This requires an explanation! Why are we late? This is the August newsletter and you should have received it around two weeks ago.
You may have noticed that we have renovated our web site. We certainly hope that you have noticed! If not, take a look here: www.bkwine.com.
But… following this renovation, and complete change of technology platform, migration to new web host and other things, we have been having some problems with the stability of our new site. The web site was down several times and it would have been dangerous to send out the newsletter, and risk pulling the site down again.
The positive side of it is that the reason for these problems is that there is so much contents on the site so it needs more resources that originally expected.
If you don’t believe us, do go take a look at the new site, BKWine Magazine, on www.bkwine.com. Actually, even if you DO believe us, do go and take a look!
But now it is fixed. (Or so we hope; we’ll see what happens with this mailing.)
So, back to the August BKWine Brief!
We hope that you have had an excellent vacation. Presumably there are not many who have much left of it. For it has not been much holidays. to start with, weather in Paris has been miserable. Worst summer we can remember. But above all, we have been rather busy.
First, we have had a lot on our plate to get our new, redesigned site up and running. Much more than we had ever imagined. But there is quite a lot of information there now. Some 2000 texts (of varying length). One of the first things we did was to make sure that there was a section for wine videos. In this month’s Brief you can read more on the videos: that we have more than one hundred online and that we have just passed a quarter of a million viewers. We are very glad to be able to put all the videos in one single place on the site that should be easy to find: BKWine wine videos.
Another thing that has taken up our time (also more than expected) is our new book. The draft should soon be finished and there is of course an awful lot to do at the last minute… The book will be on organic wines, biodynamic wines, “natural” wines and similar things. It is not an “evangelising” book telling you how great that is. It is rather a “descriptive” book explaining what it is and how it works. There is a lot of confusion today both among consumers, and professionals, and writers about what those things actually mean. We hope to make it a little bit clearer and explain each of those ideas and compare them. We will of course also have a section with some of our favourite wine producers in those categories. The title is not yet decided. Any suggestions?
In this month’s Brief you will also get a few more restaurant recommendations that habitually. We have the impression that those are much liked (would you agree?) so we will continue with quite a few of those in the coming months.
Which, quite by chance, gives me the opportunity to tell you about another part of the new site: on BKWine Magazine you can now find a special section with restaurant recommendations (including wine bars and other nice places). We already have a fair number there now and will be loading our old ones as we get the chance. Read more of our restaurant recommendations in the menu Reviews > Restaurants & Wine Bars. It is organised on city / place.
The new travel season is starting soon. Very soon. This will not make life much calmer. In September and October, and perhaps also November we are mostly at home on Mondays and Tuesdays. The rest of the week we travel. Lucky we like travelling. The first destination will be … Bordeaux.
Which gives me a good reason to mention that it is still possible to book a place or two on our October wine tour to Bordeaux. It is a small and exclusive tour so if you want to get behind the scenes in Bordeaux this is a very good opportunity.
More info on that in the Brief.
But enough of preliminaries. Time to let you loose on the Brief.
Britt & Per
PS: Recommend to your friends to read the Brief or forward it to them!
What’s on at BKWine Tours
“World’s Best Wine Tours” – Travel + Leisure Magazine, on TravelAndLeisure.com
BKWine offers you two possibilities to go wine travelling this autumn:
- Wine Tour to Bordeaux, October 5-9, 2011 – Book now!
For a wine lover a trip to Bordeaux is a must! In Bordeaux you find world famous châteaux and world famous wines but also a lot of new exciting initiatives (less famous but maybe more important for the future of Bordeaux!) and young enthusiastic wine makers.
On this trip we will visit both some big, famous Grand Cru Classé-châteaux and smaller ones that are less known, but very quality conscious. More info on our wine tour to Bordeaux here!
- Burgundy wine tour – exclusive, elusive, enchanting, October 19-23, 2011 – no more bookings!
Some of the most unique wines in the world – reds and white – come from Burgundy. A well made red Burgundy, made from the elusive pinot noir, is a wine of elegance, hardly found anywhere else. You find them in the Côte d’Or, the golden slope, the heart of Burgundy. More info on our Burgundy wine tour here!For more information please contact us on email or on phone (we’re on French time), or go to our wine travel site on www.bkwinetours.com!
What do people think about a wine tour with BKWine?
That is of course a question that we think is very important. We want it to be a wonderful and memorable experience for everyone. Here are some of the comments we’ve had from customers this season:
- “Many thanks for a fantastic trip. You are so keen to make everything the best for your guests and you are so knowledgeable about wine. A pleasure to travel with you.”, W-A
- ”Thank you for a wonderful trip to Umbria and southern Tuscany. Wonderful in many ways – our initial ideas for the trip on food and wine in Umbria and Tuscany – and discovering sagrantino and sangiovese – were more than fulfilled”, I & P in Umbria and Tuscany
More wine tour customer testimonials here.
Custom wine tours
We also make custom designed wine tours – on-demand tours for you and a group of friends, for your company (maybe to scout new winegrowers?), for a special event… We can combine winery visits and wine touring with other activities: gastronomic workshops, visit to an oyster farm, truffles hunting, cheese making, and more. We’ve done tours for wine clubs, for sommelier educations, for corporate events, for wine importers, for wine course study groups… just to mention a few.
More info on the custom designed and bespoke BKWine wine tours and travel here!
Wine tours in Finnish
We also do wine tours in Finnish. And in German, Norwegian, Spanish…
Do you want the latest news and updates on our wine travel activity? Subscibe here! (Second alternative BKWineTours.com)
