Vinexpo, Bordeaux's biennial bacchanal for the wine trade, is dangerous. It is easy to get whiplash flitting from Austria to Australia, or Burgundy to Romania, with a mere turn of the head. This wine fair is not your garden variety wine festival where you're likely to get shoved to the side by a thirsty crowd and be forced to swallow a horrible wine because the spit bucket is back at the other end of the table. The exhibition hall would give an airplane hangar an inferiority complex, and the booths have spit buckets to spare. Heck – some of the booths even have restaurants!
Everyone is on the make here. Wineries cater to their importers while hoping to attract new clients in unexplored markets. Wine writers troll the exhibits hoping to conduct interviews and explore a year's worth of article ideas in just a few days.
Here are some scenes from this year’s Vinexpo, underway June 21-25 in Bordeaux.
Something tells me Asia’s an important market …
Argentina is down this way, somewhere …
The Decanter magazine booth, with the winners of Decanter World Wine Awards available for tasting, caused traffic jams in the Exhibition Hall to rival the rush hour bouchon on the Bordeaux ring road …
Now, I love Port, and I love rosé, but I’m skeptical about the combination ….
Watch out! It might be a trend!
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