Vinexpo New York hailed a success

With domestic goddess Martha Stewart in attendance, alongside 500 exhibitors and 2,000 buyers and journalists, this year’s Vinexpo New York has been hailed a success.

The whirlwind two-day show will return to the Big Apple next March. “It’s not one of those let’s-go-and-see occasions,” Vinexpo CEO, Guillaume Deglise, promised in advance of the opening, and others agreed that regularity was important to build up a lasting presence.

Several Bordeaux exhibitors were in attendance, and Bordeaux Wine Council head Allan Sichel said: “It needs to have repetition here for several years; it needs to become an icon.”

The majority of buyers in attendance were from the East Coast, where the bulk of wine in American is purchased and consumed.

Martha Stewart attended the show

Booths were smaller than the biennial Bordeaux show, but there also seemed to be a more casual interplay with lots of one-on-one business conversations.

Several producers said they had either found their first distributors in the US or had expanded their existing deals.

Trade organisations used the event as a platform to congregate and make announcements, including the Wine Origins Alliance, which unites diverse groups of producers such as Napa Valley, Champagne, Bordeaux, Jerez and Bourgogne/Chablis to lobby governments to enforce truth in origin wine labeling.

The group announced a new survey that showed 94% of American wine drinkers supported legislation to curb misleading wine labels.

“But here in the United States, some foreign wine regions are not protected,” said Linda Reiff, president and CEO of Napa Valley Vintners.

“This makes it hard for Napa and other US regions to protect their names around the world when their own government doesn’t extend that protection to others.”

Vinexpo organisers were fortunate in that the conference took place in good late-winter weather between two major storms.

A storm hit the city on Friday before the Monday opening, and a substantial snowstorm roared in just after the conference closed, disrupting many attendees post-meeting travel plans.

Vinexpo will make another US appearance on 23-25 September in Sonoma County, California.