Spain, France & Italy: Cooperage tours and SIMEI trade show

When you get to go to Europe for work, who needs a vacation? Why do I go to Europe every year? You might think the answer is obvious: I go to France for the cheese, Spain for the tapas and Italy for the espresso. Actually, no. Those things are a bonus.

I go to all those places to learn as much as I can about the latest trends and news about barrels and amphoras so I can share it with all of you. And there’s no better place to get it than directly at the source, talking with the artisans themselves.

WHY I WENT

This November, I was hosted in Milan by the organizers of one of the largest wine industry trade shows in the world, SIMEI. More than 30,000 professionals from all over the world attend this show. Some of my more interesting conversations involved a winemaker from Israel, a cider maker from Lithuania and a cooper from Bulgaria.

The theme for this year was wine and technology. It was the perfect environment for me to discover new and innovative winemaking products. I also attended a seminar on the future of oak barrels and wine aging (stay tuned for a future blog post on this).

Before the trade show started, I hopped over to Spain and France to visit a couple of cooperages. I started out in Rioja, Spain with Toneleria Murua, and then to the home of La Sienne (my own barrel brand). I stuck around Burgundy through the weekend for the famous Hospices de Beaune wine auction.

SHOW, DON’T TELL

I go to such beautiful areas, and it’s so interesting behind the scenes of the cooperages, I thought it might be nice to bring you along through a photo essay. Side benefit, it also gave me the opportunity to finally put my non-iPhone SLR camera to use (a novelty for some of the younger winemakers I met!). Join me on my journey…