Vinexpo diversifies into consumer shows

 

New York Rendez-Vous By Vinexpo 

More than 30 years after Vinexpo was founded the company is now diversifying. It will now organise consumer shows as well as its trade shows: biannually in Bordeaux and in Hong Kong. The first will be held in New York at the Javits Center from Friday 16th November to Sunday 18th November. There will be 150 exhibitors – 50% from France – and between 5000-6000 visitors are expected.  The event slots neatly between the American presidential election and Thanksgiving.

Tickets will cost $180 a day with some reduction for those buying tickets covering two or more days. There will be a number of masterclasses with tickets selling at an additional $300 each. 

Robert Beynat

Robert Beynat, CEO of Vinexpo, explained that: "We have set up a new company – Rendezvous By Vinexpo – for these consumer shows. After New York we expect to hold other Rendezvous in other cities with Tokyo and London being amongst the most obvious candidates but not Paris because we are French and also there would be little point as the majority of the exhibitors are French and they know their home market. Apart from ourselves the two significant shareholders are Marvin Shanken (M. Shanken Communications Inc) of The Wine Spectator and The Chocolate Show. 

"I've known Marvin for over 30 years now and I thought that he might be opposed to Rendezvous seeing it as opposition to his Wine Experience but no he was enthusiastic and initially wanted 50% of the shares." Shanken had to be content with around 10%. There are a number of other companies with a small shareholding including Constellation and Kendall Jackson. 

Anne Cusson, head of Vinexpo's press department

Beynat was in London today to meet the UK press and present some of their latest research into the global wine market, Vinexpo Hong Kong and this new Rendezvous initiative. The breakfast meeting started at 9am at the Stafford Hotel near Green Park, which meant the horror of travelling into London during the morning rush hour. All in all a salutary reminder of how lucky I am not to have to travel until after the crowds have subsided. I can't imagine how people can put up being packed into a crowded tube train for at least 235 days a year!

 Veteran drinks trade journalist, Christian Davis (editor of Drinks International) making notes  

Patrick Schmitt (editor – The Drinks Business)

Chris Mercer, deputy editor – just drinks  

     

     

Reflections on the net and blogging

Interesting reflections on wine blogging and why do it by Hervé Lalau here on Chroniques Vineuses. Hervé's site is now averaging 500 visitors a day, which is 15,000 a month and around 180,000 a year. There are plenty of wine trade magazines that would be delighted with such a readership.

I have Jim's Loire for many of the same reasons as Hervé cites, especially as it allows me to cover much more and more regularly about La Loire than I have ever been able to do in print. Furthermore the opportunities in the specialist print media in the UK have shrunk as magazines has disappeared or been amalgamated. Jim's Loire allows me to visit producers and for me to be reasonably confident that I will be able to write about them on this blog, although I have to acknowledge that it can be some time after the visit that I have time to write it up. Indeed I'm aware that I have still have to write a number of reports on visits to producers like Pascal Potaire (to be completed), the Puzelats, the Lamberts at Domaine Saint-Just (Saumur) and Antoine Simoneau (Saint-Georges-sur-Cher). Unfortunately (or fortunately) other work gets in the way.

Visits to Jim's Loire average out at around 180 a day over the past four months, which is encouraging as it is still less than 11 months since we launched it.

I have always been amazed by the number of messages I have received and continue to receive from my first website – www.investdrinks.org. I haven't averaged it out but I probably get three or four messages a week at least from people who have been cold called by wine investment companies, emailing me to ask whether the company is legitimate and whether they are being offered a good deal. My advice is never to buy from any wine investment company that calls you out of the blue. If you live in the UK you can block unsolicited cold calls by registering with the Telephone Preference Service, which is a free service.

I'm also staggered by the success of some of these wine investment cold callers, managing to persuade people to write five-figure and, occasionally, six-figure cheques to companies they know little or nothing about and for wines they have sometimes only vaguely heard of and for which they are quite often paying well over the going rate. From time to time there are examples when the cold calling company doesn't even bother to buy the wine – just pockets the money and disappears.

Robert Beynat

Like Hervé I'm convinced by the significance of the net not just for communication but for commerce as well, unlike Robert Beynat, le grand fromage of Vinexpo, who at the press conference at the end of Vinexpo dismissed internet wine sales saying that the net will 'never be anything other than a marginal circuit for sales.' I don't know if this is what Robert really meant to say but it provoked considerable, often biting, comment at the end of this Decanter news story.

This comment gives a flavour
‘Coming from the country that invented the Maginot Line and whose most interesting wine trade group is the quasi-terrorist KRAV, comments like Mr. Beynat's do not surprise me. When French wine production is surpassed by Argentina or Hungary maybe they will start getting it.'
Brendan Chudik, San Francsico’