We had 133 people fill out a post-conference survey. Pretty good, considering traditional low response rates for surveys.

Overall, the conference received outstanding reviews from participants, with 87% of the people rating it Very Good or Outstanding. On our five-point scale, which is particularly tough because the midpoint “three” rating equates to Good rather than Fair, we earned a 4.11 rating. That compares to 3.96 last year and is almost exactly the same as the 4.12 rating we received from the first conference, when I think we were still in the “love bubble” stage of a new relationship.

As for individual events, the results are naturally mixed. The top five scoring events were the presentation by geologist Kevin Pogue (more salt in the wounds of those who slept in that morning), the Sunday excursion to Red Mountain, and Thursday excursion to Yakima Valley, the Sunday Wine & Food Pairing lunch presented by Winebow, and the Sunday Wine & Food Pairing presentation by chef Jeffrey Saad. We are always a little nervous about how many people will leave the conference early and were happy to see so many people stay for what was an incredible presentation by Chef Jeffrey and perhaps the best meal of the weekend courtesy of Chef Bear from the Marcus Whitman and the wines of Winebow. The Friday After Hours Walla Walla Walkabout and the Saturday reception and dinner put on by the Washington Wine Commission also received ratings above 4.0 on our scale.

All other events were scored in the 3+ range, meaning all were good but all could use some tweaking to make them better. Some events didn’t go quite as planned and we will try to avoid those issues in future years. We received many, many comments and will come up with a plan of improvement. Some specific things we will try to implement: more outside experts at the breakout sessions, longer breakout sessions, and more vegetarian options.

Other things are simply harder to control when we have 300 drinking, talking people in one room. Time will always be tight at these conferences and we are always trying to balance competing interests. 72% of you did say we got right the mix of educational, wine, and fun activities this year.

I’d like to finish by sharing one comment from the survey. One person wrote “More thought should go into what Bloggers want and less into how to stroke the self-appointed inncer council member’s egos.” I find this shockingly inaccurate and laughingly funny – but since someone out there thinks this, it is worth telling everyone a bit about the process.

The “inner council” consists of Joel (from OpenWine Consortium), Reno (my employee at Zephyr Adventures), and me. And I can tell you that while I have an ego in certain things, like on the soccer field, I certainly don’t have an ego about what is presented at the Wine Bloggers Conference. And if you had a chance to talk with Reno, you know he aims to please everyone. In fact, while all of us are related to the wine industry, none of the three of us are even wine bloggers, which we all think makes us quite impartial when it comes to planning these conferences. If we surveyed bloggers for their opinions any more (location survey, content suggestion survey, post-conference survey, wine blog awards nominations, wine blog awards voting) many of you would probably get sick of us!

In summary, thank you to those of you who attended and provided your opinions, we are glad you enjoyed the conference, and we’ll work hard (as always) to make 2011 even better.

- Allan, Zephyr Adventures, Conference Co-Organizer

If you set up a Google Alert for “wine bloggers conference”, you’ll see many of the blog posts coming out about the 2010 conference. However, Google Alerts doesn’t capture everything and we wanted to give you a heads up on some other media produced from our Walla Walla get together.

If you attended the conference, we hope you were able to meet Lisa Mattson and Laura Petersen from Jordan Winery. Lisa had volunteered her services as a videographer and seemed to be everywhere, shooting for what will be the official conference video (coming soon), filming some of the sessions and keynote speeches, and grabbing bloggers aside to do special “Video Diaries” containing thoughts and ramblings about the conference. These videos are all on the WBC YouTube channel.

In the way of photos, we are sure many of you took some excellent ones for your blog. The folks at Mutineer Magazine set up sort of a celebrity photo shoot area in the Meet the Sponsors section on Friday. If you took part, check out your photo on their Flickr stream. Olsen Estates also set up a nice photo gallery of the pre-conference excursion in Yakima Valley.

And finally, we have a couple of presentations sent in by speakers and breakout session panels. If you have a presentation from the conference you would like to share, please send it to Joel.

If you have your own photo collage, video, or other media, please let everyone know by posting a comment on this blog post.

