This is our first participation at the International Food, Wine and Travel Writing Association Conference. As such, we have expectations and hope to come home with ideas that we can immediately act on. This conference schedule though, is a stretch from what we are use to in conferences we attend. Generally we attend wine conferences. Although there is wine in the IFWTWA name, there is only one session devoted to wine at this annual conference. That session is a Riedel tasting. We did a Riedel tasting using a different format at Inniskillin in Ontario, Canada. The format for this Riedel tasting should be different and both Kathy and I am looking forward to the session. That’s it for wine though.

Both Kathy and I will attend three different chef demos and seminars. We had the opportunity to attend three sessions during our familiarization tour of Umbria and Campania, Italy. Cooking demos can be interesting especially if there is something we can take home, use and write about.  For example, while in Umbria, we were taught how to make gnocchi. I must have learned well since I made gnocchi for Kathy on Valentine’s Day and hope to find a gnocchi board while in Las Vegas.

The other sessions have me hopeful that we will learn something that we can take with us and use. In my case SEO, video, photography and websites. I have a fair knowledge of each of those, but am hopeful. The WineTrailTraveler.com website already has thousands of pages with thousands of photographs a bit of video, however some video. The SEO needs to be worked on and the site is done in php rather than html. Perhaps the presenter can shed light on that dilemma.

Another conference session is the marketplace. This is the first conference we will attend with a marketplace and are looking forward to see how it works. Will we get anything out of it though? I hope so.

The conference takes place at the Venetian and Palazzo. Previously we stayed three wonderful nights at the Venetian and had wonderful wines in their restaurants. This time, we are looking forward to staying at the Palazzo. While in Vegas, when not on the IFWTWA clock, I have a challenge for the sommeliers. I’ll tell them the profile of a wine we made, and ask them to find a wine they think is comparable. Hopefully this will provide a blog entry or two.

So there is excitement about the IFWTWA conference as well as apprehension that we won’t get much out of it. I had the same excitement/apprehension before attending the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference. That conference was great. I wish the IFWTWA Conference had a bit more involving wine but I’ll keep an open mind.

In the meantime, today we’ll head to the two closest wineries to Las Vegas, in Pahrump, Nevada. Friday night we hope to do a wine tasting at the Double Helix.

Cheers,
Terry