So it now day 2 of the wine bloggers conference. It has been a great experience.

It is a lot bigger and more professional than I had anticipated. Everything about it is high quality, from the organization, to the wonderful hotel and conference centre here in Izmir, to the delegates.

Indeed, the main reason for coming to a conference like this is the interesting people you meet. I’m having so much fun meeting up with old friends, twitter and facebook friends, and new friends. I haven’t been to a conference before that is so friendly and inclusive.

Yesterday I was on a panel with Tony Laithwaite, Sarah Abbott, Robert Mackintosh and Randall Grahm. We were discussing how we got here: the way in which digital communications have changed the way we work.

Then this morning I was on a panel with Robert Joseph, Virgile Joly, Julia Sevenich and Maurizio Ugliano discussing natural wines. I think people were expecting a bit of a fight to break out, but everyone was very reasonable. Robert had a bit of a rant (he hates natural wine); I was probably the strongest supporter of natural wines; but there wasn’t a scrap.

One of the stars of the show has been Christian ‘Documentally’ Payne, who is not a wine guy, but a photographer and journalist. He’s given many of us lots of ideas about how we might do our jobs as communicators better, especially by making use of digital tools. He’s very keen on audio, something I have never played with before.

We’ve also been tasting a lot of Turkish wines. Some have been really good. More to follow…