Portuguese Wines the next big thing?

Although most Portuguese wine makers are too busy making wine, to really care what’s happening online, latest news from at least one wine expert is, “it’s a great time to be a Portuguese wine maker”.

When the most influential voice in the wine industry says, “Portuguese wines are the next big thing”, maybe we should at least take notice. Maybe, just maybe, he hasn’t had to many glasses and he knows what he’s talking about.

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Arguably, no one knows the “wine 2.0″ industry better than Gary Vaynerchuk - of “Wine Library”, with his gritty charm, and the power of social media, like twitter and video blogging, to successfully turn the families 4 million wine shop, into a 50 million a year business, in less than 3 years. Appearances on popular talk shows, plus invitations to speak at Google, Facebook and Internet Stardom, Gary Vaynerchuk seems to just be getting started.

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Impressed by Portuguese wine quality and value, Gary has not been shy about touting our wines and loudly pronouncing “Portuguese wines are going to be big!” His reasoning - great quality and great value, or as he likes to call it “the thunder” - a bottle that costs $10, but really tastes like $50.

If he’s right, and he knows wines, the BIG question is “when”. So, when will Portuguese wines break into new markets? Well, at the moment one key challenge is lack of visibility and branding. Unfortunately, only a handful of Portuguese wine makers are currently using new marketing strategies, or the power of the web to build a competitive and effective web strategies and brands.

But things are changing - thanks to the likes of Ryan and Gaberiella Opaz from Catavino. This dynamic duo are certainly creating buzz in the Spanish and Portuguese wine scene, with their know-how of social media tools like blogging, twitter and social wine discovery sites, and slowly re-humanizing the world of “wine snob” into something more digestible.

Eddie and I finally got to meet the Opaz’s and excited to hear their efforts are starting to pay off with wine makers.

So this looks like a good opportunity to share a few ideas on how Portuguese Wine Producers can work towards bringing more attention to the country:

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Top 6 Marketing Tips for Selling More Wine

With the vast selection of quality wines in Portugal, how can a small or lesser-known wine brand stand out from the pack, be visible and increase sales?

This was the “million” dollar question looming over the minds of the producers we met at the Lisbon Wine show in November. We’ve had these folks on our mind and thought we’d focus on a few key marketing points that could help this important industry.

The New Playbook selling wine

The 6 Key Points:
First and foremost, two necessary ingredients must exist: You have to love what you do: making great wine. And second: You need to communicate and share the quality of your craft.

Since Portuguese wines have quality, uniqueness and diversity, they’re able to compete against many international brands, so quality is not the issue. Recognition however is another story, and this unfortunately comes down to lack of good marketing. So the real issue isn’t the product, but the right marketing and communication strategy for our new, highly informed and connected generation.

Once the first two ingredients are in place, here’s what’s next:

01: Understanding your ideal customer
02: A creative name
03: Label design
04: Website
05: Blogging
06: Adegga.com

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10 Questions with Adegga.com’s Founder

Adegga.com Social Wine DiscoverThrough Algarvebuzz, we met André Ribeirinho – a Portuguese born Entrepreneur and founder of the social wine discovery website Adegga.com.

If you’re like me, you’ll probably find yourself doing some head scratching every time you’re faced with the seemingly endless rows of bottles at your local wine shop.

Living in Portugal, doesn’t make picking wines any easier, with so much choice it’s sometimes frustrating to pick just one…and lets not get into the considerations….what’s right for dinner, lunch, food, guests… on and on….ah, the stress.

Fortunately, Adegga takes out the guessing; and I now go to Adegga to check wines before heading out to the shop…its become my secret weapon in choosing my wines; so my “wine ego” remains in tack rather than in tatters. Next time you find yourself having to go “pick a wine” and sweating under the pressure to deliver something impressive…click on over to Adegga.com first and enjoy the results.

Adegga.com is currently on an invite bases; if you want an invite, please leave me a comment or email “moses[at]chamainc.com”, I’ll be happy to share some of my invitations.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Adegga’s founder Andre Ribeirinho and asked him the next 10 questions.

Adegga Team

Founders: from left to right: Andre C., Andre R., Emidio

1.What does “Adegga” mean and how did you come up with the name?

Adegga is a play on the word adega (only one g) which means cellar in Portuguese. We wrote several potential names on a white board while trying to come up with a name for our service. Eventually the name Adegga won because it was both inspired by the (strong) Portuguese wine culture but also readable in several different languages. I think that good names need to tell a story and Adegga tells the story of a team of Portuguese internet entrepreneurs that want their social wine discovery service to be useful around world but never forgetting their Portuguese origin.

2.Why a “social wine discovery” and who do you think will benefit from using it?

Friends opinions are the ones we trust most. When a friend makes a recommendation there’s a bond of trust that makes us feel confident.

It’s our real social network that helps us make decisions. On the other hand wine is inherently social and totally prone to discovery (who doesn’t like to try new wine?). The combination of friends, wine and discovery is the basis for our service.

Interestingly, Adegga is useful from the moment you and another friend are using it. You can both share wines you buy, drink or wish. This helps you and your friends make smarter choices when choosing wine.

3.Who is Adegga.com for?

Adegga is for wine lovers who find it difficult to choose wine. By sharing their opinions with their friends Adegga makes it extremely useful for anyone (from wine newbie to wine expert) to share their passion with other people they trust. Any person can use Adegga to search for a wine, see what other people think about it and know where to buy it.

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