The end of 2020 has been fast and furious! We are sneaking in a little quiet time, between planning for 2021. It’s that time of year when we grab the calendar and fill in those wine and food industry events for the upcoming year.
With so much being still in limbo, we have mostly virtual conferences to begin the year, but we do have hope that we will be able to get back to live events before the end of the year.
Here is a sampling of some of the Wine and Food Industry Events we have discovered for this next year. We would love it if you would share any others that you know of, in the comments!
International Food Influencer Virtual Summit and Conference
January, March, May, July and October!
We attended the Virtual International Food Bloggers Conference this past year. While this is not a wine event, it is produced by the same folks that do the Wine Media Conference (more on that later).
It was a whirlwind few days packed with sessions on writing, social media, photography, video and live-streaming, and more. Many of the sessions applied directly to Wine Media and others that were more food-centric were appealing, as we often do wine and recipe pairings.
This year, they have scheduled multiple shorter events, the first of which will happen on January 15th and will focus on Social Media with sessions on Instagram Stories, Advanced Content Marketing, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and more.
They offer an a la carte registration at $7 per session or you can get an All-Access pass for $25. Both include access to the appropriate recordings in case you cannot join live at the time of the conference.
Additional Virtual Summits will happen throughout the year
March 18 – Website + SEO virtual summit
May 12 – Monetization virtual summit
July 13 – Productivity virtual summit
All leading up to the in-person conference scheduled for El Paso in October!
Visit their site at https://foodbloggerconference.org/ for all the details.
Oregon Wine Symposium
February
The Oregon Wine Symposium is a conference developed to deliver education and current research to the Oregon wine industry.
It will be held this year in February as a Virtual event from February 16th to 19th.
Along with a virtual trade show, there are sessions on Viticulture, Enology, Business as well as Networking sessions in this 4-day Virtual event.
Leaf removal, Creating an Inclusive Workplace Culture, Grape Smoke Exposure Impacts, Cover Crops, DTC, Advertising Strategies for Social Median and e-commerce, Dealing with Extreme heat events, Barrels and Wine distribution are just a few of the topics of sessions that will be covered.
In addition to the sessions, the Keynote will be given by Futurist Steve Brown of Possibility & Purpose. Steve was the Chief Evangelist at Intel, imagining the world 15 years in the future. He will be speaking on business in the post-pandemic world.
This is great for anyone in the Oregon Wine Industry and I feel grateful to be invited to attend to learn more on this plethora of subjects!
They have early bird rates available until January 15th!
Visit their site at https://www.oregonwinesymposium.com/ for details and to register.
Somm Con Virtual Conference
March
I attended the Somm Con Virtual Conference this past year and was thrilled with the 5 days of amazing speakers covering so many of the world’s wine regions. The sessions were all recorded and through SommGo I could go back and rewatch any that I needed to and catch any that I might have missed.
This was an amazing educational event.
The next Somm Con Virtual Conference is set for March 14th-16th and will have over 25 sessions live and recorded covering wine, beer, and spirits.
The full schedule will be released in February and they have early bird passes available right now for $75.
Visit https://sommconusa.com/ for the details and to register.
Wine Media Conference
August
Finally, if we are lucky, we get to an in-person event.
This conference was scheduled for last year and due to the pandemic was postponed. We attended the virtual conference that was held, which had great information, but when you are a wine writer, there is nothing like being out in the vineyard.
The conference is scheduled for August 5-7 in Eugene Oregon and they are working hard on all the safety precautions to make this happen.
Also, there are pre and post excursions into wine country that will feature Southern Oregon as well as the Willamette Valley.
We have attended a few of these conferences in the past at locations including: Santa Barbara, California; Walla Walla, Washington; and most recently in 2019 New South Wales, Australia!
One of the fun sessions during the conference are the Red and White Wine Socials. These are speed tasting session, with 5 minutes with each winemaker and wine. You can see some of that in action at this link! Speed dating for wine – Red Wine Social at the Wine Media Conference
You can find all the details at their site https://www.winemediaconference.org/
In addition, the Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference will be happening in Oregon on August 3-5, produced by the same company. They do offer discounts if you want to attend this conference in addition to the Wine Media Conference. For details on that conference head to https://winetourismconference.org/
VirtualWineEvents.com
Of course, there are many more virtual events available out there worldwide! Amber of Spitbucket, worked fast at the top of the pandemic to create a hub for listing all of the many available events. You can find that at https://virtualwineevents.com/events
Search by date or type, see what is popular! Some of these are Wine and Food Industry Events and many are open to consumers. There are listings for paid classes as well as free events including IG Live events. They have also added a section for searching for videos. If you are researching or studying wine, this is an amazing resource!
They have had an inside look at seeing the way that consumers are interacting and what they are looking for, which is really fascinating. Some of the things Amber shared with me included their 7-month engagement rate by country. Australia led with the UK and US following. Next up was Hong Kong, followed by Canada, South Africa, India, Germany, Ireland, and New Zealand. Yes, this is just one site, but it’s an interesting look inside where wine consumers looking for Virtual Wine Events are located. I look forward to seeing how the data on engagement from their site lines up with what the future of the industry is. (if you are into this kind of geeky details, check out the recent Twitter thread that Amber shared on their analytics! https://twitter.com/SpitbucketBlog/status/1344286105449988097)
Other Wine and Food Industry Events?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I know that there are many more wine and food industry events both Virtual and hopefully in-person coming up in 2021! Share with us what you are looking forward to in the new year in the comments!
Wine & Food Industry Events we have covered in the past
Robin Renken is a wine writer and Certified Specialist of Wine. She and her husband Michael travel to wine regions interviewing vineyard owners and winemakers and learning the stories behind the glass.
When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.
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