We made the Associated Press today. One of the benefits of moving the conference to Charlottesville in 2011 is the Virginia state government is really gung ho about promoting both its wine and tourism industries. And we are already feeling the benefits.

I received a letter a few weeks ago from Virginia’s Secretary of Agriculture, Todd Haymore, giving us his support to have the conference in Virginia. I sent him a thank you email after we had publicly announced the conference would be in Charlottesville and he promptly responded – on Monday, a holiday. The next day, the Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s press secretary contacted me and 24 hours after that, with my help, they had released a press release announcing the 2011 conference location. Hence the AP pickup.

We have been in full swing since the Walla Walla conference ended, 10 short days ago. We already have 31 people registered for next year, almost all of them Citizen Bloggers. That doesn’t count our organizers or initial sponsors. I haven’t even had a chance to analyze the survey results but will get to that soon!

- Allan

The WBC10 post-conference excursion to Red Mountain, sponsored by the Red Mountain AVA Alliance, focused on two areas: education and celebration.  The afternoon kicked off at Col Solare where Chateau Ste. Michelle’s head winemaker Kevin Corliss led about 50 bloggers on a tour of vineyard site selection and optimizing growing conditions. Kevin was followed by a sample of Col Solare’s Tuscan styled blend made in concert with the Antinori Family, as well as a barrel sample of the 2009 Cabernet.  As we drank, geologist Dr. Alan Busacca explained that what made Red Mountain so unique is the variety of soil types, the most diverse geology of any AVA in the Northwest.

The group left Col Solare and embarked upon a short vineyard hike down to the Hedges Family Estate with one of the Red Mountain gurus: Dick Boushey, Jim Holmes, Chris Upchurch of DeLille Cellars, Alan Busacca, and Ryan Johnson of Grand Reve Vintners.  Depending on which hike you were on you may have learned about vineyard management, orientation of the land, history of Red Mountain, the high tannin content of Red Mountain wines or newer planting techniques.  At Hedges Estate bloggers were greeted by Christophe Hedges and treated to side by side tastings of Red Mountain wines compared the same varietals and vintages from some of the world’s most famed wine regions, including Barossa Valley, Cote Rotie, and Napa Valley.

The next stop was at the famed Ciel Du Cheval Vineyard, home to some of the most revered wines coming from the Northwest.  This vineyard provides fruit for wines under the labels of Betz Family, DeLille Cellars, Andrew Will and Quilceda Creek.  Jim Holmes talked to us from the back of his pick up truck, and walked us through the thinking behind the  founding of Kiona Vineyard & Winery (which he and John Williams co-founded) and Red Mountain.  This was a unique opportunity to hear from the literal roots of this AVA.  Jim led us through some soil sampling exercises and allowed us to literally get our hands dirty.  Our final stop was at Terra Blanca Winery where owners Keith & ReNae Pilgrim introduced us to their wines and led us through a selective tasting of their signature blend, the Onyx.  When we walked into the caves, we were greeted with a 2009 barrel sample of Cabernet.   Keith talked about the ageability of Red Mountain wine and guided us through a tasting of wines chosen to demonstrate the longevity of these wines: the 2006, 2001 and the 1999.

From there we adjourned to the Celebration; the Grand Tasting with 12 Red Mountain wineries including those named above as well as Alma Terra, Cooper Wine Company, Fidelitas, Goedhart Family, Hightower Cellars , Kiona , Portrait Cellars, and Tapteil Vineyard Winery . The tasting was followed by a Red Mountain Style BBQ by chef and fellow blogger Frank Magana, owner of the Prosser, WA, based winemaker hangout, Picazo717. Chef Frank treated guests to ostrich skewers, wild boar sausage with creamy polenta, and some serious St Louis style BBQ ribs.  The post-conference excursion couldn’t have gone better. A big thank you from the Red Mountain AVA Alliance goes out to Keith & ReNae Pilgrim at Terra Blanca for hosting the dinner and letting folks stick around late into the night, and to Chef Frank Magana for an amazing meal.  The Red Mountain AVA also extends thanks to the bloggers for coming out to see what Red Mountain is all about. Here’s to you.

