Portugal 's brand should be its people

At the wine tourism conference this week where I spoke on creating an authentic online brand, we have been debating what is the image that Portugal's wine producers should use to brand portugal to the market.

We discussed that people associate Portugal with Port, the Nada tart, hundreds of confusing wine varietals, Vinho verde  are green wines picked green,, and not what the real nature of it is, Young, crisp and fresh and to be drunk young.

Peri Peri Chicken, west coast of Europe, Duoro river, or whatever.

In my humble opinion, the Portugese people themselves are its great brand.

The hospitality and warm-hearted reception that we the press tour to Porugal, have enjoyed, are its real gems and should be its front page.

We stayed at Count Francisco's magnificent estate in the Minho valley in the Vinho verde country in the north west of Portugal. 

A dream escape if you want to discover more of  rural, west coast Portugal, and the history that you will breathe in here. follow my facebook page for updates

We visited wineries like Afros in the area, where Vasco Croft uses bio dynamics to make his wines. and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality wines being produced here, for Portugese fish food and wine pairings.

THE YEATMAN the 35 million dollar 5 star,  recently completed hotel hosted us on our arrival  at the #iwinetc press tour, on the banks of the river that flows through the very pretty city of Porto.

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I did a wine review there at the Yeatman over dinner with Ana from the wine family Fonseca Reis.

We then had a fabulously fascinating cellar tour and gracious dinner in these  at Sandermans hosted by George Sanderman himself. The famous brand associated with PLEASURE.

Our conference venue  and the hotel looked after all of us and the many delgates and tour operators very well. We dined at DOP restaurant and as I say Smiles and all round. 

SO for ME Portugal stands for hospitality and warm smiles.

Everywhere we went, and tomorrow we leave the conference venue to do a Douro wine tour, we encountered fabulous hospitality and warm smiles.

Portugal land of discovery and Port

I am excited! and that's happened to me a lot in the past few months as I participated in Paris le Vin with Gary Vaynerchuk and the Grand Tasting Paris. After Vienna and Austria Winetour for winebloggers.

Why? I leave for Portugal in 2 weeks!

This is significant, because Portugal is a country I've always dreamed of going to and now I'll be on a Press tour doing what I love to do the most, at the wine pleasures conference with Anthony Swift and his team, on wine exploring the vineyards of Douro, meeting the winemakers, savouring fine Port, something I adore; all while doing what I love to do with 20 other wine bloggers from around the globe.

We will be Communicating, interviewing and sharing the knowledge we all have on how to engage and make the world smaller. I 'll be speaking too, it's not all play! Attend the reputation management social media for wine workshop I'll be running on getting real, with some giveaways.

Conference tickets still available here opposite on the right click on the box advert.

The 2011 International Wine Tourism Conference & Workshop will take place from 30th January to 6th February on the banks of the Douro River in the Pousado do Porto, Palacio do Freixo in Porto, Porto, Portugal.

The vineyards in Portugal cover 350,000 hectares. Portugal has more than 250 grape varieties spread across 26 DOC Appellations. Porto, Portugal’s second major city is one of the Great Wine Capitals of the World and of course known worldwide for excellence in Port. Portugal is also well known for crisp light Vinho Verde and powerful & dark reds from Alentejo and the Douro Valley.

So the intinarary is as exiciting as a Christmas moning when you are 6 years old.

The conference will bring together not only wine and/or travel professionals from around the world to discuss, reflect on and develop their ideas but also will attract wine and travel enthusiasts to discover Portugal as a grape escape destination. The conference programme will offer many opportunities for professional contact and development. It involves a three-day programme of over 40 talks, posters presentations, workshops, panel discussions and symposiums. It also gives delegates a chance to meet wine-makers, writers, bloggers, celebrities and of course fellow wine lovers and travelers from around the world.

Hot Sun, fresh atlantic winds, wild beaches, great food, tradition, great wine and the land of Port. See here if you need to envy me even more.

I am an explorer by nature * perhaps I would have fitted well as a fine lady 400 years ago when Vasco de Gama would have entertained me at table and regaled me with tales of his ships carrying port around the world, and his explorations.

Yes Portugal, green rolling vineyards, the cooling atlantic ocean, salty briny sea air, seafood, Lisbon's famous tartlets. mmmmmmmmm

I know how to say Obrigado, so perhaps I can get by on that, after enjoying Taylors and Yeatmans two famous brands who are co-sponsors.

I had a good chat at the Taylors stand at Grand Tasting in Paris *see last post.. Can't wait for those PORTS!

