The Midwest’s 27th annual wine dig finished yesterday after a four-day conference focusing on marketing, viticulture and enology and a two-day trade show. According to the organizers there were about 900 attendees, up 200 on last year, and more than 150 exhibitors, roughly the same as 2011, many of them from outside the Midwest. Just as the weather was turning very cold in Kansas City, I clambered into my car at about 8am on Saturday morning and enduring disappointing coffee break options, drove four hours in a straight line to the St Charles Convention Center, just outside St Louis.
St Charles Convention Center, location for the 2012 Midwest Grape & Wine Conference
I intended to spend the afternoon wandering around the trade show talking to winemakers but realized as soon as I entered the venue that I was mistaken in expecting the dozens of booths in the show to be occupied by the Midwest’s vineyards. At a booth near the entrance I found Richard Laforest from KOSME, who make bottling machines (the interview with him will be posted soon) and he kindly explained to me the lie of the land. The conference is for winemakers to learn about their craft, he told me, and the trade show is for companies, like his, that service the wine industry, to promote and sell their wares to the winemakers attending the conference.
With that important information I consulted the nice ladies at the front desk who told me it was a quiet afternoon for the conference so, even if winemakers were happy to talk to me, they were not as thick on the ground as I’d hoped. I anxiously grabbed a glass of Vidal Blanc from the complimentary bar, relaxed a little and decided to spend my time chatting with barrel makers, mobile bottlers, microbiologists and marketers. The results of those conversations follow…
As an Internet and social media marketing company, and being our first year attending this show, we were not quite sure what to expect. The show focused on production, tasting room gifts & gadgets and lots more. We were pleased with the many folks who came by our booth with many good questions and interest in how to build their business online. The opportunities with Facebook and mobile websites resonated with many.
The other surprise, for us stilted Californians, was how good the wine was at the day and evening tastings. We made quite a few discoveries and got quite an education to how well suited some varieties are to these mid-America regions. We don’t get to taste these wines so it was a treat and we were really amazed. Looking forward to Wineries Unlimited and next year in St. Louis!
Thanks for your comment Winery Adviser – hopefully more Midwest wines will start making it out to California’s thirsty population. All the best. Danny.
A comment from Mike Litton of The San Francisco Chocolate Factory
Hi Danny Wood,
Thanks for your email and blog.
I just thought I’d respond with a self serving message about our Wine Lover’s Chocolate.
In case you didn’t see us at the show, we were presenting our trademarked “Wine Lover’s Chocolate” there, and were very pleased to receive a warm welcome. We currently sell in over 700 winery tasting rooms around the country, and have long since found that winery tasting rooms do well offering gourmet chocolate in tins designed especially for wine lovers. Visitors enjoy the chocolate and keep the tin as a souvenir, and the winery “builds the basket” with an increased sale value. Visitors buy chocolate IN ADDITION TO the wine, NOT instead of the wine. So a bigger sale and increased profit for the winery.
The American Wine Society did a large wine & chocolate tasting years ago, and gave us two thumbs up for our pairings. It seems people are getting more sophisticated about their chocolate as they are about their wines. And we will soon be presenting chocolates for pairing with Midwest wines.
I just thought I’d pass you some information some of your readers might find interesting.
Regards,
Mike