The 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference will be held in …

But first, we would like to wrap up Day 3 of the conference. Many participants woke up early to have a more intimate conversation with last night’s keynote speaker, Lettie Teague. Lettie talked about wine writing and Tom Wark joined her at the podium to answer questions more related to blogging. It was nice having a keynote speaker with a busy schedule take the time to connect on a more personal level in a smaller group with those folks committed enough to attend the 8:00 session!

We then moved right into two sets of two Breakout sessions: Increasing the Conversion Rate on Your Blog with Craig Sutton of Ikon Marketing Group; More Effective Writing in Your Blog with Meg Houston Maker of Palate Press, Andy Perdue of Wine Press NW and Hardy Wallace of Dirty South Wine; Top Gun Blogging with Andrew Lazorchak of Vineyard Vlog, Ben Simons of Vinotology and Joe Herrig of Suburban Wino; and Bloggers, Wineries, & PR Firms with Beth Cotenoff of Cornerstone Communications and her blog Flavorful Feasts, Grace Doyle of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates and Michael Wangbickler of Balzac and Caveman Wines.

The final conference session came courtesy of Winebow, an importer and distributor of over 3000 different wines. Winebow brought its executive chef, Jeffrey Saad, The Next Food Network Star runner up and 25-year food industry veteran, to give a talk on wine and food pairing. Jeffrey was amazing – an absolutely enthralling speaker. He then invited us to taste 10 Winebow wines paired with 10 tasty bites prepared by the Chef Bear from the Marcus Whitman, which we heard referred to as “the best meal of the weekend”.

And on to the announcement.  When we select a WBC location, we look at a number of factors: geographic diversity, strong wine community, eager local partners willing to help us, transportation logistics, and an excellent host hotel. We have a good-sized list of potential locations and would like to visit most of them in future years. So if you were pulling for a certain location, don’t give up hope!

The 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference will be in Charlottesville, Virginia from July 22-24. The Virginia wine industry has 15 separate regions and six identified AVAs. The state has 150 wineries and produces a large number of varietals. Equally importantly, Charlottesville is a very cool city with a major university and a fantastic downtown walking mall. We also have a super hotel, the Omni, right downtown. And very important for us, which means for our conference participants too, is that the Virginia Wine Board, Virginia Tourism, and the Charlottesville community are fully supporting the conference.

We found moving the conference to Walla Walla this year to be extremely rewarding and are confident Virginia will be the same. This website will be updated for 2011 soon but registration is already open. So reserve your spot early, join us in 2011, and continue to expand your wine and blogging horizons!

As one of the organizers of the Wine Bloggers Conference, I frequently ask participants how things are going. Yesterday I didn’t have to do that. Many people came up to me to offer their thoughts.

I heard a number of people tell me the morning talk by geologist Kevin Pogue was the most amazing preparation for visiting a wine area they have ever encountered. We were not sure the 8:00 AM session would have many people but it was full.

Many others told me the morning sessions and lunches, arranged by the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance and held at 30 different area wineries, were the best part of the conference (so far). One participant told me his vintner panel was the most interesting conversation he had ever had with a winemaker. Another told me he was impressed by how upfront and open the vintners were to share their views, their successes, and their difficulties. A third participant told me the lunch she enjoyed at a local Walla Walla winery was the best meal she had had – all year!

Everyone then reconvened at the Marcus Whitman Hotel for the afternoon sessions. We started out with two excellent breakout sessions. I attended a talk on “Growing Your Audience from Other Bloggers to Consumers” and was impressed with the three speakers: Seattle Wine Gal, Andrea Robinson, and David Honig from Palette Press. For the second session, I listed to Steve Heimoff, Tom Wark, and Ken Payton discuss “The Future of Wine Writing”. Weighty topics both and well worth the time to listen to all these experts!

We then proceeded on to Live Wine Blogging for red wines before being treated to dinner by the Washington Wine Commission. The number of outstanding wines being poured by Washington state wineries was amazing and I heard over and over how impressed people were with the high quality of so many different varietals all coming out of one state. The after dinner entertainment was provided by local band Snap, Crackle, and Pop, courtesy of Rias Baixas Albarino. The white wines from northern Spain were delicious and relatively unknown to even our experienced wine drinkers!

