Larry Smith wrote on his blog about my appearance there.

“So, you wanna be a Jew?”

Please visit the official Vino 2011 site to view the video.

Through our social media initiative, we’re making it easier than ever to connect with VINO as we offer Italian wine tastings, wine education and wine marketing information virtually. Whether you’re an everyday enthusiast or a member of either the press or wine trade, we hope you’ll be inspired to join the conversation with your own thoughts, opinions, discoveries and reactions generally and during our events. What are you excited about in Italian wine? What do you want to see more of? Who do you want to hear more from? Through both Virtual Vino and the VINO 2011 conference, our goal is to bring together a community of like-minded lovers of Italian wine to celebrate and share ideas.

Throughout VINO, you can keep up with the latest on Twitter by following @VINO2011NY and saying hi to me @winewiseguy; make sure to tag your tweets with #virtualvino. Fan ItalianMade on Facebook to check out photos from past events, leave comments, hear more from participants, and get a taste of the exciting things we have planned. Finally, we’ll be livestreaming panels and events, so you can hear our experts’ discussions from anywhere in the world.

Bloggers, journalists and trade professionals attending Vino 2011 will be encouraged to share their experiences interacting with over 300 Italian wine producers and importers, and tasting over 400 wines imported to the US for the first time in 2011. The “Virtual Vino” seminar, “What Emily Post Can Teach About Social Media, Millennial App-titude and Geo-Marketing,” will be live-streamed on the Vino 2011 official website and will continue the conversation begun in 2010. The 2010 discussion proved that protocol and standard practices can help create a climate for informative, courteous and productive sharing, and that straightforward, targeted social media initiatives can create lasting relationships between users, brands and consumers and other participants.

This year, panel moderator Tom Wark (Wark Communications) will lead the panel’s discussion on how etiquette, cogent messaging and editorial and marketed targeting can help create meaningful exposure for brands and other voices in the wine world. He will be joined by Gregory dal Piaz, editor in chief of Snooth.com, Talia Baiocchi, founding editor of WineChap.com (US) and wine columnist for Eater.com (NY and national), Jeff Lefevere, editor in chief of GoodGrape.com, a blog on the business of wine, Amy Cao, Director of Social Media for Foodspotting.net, a geo-integrated social media service, and Kent Wilhelm, Senior Manager of New Media Design & Marketing for Astor Center.

As part of the Virtual Vino initiative, on Tuesday the 24th from 2:30-4:30, we’ll be hosting an exciting panel that brings together luminaries at the intersection of wine and the digital age: “What Emily Post Can Teach You About Social Media, Millennial App-titude and Geo-Marketing.” Wine brands are faced with new opportunities and challenges for reaching Millenials, and our experts will address it from a broad range of backgrounds. We’ll be hearing from Jeff Lefevere, blogger at The Good Grape: A Wine Manifesto; Talia Baiocchi, columnist at Eater.com and WineChap US; Gregory Del Piaz, Editor in Chief of Snooth Media; Amy Cao, Head of Social Media at Foodspotting; and Kent Wlhelm, Senior Manager of New Media Design and Marketing at Astor Wines & Spirits. The moderator, Tom Wark of Fermentation & Wark Communications, will guide this discussion of the new media landscape as it relates to tradition and innovation in wine. This event will be livestreamed through the VINO2011 website, offering viewers a unique perspective on utilizing blogging, branded social media programs, geo-tagging and mobile apps in forging new relationships and maintaining existing customers.