Dirk Wuertz is in all likelihood German’s most innovative winemaker in terms of marketing. He has been a key player of the social media scene since the early days, building up his brand continuously. He is never resting on his laurels, and is always thinking about new concepts. In January this year, he launched the first German live wine Internet show. 

Dirk also works together with creative people from the wine industry. The head of his Norwegian importer ExCellars is one of those. ExCellars is one of the five largest importers in Norway, and they also import the bag in box wine from Wuertz. It is very apparent that they love exploring new concepts, as they invited Dirk for a 3-hour naked photo shoot to Oslo, in order to work on a new design for the bag in box. 

The result was released today in Scandinavia – and has caused huge controversy in Germany. The bag in box is simply called “Mein Wein” – “my wine”. The drawings come from Siri Petterson, one of the best know cartoonists of Scandinavia.

Dirk has already stated that he wants to release this design in the German market, which is much more conservative. I for one believe that this is a solid move to shape up the image of bag in box wines that still are not fully accepted by the German consumers. Then again, I view this with a twinkle in my eye, even if business serious.

Last weekend marked the start of a new important phase in my quest to promote Greek wines abroad. Up until then, I had presented wines solely to wine merchants and wine critics. The feedback received so far on the quality has been extremely positive. The time had come to do the same for the public – after all, feedback from the consumer is the most important indication one can gauge.

I am very much indebted to Dirk Wuertz, a well-known German vintner located in the heart of the wine region of Rheinhessen in Germany.  Dirk not only offered to host the event at his winery, the Koenigsmuehle, he also actively promoted it. I also wish to thank his wife Gabi, her twin sister and actually the whole Wuertz family for all their hard work and effort; you are truly wonderful people who make things happen!

We had invited wine lovers for Saturday noon. I had organised to show a representative range of about 20 different Greek wines, many of which are currently not available at all in Germany. In addition, I had a pallet of 4 different wines from one vintner delivered from Greece, so that people would be able to make purchases. In true Greek precision, the wines arrived just 90 minutes before the event. Gabi and the family had prepared a variety of Greek “finger food” dishes, and the entrance fee was set at 15 Euros.

About 25 to 30 people made their way to the Koenigsmuehle, 2 of them even travelled all the way from Hamburg (a 5 hours drive) to attend. Over the next 4 hours I presented the wines, the main challenge being to give out non-boring information about the grape varieties, growers, areas etc. The atmosphere was very relaxing, I would introduce a wine, then people would sip it, make conversation, help themselves to some delicious food, exchange thoughts, until I would move on to the next wine.

I made several key observations:

In general, the reds were favoured. Given the cold season of the year, this was not a surprise. It takes some imagination to enjoy complex exotic fruit flavours when all trees have lost their leaves and the wind is blowing cold outside.

The interest from the participants was real – very real. Every person tried every wine that was presented. Most asked me to fill their glass with very small quantities, as they wished to experience the wine to the full by swallowing.

The biggest surprise for me was that the most excitement – by a large margin – came from wines made from the Xinomavro grape variety. Xinomavro is a personal favourite of mine, but these wines are usually no crowd pleasers. Please take a look at my guest post at Snooth where I explore the differences between Agiorgitiko and Xinomavro. While I presented two of the top wines I know, I would not have imagined beforehand that they would be so polarising to so many different people. In addition, they were at the more expensive end of the price spectrum, nevertheless my (to be fair relatively small) stock was sold out quickly and I continue receiving orders.

About 50% of the participants purchased wines (there were quite a few couples so the real percentage number is probably above 75%), and on average a purchase consisted of 9 bottles. 

Not a single wine disappointed. Of course everyone has a different taste, but in general there was a very consistent level of quality in all price segments. This did not come as a surprise to me, but obviously the participants did not expect this.

The only – but large – disappointment for me was the number of participants. This event was promoted via Blog, Facebook, Email and twitter, and many more people were aware of it. I bet if this had been an Italian wine tasting, 4 or even 5 times as many people would have shown up. This clearly shows how deeply rooted the negative image of Greek wines still is in the public eye. From the twitter world, @GazzettadelVino @jbbrana , @Burzuko and @mgmall all showed their support by attending.

Most people left by 4 pm, but at 6pm about 10 more people arrived and I repeated the exercise. From 10 pm onwards, the wine was flowing and a party with music and dancing started. I went to bed about 1 am. At 1130 am on the Sunday a group of 6 wine lovers arrived for a 5 course menu accompanied by the finest Greek wines, some of which I had carried in my suitcase for this occasion. Gabi served truly inspiring and very authentic Greek dishes (I had mailed her a Greek cookery book written in German a few weeks before). I had a lot of time to talk through the 9 wines I presented and the wine and food pairings were very successful. These guests knew Greek wines, but I was told several times that none of them had come across such a fantastic quality offering before. This was a very nice compliment to receive, as it shows that I am able to source really exciting and special wines. I was even invited to present Greek wines to 50 or so wine friends in February – of course I gladly accepted.

To sum it up, I believe strongly that a market for good quality Greek wines exists in Germany. The consumer knows how to value quality, and is also willing to look at premium offerings. There is still a lot of prejudice out there, and a lot of patience and hard work is needed to overcome this. I will continue to push as hard as I can to make these well-deserved changes happen.

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.