Day 1 of the 2010 North American Wine Bloggers Conference was packed full of activity, exciting, and fun. The WiFi worked perfectly (yeah!), the wines were delicious, and the events were educational.

The day started with registration and a Meet the Sponsors section where attendees were able to talk to all the great sponsors of the conference. The wine pouring started early with wines from the Lake Chelan Wine Growers Association, Yakima Valley, Red Mountain, Winebow, Rias Baixas Albarino, The Meritage Alliance, The Secret Sherry Society, Sinclair Estate Vineyards, Canoe Ridge Vineyard, Hogue Cellars, Barnard Griffin Winery, and Mollydooker Wines.

It’s interesting. On the one hand, bloggers love trying new wines they might not have ever seen before. On the other, the wineries and associations themselves really enjoyed the experience, from what they told us. In fact, many of the sponsors commented on what a pleasure it was to pour for such knowledgeable, interested, note-taking people.

At noon we had a special “taco truck lunch”, generously paid for by the folks at the Yakima Valley Visitors & Convention Bureau. Taco trucks are a staple of the Walla Walla area, thanks to the large Hispanic population in the area.

The conference itself started at 2:00 PM with a keynote speech by writer and wine blogger Steve Heimoff. No one really knew what to expect from Steve, who is not shy from controversy, but Steve exceeded all expectations. He gave an extremely thoughtful speech explaining a bit of the history of wine writing, touching on a few of the recent controversies in the wine blogging world, looking into the future on how wine writing and blogging might progress, and finally providing a few tips to aspiring wine bloggers. One of the highlights of the speech for many was Steve’s assertion that bloggers, with their intense desire for transparency, are pushing traditional wine writers in the same direction.

Following Steve’s speech, Alan Kropf from Mutineer Magazine brought the Wine Blog Awards to a whole new level with his high-tech, high-energy presentation. Check out that website for the winners!

We then broke up into three groups for a brand-new aspect of the conference, the About Wine Blogging sessions. The three sessions were for beginner bloggers, advanced bloggers, and those wishing to learn about how bloggers and the wine industry can better interact. Thanks to all of our presenters: Colby Vorhees of Wine Peeps, Joe Power of Another Wine Blog, Catie Walker of Walla Walla Wine Woman, Joe Roberts of 1 Wine Dude, Jeff Lefevere of Good Grape, RJ Hilgers of RJ’s Wine Blog, Craig Camp of Wine Camp Blog, Lori Narlock of Wilson Daniels and Bob Silver of MWW Group.

And then the real fun began. 27 wineries showed up to pour one wine each during the 3rd annual Live Wine Blogging session. This year, upon the specific suggestion at last year’s conference by Jason Mancebo from $20 Dollar Wine Blog, we broke the Live Wine Blogging into two sessions: white and red. Yesterday was all white (and rosé) wines and we had a typically crazy, fun event. If you have never participated in this, Live Wine Blogging alone is reason to come to next year’s conference.

The evening was equally impressive, thanks to Ste. Michelle Wine Estates who put on a fantastic reception and dinner. If you didn’t get a chance to try the 2006 Columbia Valley Merlot and 2006 Walla Walla Valley Merlot from Northstar Winery (thanks to Bean for the recommendation), make sure to pick up a couple bottles at home.

And finally, the capper to the evening was the Walla Walla walkabout put on by the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance. Ten downtown wine bars, which opened just for us, were packed with bloggers.What a great way to see one of the coolest small towns in America.

And for a taste of today’s content …

Wow. The folks at Wine Yakima Valley did an amazing job entertaining 50 or so bloggers yesterday as part of the Pre-Conference Excursion. I drew the long straw and the easy assignment of having to attend the excursion as the WBC coordinator, so was able to enjoy this with the other participants.

My role was pretty dang easy, in large part because Barb Glover and her board on the Wine Yakima Valley association did such an incredible job with the day’s organization. Everything ran on time, the bus was excellent, the agenda was full but not too packed, and we ultimately returned to Walla Walla as bunch of happy campers.

We started off at a lunch and vineyard walk at DuBrul Vineyards and Côte Bonneville wines, one of the class acts of the local wine grape farming world. I had met owners Hugh and Kathy Shiels once before, no-nonsense business owners who provided us with a wonderful 2009 Côte Bonneville Chardonnay to start the day.

