Greek-German wine network

The financial crisis that is currently such a large threat to Greece and to the whole of the European Union has unfortunately seen many ripple effects. These last days and weeks have badly strained the relationship between the people of Greece and Germany. Emotions are running high on both sides, and the friendly relationship that has guided these two countries over many years is severely put to the test.

I have received many calls for action by making a statement on this blog. I will answer those calls today in a different way than many might have expected. As a German living in Greece who promotes Greek wines abroad – with a focus on the German market – I wish to offer help in a constructive way.

One of my key contacts in Germany is without any doubt Dirk Würtz. He is winemaker from Rheinhessen, and a key player in the social networking scene. I write articles about Greek wines on his blog on a regular basis, and we have teamed up for a number of wine events. Dirk did not know Greek wines before we met, but over a period of a few months he caught the bug. I have received his full support, and I am immensely grateful for this.

We have decided to announce a new project today – the launch of a Greek-German wine network. As of today, the wine estates of Dirk Würtz and Manousakis in Crete are officially twinned. Both wineries will offer wines of their partner, present the partner’s wines at trade shows, and help to explore new markets in their respective home countries. In addition they will organise events in both countries and exchange information.

Every wine estate can participate in this new network. We will find the best partner in Germany for any Greek wine estate is interested in joining this network. We are planning to organise a large event in summer to celebrate this new exciting wine networking partnership between our two countries.

I was very lucky indeed to have the support of Alexandra Manousakis from the Manousakis winery in Crete, who joined me with her friend Yiannis Daliakopoulos. Both have such fantastic and lovely personalities, they won over the hearts of the Germans in no-time.

We arrived in Hamburg on Friday evening, just in time for a “warm-up” party at the famous Goldfisch restaurant. My good friend, the German vintner and social media star Dirk Wuertz had advertised the event through twitter and between 30 and 40 enthusiastic wine friends from the twitter scene showed up – needless to say that Alexandra and Yiannis were at the centre of attention

The wine exhibition on Saturday was off to a slow start for me. I am used to people being sceptical about Greek wines, and I was not surprised at all that the only few visitors at my table were mainly Greeks. However, after about 3 hours the Germans started to become more curious and by late afternoon, I found myself quite busy pouring wines and engaging in conversations.

On Saturday night we all made our way back to the Goldfish restaurant and enjoyed a 4 course menu prepared by the chefs there – we were 24 people in total, including many wineries and twitter users. Lots of thanks go to Uli Marsau, the owner of the restaurant, who went out of his way to make every single one of us feel like he/she was the most important guest!

My expectations for the Sunday were quite low. It had started snowing quite heavily, and my feeling was that this might have a “slow down effect” on visitor numbers. I could not have been more wrong. In fact, I was in for a whole new experience: People came and said the word had spread that really exciting Greek wines were being poured. This then had a snowball effect, many visitors even asked for samples of specific wines – the word of mouth was obviously spreading rapidly. My proudest moment came when a German vintner showed up, tasted one of the wines that visitors obviously were talking about, and ordered a case of it.

The one thing that struck me most was that the conversion rate was extremely high – whenever someone stopped to taste the wines, they spent a fair amount of time doing so. People were honestly surprised about the high quality of the wines and were eager to learn more about them. My problem in the past has been to initiate this sort of interest – this time around the word of mouth recommendations certainly did the trick.

I loved the fact that the wine exhibition was a successful marriage of “traditional” and “social media” marketing. To have a few dozen wine twitter users tweeting live about the event simply adds another dimension to it. I was very pleased with the results of the exhibition – after all, it just adds to my believe that the near future might truly mark a significant turning point for the wines of Greece in the export markets.

I showed the following wines:
Palivou Estate (Nemea): Anemos Roditis, Anemos Agiorgitiko, Nemea Agiorgitiko, Terra Leone Ammos Reserve Agiorgitiko
Pavlidis Estate (Drama): Thema Assyrtiko/Sauvignon Blanc, Thema Agiorgitiko/Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah
Dalamara Winery (Naoussa): Aghechoros Xinomavro/Merlot, Paliokalas Xinomavro
Manousakis Winery (Crete): Nostos Alexandra’s Mourvedre/Grenache/Syrah, Nostos Syrah

Most interest was received by the Rhone varieties (Manousakis and Pavlidis); this might not be a surprise, as the German wine critics rated these wines very highly. Both Pavlidis Thema wines convinced with their modern style, Dalamara once again received high interest, and the Palivou Anemos Agiorgitiko was a hit with many end consumers.

I recently spent a week in Frankfurt and Hamburg on business where I met quite a few extremely interesting people. Jan Mangold is the passionate owner of a wine shop in the heart of Frankfurt who started this year to present some of the wines he offers through entertaining videos. Dirk Wuertz is a winemaker, and without any doubt the current star of the web 2.0 wine community in Germany. He has a polarizing personality and is never afraid to voice his opinion. Before he started his own venture, he worked as the winemaker for over 6 years at the acclaimed Robert Weil winery. Uli Kutting is reporting on wines on his blog and is full of interesting ideas. In Hamburg, I met with Hendrik Thoma, who is a very well known Master Sommelier. He his also the host of tvino, an internet based wine show that some describe as the German version of Gary Vaynerchuck’s wine library tv. I was delighted to meet with Tara Q. Thomas, the Senior Editor and wine critic of the Mediterranean at Wine & Spirits Magazine. Tara has an extensive knowledge on Greek wines, and has a super down to earth personality. Mario Scheuermann is a famous wine critic and journalist who embraced web 2.0 from the start. The Internet wine scene is certainly buzzing in Germany. I also went to the Weinlounge which is a fantastic, modern wine shop in Hamburg, and the owners are full with energy. It is fun to shop for wines there.

I also had the chance to present a large selection of Greek wines at a German importer. The importer works jointly with thirty members from all over the country, who all own wine shops. Once a year, they all meet over a 4-day period, taste 600 wines and decide on which wines to import and distribute to the members. I was invited for one day to show wines from Greece. I had a separate table at the company’s warehouse where the event took place. The reaction from the people that tasted the wines was one of disbelieve about the high quality. It amazed me once again how bad the reputation of Greek wines still seems to be in Germany. I heard more than once that there is a now the need to rethink the position on Greek wines – currently, not one of the 30 members has a Greek wine on offer. Literally every taster agreed that the complete line of wines shown was superb and consistent, not a single wine needed to hide.

There still are many deeply rooted prejudices out there when it comes to Greek wines. I had the feeling that in the current economic environment, shop owners are more interested in selling wines from better-known regions, even if this means compromising on the quality. As one gentleman put it, my line-up was certainly of higher quality than many of the other wines offered by the importer. That kind of praise certainly made my day.