More on the sparkling wine symposium

I'm probably not the right person to ask about how the first International Sparkling Wine Symposium went. As one of the organizers, I'm too close to it. But I think it went brilliantly, and exceeded our expectations by some distance. Even better, it looks like we broke even, which was a big worry a few weeks ago.

Jim Budd has posted a report with lots of photographs on his blog. It gives a flavour of the event. Overall, the various components of the day pulled together really well.

Massive credit should go to the speakers and sponsors. Tony Jordan came over from Australia just for this event; Tom Stevenson gave the introduction, chaired a panel and ran the options game at the dinner; Dominique Demarville was a star presenting a vin clairs tasting; Michel Salgues was fantastic; Sarah Mowl carried out some great consumer research and presented it really well; Dee Blackstock kindly agreed to sit on the business panel at short notice; and Bob Lindo, Bertrand Robillard, Giles Cossanteli, Arthur O'Connor and John Worontschak all sat on a panel.

The sponsors included Bucher Vaslin, Codorniu, Diam (Mytik), Institute of Champagne, Proven PR, Litmus Wines, Dartington, Barcelos (for the dinner wine). They should be congratulated for getting behind a new venture like this, when many others took a wait and see policy, or even opposed what we were trying to do.