I’ll find out at the 2018 Wine Bloggers Conference…

Is anyone else super shocked that we’re already halfway through September!? Its’s hard to believe that in a few weeks I will be returning to Eastern Washington for the annual Wine Bloggers Conference.

The Wine Bloggers Conference was founded in 2008 as one of the first niche blogging conferences in the world and now it’s going to return to Walla Walla Washington, having last visited that state in 2010. I started attending this annual conference in 2012 and return each year. It is well run by Zephyr Conferences, and I appreciate the chance to discover new regions and wine experiences.

I’m keen to learn what’s happening in Eastern Washington. The last time I visited the region was in 2004 when the agency I worked with at the time was doing trade relations work in Canada for the Washington Wine Commission. What struck me so much in 2004, aside form how beautiful the region is, was the stage that the wineries of the area were in; working to establish all of their new appellations, while putting in the work to figure out what what grows best where.

Washington’s wine industry has grown tremendously; its viticulture reach is 47,000 acres of vineyards, making Washington the second largest winegrowing region in the USA. For this year’s conference I’m going to be visiting the are before being at the indoor conference in order to take in a first-person view of what’s happening.

I will visit Force Majeure, an ultra-premium winery specializing in estate-grown, single-vineyard Bordeaux and Rhône-inspired wines, and then to get acclimatized to Walla Walla, I’ll be taking part in an evening of live music, food trucks and amazing wines hosted by Charles Smith and K Vintners, right downtown!

And once at the conference itself, I am looking forward to the programming. The Keynote address will be delivered by Lewis Perdue, and I’m not gonna lie; I’m a bit of a fan girl. Lew has been an email / social media contact of mine for many years, as he is the publisher and editor of Wine Industry Insight. He gathers daily wine news from all over the world and curates it; then shares it in a daily e-blast. So he really has his finger on the pulse of what is happening in the wine world globally, and I’m always flattered when he includes something my team at Town Hall Brands has sent him about Canada for his audience.

I’m looking forward to the chance to meet him face-to-face and hear his keynote address, where he’s going to be sharing credibility tips us bloggers can use to increase reader loyalty and boost readership. As someone who’s worked with bloggers for a long time but is new to blogging myself, I’m taking all these nuggets of wisdom with a new perspective, and look forward to the tips.

And of course I am looking forward to seeing the wine friends that I see annually who gather for this conference. The community that forms around this conference is really what keeps me tied into it, and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with this #winelover community.

Follow along – I will be posting on my @vineyardbirder social channels with #WBC18, as I want the world to know this little blog exists, and hopefully I will gain a few new followers. Cheers!