So we start with the Porto area and Douro wine route see map and highlights here

We meet Royalty and get to eat courtesy of the labours of some of Portugal's finest chefs.

As I'm writing this post, im getting more and more excited. I'm packing my cameras, making sure I have all my leads, press tricks, and interview questions as I prepare my workshop presentation.

Are you coming?? please tweet me if you are, so we can start to swop stories and wine notes.

We have a new iphone app for the conference - I'll also be live tweeting from winesocialclub my other stream, so for those who want to participate vitually - subscribe here on the blog.

If you don't have a ticket yet and you'd love to come.. Get movin and book your place now! There are cheap airlines that fly into Oporto. This is a never to be forgotten trip... in the making ..... I can just feel it.

A video of Douro River

Donna Jackson

WineLover

Communication and New Media strategist

Grand Tasting in Paris Dec 2010

So Paris * The Marais, was my home for the past week I attended #levin20  (last blog post) and grand tasting Paris

I also had the honor of being invited by Bernadette Vizioz to a very grand and special lunch hosted by the Seillan family, Pierre and Monique of Jackson Family wines at Jules Verne restaurant  on top of the Eiffel Tower on a post-snow sunny day which was stupendous. The Alain Ducasse resturant gave us a gathered party of wine press and family, a menu perfectly paired with the wines we were to taste.

MENU

Bouillon leger de Lentilles vertes aiguillettes de poule faisane

Cookpot de pommes de terre fondantes et Truffe noire

Noisettes de Chevrueil aux poivres, garniture d'hiver sause Grand Veneur.

Fromages

L' 'ecrou au Chocolat et praline' croustillant glace noisette.

THE WINES " Parmi les trois plus beaux terroirs du monde" par Pierre Seillan * (three best places in the world to make wine)

Saint Emilion/Toscane/Sonoma

2010/ St Emillion  CL grand cru

2009/ St Emillion CL  grand cru

2005 Arcanum 1

Toscana

2006 Arcanum 11

Toscana

2008/ St Emilion CL grand cru

2005/ St Emilion CL grand cru

2006 / Ve'rite' / la Muse

California

2006/ Ve'rite'/  le Desir

California

2006/ Ve'rite'/ la Joie

California

 We enjoyed a vertical tasting of Cha'teau Lasse'gue Bordeaux Wines from St E'milion in France, Ve'rite' wines from, Healdsburg California and  then Tenuta di Arceno near Siena Tuscany. These wines are within the Jackson family wine treasury. 

The wines were, in a word, all unique, carefully grown and made and pioneer terrior wines as I call them.

My favourite on the Ve'rite' Joie which had lovely voilet notes and silky smooth finish, well balanced and will only get better with laying down. The Tuscan wines were a superb sonata to the land I love.

I will review the wines and write up more on them and the grapes and blends in up/coming posts.

I asked Pierre what he thought would change in the wine world in the next few years, and his answer was . he hoped people would move away from generic imitations of wine types and onto individual character wines that are an expression of the terroir in which they are grown.

 @wisequeen Donna Jackson

 Yours in wine, changing the wine world one wine at a time

 #Grandtasting The selection of wine on the Bordeaux course

wine and sharing with Gary Vaynerchuk at #levin20 in Paris

So I'm blogging live from #levin20 in Paris, a coming together of the wine people of Europe, from bloggers to winemakers, winepress and me @winesocialclub. We had a great thunder talk by my friend @garyvee who spoke on sharing. Then a few of us had a good discussion over lunch with Gary  @garyvee

about people being nervous in Europe (in particular Italy and France) about sharing because they don't feel comfortable in the webspace.

I'm going to be blogging about sharing a lot both in the wine world and on the web for personal branding and socialsharing.

We had a great lunch and a catch up.

Thanks Gary, and I hope that race in from the airport straight to your talk to us winepeople was not too freezing. We have a  live winetasting later with Gary on winelibrary TV, that will be fun and ill upload it.

Its been quite a week for me first with Chris Brogan and then Gary Vaynerchuk,  my two online teachers.

Here we are with Philipe Hugon organiser of @vinternet and Yair Haidu whose wine platform I write a wine blog  on wineloversworld. He's up on stage now talking about the awesomeness of what you can experience on Haidu channel with wine.

Happy sharing.

Watch for the videos.

Donna Jackson

Chris Brogan

Heres my interview with Chris in Berlin where we spoke on b2b marketing and what drives and inspires him.

A candid interview on what makes him so much a favourite online influencer