At lunch, it was really nice that about 10 local vintners and grape growers were in attendance, making it very easy to have a real conversation with someone who knew all about local conditions. I had good conversations with brothers Pat and Matt Rawn, of Two Mountain Winery (their very reasonable $13 rosé was excellent), Dick Boushey of Boushey Vineyard (whom I had met when I first came out to help set up the day’s events), and Joe Hattrup from Elephant Mountain Vineyards.

Lunch was provided by Bon Vino’s Bistro and Bakery, which is in the tiny town of Sunnyside and is a good example of how the local Yakima Valley area has grown and matured with the wine industry. It was an incredible meal set up under a tent in the middle of the vineyard!

We then traveled on to a place called Vintner’s Village in the small town of Prosser. This is a cluster of 12 tasting rooms located just off I-82 in the Yakima Valley, an excellent forward-thinking concept that draws visitors off the highway and does a lot to sell the local wines. We tried wines from a large number of the participating wineries.

I can tell you that in discussions with the attending bloggers, everyone was very impressed with the Yakima Valley wines and people. Yakima Valley, hats off to you for creating a fantastic start to the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference!

- Allan from Zephyr Adventures, WBC10 co-organizer

The 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference is about to take the Walla Walla Valley into the blogoshpere! It’s awesome to see so many familiar faces once again. We are all looking forward to nothing but a good time this entire weekend. Thanks for coming!

Before this thing launches we wanted ask you to join us in an effort to ensure that the Wine Bloggers Conference has only a positive environmental impact on the Walla Walla Valley. The event organizers have made special arrangements to make the conference as ecologically-friendly as possible.  The Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance is providing each blogger with a wine glass to taste with throughout the weekend and a stainless steel water bottle.  The wineries will have water dispensers available for bloggers to keep their bottles filled.  Those attending the post-conference excursion to the Red Mountain AVA will also be greeted with reusable water bottles.

Wineries will also be collecting all bottles, capsules and corks from the weekend.  The incredible team at the Marcus Whitman Hotel & Conference Center has generously agreed to be the drop-off site for all of these. In addition the hotel is recycling all of the cardboard and plastic that results from shipping so much good wine to one place. Once the conference is over, these items will then be transported for recycling.  Thank you to Basin Disposal of Walla Walla for collecting the glass.  You will also notice cork recycling stations throughout the conference center. These were provided by 100% Cork and should be used by everyone to help support their good cause.

The Wine Alliance, Yakima Valley AVA, and Red Mountain AVA have also arranged bus transportation for Saturday’s tours to limit the amount of traffic and carbon dioxide emissions. Your effort in using these resources throughout the weekend is greatly appreciated.

In our runup to the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference, we are highlighting a number of of the special events attendees will participate in. Today we would like to highlight what will be the pièce de résistance, the Sunday wine and food pairing lunch featuring wines from Winebow and food from Chef Bear Ullman.

We start you out right, with a 30-minute seminar on food and wine pairing from Chef Jeffrey Saad, representative of Winebow. Chef Jeffrey, who has been involved in the food industry since age 13, will given us an academic primer on the art and science of pairing wine and food.

We will then jump into the fun part: the wine and food pairing lunch. Winebow, an importer and distributor of premium wines and spirits, has selected 10 special wines for you to enjoy, including a 2009 Tilia Torrontés from the Salta region of Argentina, a 2009 Cousiño Macul Sauvignon Gris from Chile, and a 2004 Rioja Vega Reserve from Spain. We don’t want to give away all 10 wines so as not to ruin the suspense.

Equally as enticing are the 10 appetizer-sized dishes, created by Chef Bear Ullman of the Marcus Whitman hotel, to pair specifically with the 10 wines from Winebow. Dishes will include such treats as Langastino or Spot Prawn Salsa with White Peach and Peppercorn Caramel, Oven Dried San Marzano Tomato and Andouille Flat Bread, and Cherry Scented Duck Confit Empenadas with Mole and Avocado.

This is your opportunity to wrap up the conference with style, appreciate some excellent wines and outstanding food, and learn a little about the benefits of proper food and wine pairing. Enjoy!