Vinexpo will have to make some hard decisions deciding who is in and out of its list of Top 100 wine and spirit buyers from around the world.
It’s not surprising that wine and spirits buyers have quite a high opinion of themselves. When they walk in to a room, people immediately want to talk to them, and will go out of their way to make them feel at home. But soon even the most prominent and, on paper, prestigious drinks buyers may be in for a rude awakening when Vinexpo puts in to action its plans for its new Vinexpo Explorer programme of events.
The initiative is all part of the trade show’s commitment to offering the global wine and spirits industry more than a bi-annual event in Bordeaux, supported by shows in Hong Kong and Japan. It is also a further demonstration, stressed its enterprising and ambitious chief executive, Guillaume Deglise, that Vinexpo is not just about supporting and promoting French wine, but wants to “promote wine and spirits from around the world”.
In a nutshell the new initiative will see Vinexpo identifying who it sees as being the most influential and important wine and spirits buyers across all the major export markets. It will then invite them to attend two day Explorer events in key, up and coming wine and spirit regions or countries of the world.
The first one of which will take place in September 11-12 in Austria thanks to a new link up with Austrian Wine.
But it has set itself quite a task. Just who do you include in such an illustrious list and do you not risk putting some pretty prominent noses out of joint. Particularly as these are going to be invite only events.
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