Our First Day at Vinexpo: Cognac Madness

Getting up at 6 am in the morning can be quite a challenge sometimes. But not if you are heading to the biggest wine and spirits summit in the world: The Vinexpo 2011 in Bordeaux. It’s a good 90 minute drive from cognac country Charente to the parc d’exposition close to the bridge of Aquitaine close to Bordeaux.

Lots of traffic. Traffic jam. Late for the first meeting – and we have 20 on our first day, one day out of two.

It’s the first time we are with Cognac-Expert.com present at this busy event.

Vinexpo Parking

Basically we presented today the website of Cognac Expert to cognac houses – some of them do know us, some of them have heard of us and others never heard of us.

Vinexpo is a place with all kinds of drinks professionals, all kind of wine, spirits and beverages. In other words: It’s heaven for everyone that is interested in liquids.

Vinexpo Hall 1

Today we just give you some impressions, some pictures – because we are pretty tired. The meetings we had today were nice, some of them actually very nice: We learned a lot new things, not only new product launches but also general things about the cognac industry.

Tessendier new product No.1

Tomorrow will be day 2 and we still have quite some persons to meet – it’s great fun. We also decided to do a selection of the nicest Cognac house stand, there are really some good ones.

Prulho Cognac

Cognac importers, restaurant owners, journalists and other business partners chat, discuss and network… it’s a hectic but pleasant athmosphere.

The market apparently was  really calme on its opening day, that was yesterday, on sunday. Today it seemed to gain some pace we were told, but the crisis still has a certain impact on the business.

Working, exchanging, enjoying

Running from one meeting to the next, having a sandwich (“saw-nd-weee-tsh” how they pronounce it here) and grabbing coffees here and there are part of the game.

Ferrand stand

Lots of products, not enough time and certainly not a good idea to actually TASTE all those fine blends. But we do have some news for our readers we’ll share in the coming days.

New eaux-de-vie, bottle designs and collaborations will be reported about. While the sun shines outside, we entirely concentrated on keeping up with the schedule and not falling behind.

Birkedal Hartmann takes a break from presenting new products

We could spend a whole week at this place, but unfortunately we don’t have the time.

Where is E317? Or was it V317?  It’s such a huge place, every labyrinth in Disneyland is a joke compared to this madness here.

In the evening around 5 to 6pm things get more calm, people speed down – here and there a running salesman, others looking exhausted and ready for some quiet and private time in their hotel room.

Vinexpo moments

We finished the day with a white wine. Yes. Not a cognac.

Busy wine and spirits professionals

Funny to see that every stand puts their bottles “on the road”. We slowly leave the place, here and there are people drinking Champagne, like the Bollinger team.

show is over for today

Getting back to car and trying to get our of the parking is a very tricky job, it turned out. The traffic jam directly started on the parking. How many people are here again? One million? It seems like.

Good night Bordeaux. We are back in Charente and be back tomorrow morning.