We’re fully into the swing of things at the EWBC, and I’m a bit pushed for time so this will be a quick roundup of things so far.

My EWBC 2009 experience started at 7am on Thursday 29th October when I left Jerez, in my car, for Portugal.

First stop was a pre-EWBC event at Cortes de Cima in the Alentejo. The Jorgensens really looked after us beautifully and put on a fantastic lunch. We had a live tasting of their full range of wines (including the illegal one), live because a group of people in Lisbon were able to join us. We had a quick look around their winery, a very slick and organised operation and finally – my favourite bit – we were each given four varietal wines from 2009 to make our own blend. We voted for the best blend after a blind tasting and that is going to be made up and bought to the EWBC in Lisbon. By one (winemaker’s casting) vote the competition was won by Wink Lorch and Sam Ockman (otherwise it would have been my blend)! They were talking of calling the blend “Sink”, a bit more of Wink in it than Sam methinks.

After Cortes de Cima I headed into Lisbon with Jim Budd and Per Karlsson in the car. It’s amazing how interesting discussion helps chew up the kilometres.  After a quick change it was off to Gemelli where we had a very convivial meal. It was great to catch up with old friends from EWBC 2008 and meet new people and I was feeling excited.

After a lie-in and look around the center of Lisbon, Friday 30th’s activity started with registration for the conference at the swish VIP Grande Lisboa hotel. Then we had a tasting sponsored by Vinoble, who weirdly for an organisation presenting at a bloggers conference have a website which does not even work? It points at the spanish Vinum wine magazine site. A bit of an own goal.  Apparently Pancho Campo MW was supposed to be leading this, but I guess due to Campogate gaining momentum he didn’t turn up. Mr Campo’s Marketing Manager, Esteban Cabezas, lead the tasting instead and after a sales job for Vinoble and Wine Academy Spain we got to taste some fantastic wines.

Next was the Douro Boys tasting, which had six flights of wine, 18 wines altogether. The whites’ fresh acidity was a revelation for me, especially as they come from a hot climate. The Douro Boys are all entertaining, humorous and fun. A very enjoyable tasting. We were then treated to a buffet dinner by the Douro Boys, with more of their wines and a few “specials” which were magic’d up. Like an 80 year old white port from Niepoort, the “Douro Boys” blend, a Douro Riesling, the Robustus 05 which appeared when we mentioned that Jamie Goode thinks the 04 could possibly be Portugal’s best wine ever and finally the most interesting for me, a collaboration between Niepoort and Equipo Navazos, a light palomino wine from Jerez, which has had only 3 months of flor on it before bottling. A bit like the young “mosto” wines which are sold in and around Jerez at this time of year.