After a long chat today with Vitor Mendez of Vinixa, a Portuguese wine export company, I left the office today wondering how the PR Grisley Co. can cope with

 the financial crisis rocking the entire globe. I really started to dwell on this after reading an article from The Wine Spectator about how wine trends will start to change during these hard times, and how here in the US consumers will start to look towards domestic wines. This is obviously concerning for us as we only work with European wines, but with the continued popularity of wines from countries like Spain and Portugal, I assumed we would be able to weather the storm a little easier than some. However, as my friend Vitor mentioned earlier in the day, many producers are still not realizing the urgency that is sometimes needed in this business. He expressed his frustrations but kept a positive attitude because he loves his job and is willing and eager to show these producers what can be accomplished with a minimal amount of change.

Similarly, the fine folks at Catavino attended and conducted seminars at the 1st Wine Pleasures International Wine Tourism Conference & Workshop in Sitges, Spain to discuss and show the many producers several ways to help their wineries. With seminars on everything from blogging, social media outlets, wine tastings and tourism, as well as collaborations between wineries and their clients, restaurants, etc., the event was definitely an experience for all attendees. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the event, but several people who I have talked to that did attend left the conference with eyes wide open and with a very different mindset than when they entered. I hope that there will be many more of these conferences to come as the conference had a large impact on the way many European producers view how blogging among other things can be utilized to better their businesses.

With Rioja still the most well known region in Spain, it’s nice to see the magazines and reviewers turning back north. After spending much of the past years focused on the fantastic wines and regions exploding onto the US market from other areas of Spain, it’s comforting that they are once again focusing on the region that put Spanish wine on the map. A few months ago the dynamic duo from Catavino.net put up an impressive amount of wine reviews on their blog about Rioja, especially when you think that two people powered through all those wines. Dedication. Along with Catavino’s review recently, the International Wine Review just released their review on Rioja and also has an amazing list of wines from all over Rioja, from the classic styles to the more modern Rioja wines. Both will be great information sources for the novice to the aficionado, and highly recommend reading and searching each different review. Wines of note in both reviews, Bodegas Ondalan, Bodegas Medrano Irazu, Bodegas Miguel Angel Muro, Bodegas Ruiz de Vinaspre and Bodegas Santiago Ijalba.