I have tried to imagine how does it look like to have over 80 wine passionates and twice as many wines assembled together in a great location, and last night I could see it happening. On top of Hilton Hotel Izmir, with  stunning view over the bay and the surroundings, I attended the famed BYOB party (bring your own bottle) -the unnofficial opening event of the EWBC. As I was walking down the boulevard in the mild mediterranean evening, I could see groups of two to five people hurrying together to the hotel entrance, and for the following 30 minutes, the elevators climbed continuously to the 32nd floor, bringing excited people with bags of wine bottles in their hands.

I didn’t know anyone at the conference -except for their pictures and the exchanges in the dedicated Facebook group, before the event. Opening bottles and pouring wine in people’s glasses is a great way to make friends and discover stories and flavors unheard of. I have discovered some wines and wine regions that I didn’t even know existed.

I worked my way upwards and sideways from English sparkling wine to Polish Chardonnay, to south Austrian Sauvignon Blanc, to Swedish Traminer and dessert wine (yep, they are making wine in Sweden! how amazing is that?), to a lineup of Rheingau magnum Riesling bottles, to Swiss wine, to a Burgundy table of four, to Cabernet from Ohio valley, to a classic Chablis Premier Cru, to an Amarone, to some delicious South African dessert wine, to a stunning Argentinian Malbec, to Japanese wine, to Chinese sweet wine, and to a reputable Port. All the way I was happy to share with everyone the story and the wines from Liliac Winery.

Today the actual conference will begin, and it looks like a tough choice between parallel sessions. After much thought, I think I’ll go for the following choice: find out more about  indigenous Turkish grape varieties with Joel Butler MW, then off to the opening keynotes speeches, then I will switch to a more blogger-oriented workshop –Working with WordPress. In the afternoon I will immerse in the highlight of the conference -the Source of Wine workshop, and then close the evening with a surprise dinner trip outside Izmir!

Liliac wines

Izmir view

BYOB party Izmir