting the word out – Marketing to the Millennials” - Michael Wangbickler reveals the secrets of marketing to 21-34 year olds (the fastest growing segment in the wine business).

But, that really is just a few highlights and I’d love to have told you about… the official launch of mobile application "Sicily Wine Tour”… Melba Allen’s “Who are the modern day wine tourists?”… Mary Cressler’s “A sense of place: How to leverage your region & place to enhance the customer experience”… Jane Hunt’s personal view on the successes and pitfalls on winery visits… Tom Plant’s “Adding the human touch”… Zev Robinson’s premier showing of “Life on the Douro”… Thomas Schilde’s “Wine Tourism in Germany – Chance for Income!”… and many many more. For more information, see the conference programme.

So, if you haven’t got anything planned for late Jan/early Feb 2012, I’d encourage you to take a look at the conference website (see www.iwinetc.com), then book yourself a flight.

Look forward to seeing you there.