Conversation with David Bernard Co-Founder of the Miami International Wine Fair

WineFair_DavidBernad_Close (3)The Miami International Wine Fair 2009
Conversation with David Bernard, Co-founder of The Miami International Wine Fair
By: Daedrian McNaughton

The Miami International Wine Fair is owned and managed by VINTRADE LLC, a South Florida-based corporation established by David Bernard and Madrid-based Emporio Ferial S.A., an international event planning and production company that organizes dozens of wine shows year round, including Iberwine which benefits Educate Tomorrow.

Over the past seven years, Miami has been home to the country’s leading wine trade show and Florida’s largest wine tasting event. The fair has attracted more than 6,700 attendees, presented more than 1,500 wines from 20 countries. No wonder why Florida (including Miami) is ranked number 2 as the largest region in the U.S in wine consumption. Although cutbacks were made, organizers of the fair are very pleased with the outcome and considered it a booming success. Wines that were exhibited and sampled by guests were moderately priced and can be found at your neighborhood grocer or your local wine retailer.

Organizers are very optimistic for the future as they plan to reintroduce the Collectors Club (VIP area), expand exhibit space and present up to 2000 wines. We caught up with David Bernard who explained the increase in attendance to the fair and what’s next.

PGM: Isn’t it fairly remarkable that in these harsh economic times you have shown such large increase in attendance and interest in the 2009 Wine Fair? Can you attribute a reason to this increase?

DB: Even though we are aware of the economic downturn, alcohol and alcohol sales similar to entertainment have actually seem to defy the rest of the sectors and tend to do well during a recession. Within the industry, the companies that do suffer are the restaurants. Restaurant sales are actually down by over 10 percent, but sales in supermarkets and food stores and other retail outlets are actually up by a greater percentage in terms of volumes, so total wine consumption in the US have actually gone up by amost 1 percent which is remarkable not only because of the current crisis because in many of the developed countries in the world consumption is actually going down for a number of other reasons, so it is a good market and it is a good sector to be in.

PGM: Why did you choose Miami initially as your city to showcase the International Wine Fair?

DB: The reason for Miami is quite a few reasons. First of all, Florida was growing significantly (when we started the wine fair) in terms of wine consumption and would soon overtake NY as the largest market on the East Coast and the 2nd in the country. Just as we predicted in 2004, that’s when Florida took over New York. Florida is now the 2nd largest in the market right behind California. Somewhere between 55 and 65 millions gallons of wines consumed every year. It accounts for about 8 percent of total consumption in the country. When you think of Florida, you think Miami and Miami Beach, it is a wonderful destination that attracts millions of people every year with the wonderful beaches to host affairs. In addition to that we look at Miami not just us in the wine business but in many other sectors, we see miami as the point that connects a lot of different countries worldwide. It tends to be a great connecting point for Europe and with Latin America, both of which happens to be great wine producing regions.

PGM: Are you saying there are a lot of drinkers here in Miami?

DB: Yes there are. It’s not only the per capita consuption it is the growing consumption in florida which it is, but population as a whole has increased dramatically in the last 10 years. Typically it’s coming down to 2 things, not only that people are moving in Miami and Florida as a whole but also you have to realize that Florida has 80 million tourists per year. As you can imagine, tourist do tend to drink more when they are on vacation than when they are in their daily life. The interesting thing about Florida is that it is a huge market but it is really spread out, so when we started the wine fair we wanted everybody to come down to Miami from Florida state, people from Orlando, Tampa, Palm Beach, Naples, and we accomplished that, and in the last two years we have been focusing on making this a nationwide event so that our buyers and visitors come from and represent every single state in the nation and we have already accomplished but obviously every year we need to work harder and harder to increase the number of people who are from outside the state to attend. We  have importers, retailers, distributors and restaurant chains from every single state in the country, from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean this year.

PGM: Do you foresee expanding the fair to other cities or venues throughout the US or do you feel the success of the Miami event is sufficient for the industry?

DB: We see a market opportunity that we are attacking aggressively to host another event of similar size, but obviously it will take us a while to get it to this size but, with the same goal in mind in Southern California and we are  already working to making this happen for April of 2011.

PGM: On a personal note, what is your favorite red or white?

DB: Well at the end of the day I end up drinking more red. By the way I am a big wine drinker, I het into this because of a passion of mine. The truth is I enjoy white wine with the right dish and at the right moment, so even though I may end up drinking more red, if I am having more seafood or if I am having some stone crabs at Joe’s in South Beach I will not be having a glass of red. I would have maybe a glass of chardonnay or pinot noir.

PGM: Do you have any recommendations for someone who is unfamiliar with wines as to what their intial purchase should be?

DB: I do and this is in my personal experience and everybody in the sector. You have to go out and taste as many wines as you can. It  doesn’t mean get drunk or drink more than you can handle, it just means taste as much as you can, go to trade shows, go to tastings, go to your local retailer, it is the only way to learn. You can study it, you can read but at the end of the day if you don’t expose your palate to as many wines as possible you will never be able to categorize them in the right selling frame and be able to appreciate it in the future. It’s just about tasting as many wines as you can.

Initial purchase for someone who is unfamiliar with wines…..I always think that you should develop a relationship with your local wine retailer or a wine retailer that you respect or that guides you in the right direction. The best way to go about it is try to find something that you like, lets say that you find yourself comfortable with pinot noir, ok, drink some pinot noirs, first understand the category and once you have a few, move on. Open your palate to as many different categories to as many different varietals as possible. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. I think it is also a great exercise to try different bottles at different price points, if you can’t afford it all the time, get together with a friend or 2 and chip in to buy a slightly more expensive bottle also go into local retail tastings you always get the opportunity to taste a bunch of different wines. By the way this is remarkable as it doesn’t happens everywhere in the world as it does in America, every single retailer here has daily tastings where they have easily 5,6,7 bottles of wines open. I recommend going to those tastings because typically you get to taste good grades of wines and all you have to do is buy one bottle. It ends up being a very affordable way of learning about wines, a good site to learn about this is www.localwineevents.com.

PGM: What do you envisage for future events in addition to what you have already exhibit at the Miami Wine Fair?

DB: In terms of the wine fair, we are going to see couple things, for example we are bringing the Collectors Club back. The Collectors Club was our VIP section where we had only high end wines available for the public to taste. We eliminated that this year, because we did not see a significant demand for $50 and $60 bottle wines, so we are bringing that back. We do feel that in 2010 we are definitely going to be coming out of the crisis, and the fact that the us economy has just posted its first quarterly growth is certainly a good sign. So we are predicting that we are coming out of this slump and therefore the Collectors Club will come back and that’s an amazing little component of the fair. We will also have a larger show. We predict about 80, 000 square feet, we are not being overly aggressive about the increase in growth with respect to this year and  probably closer to 2000 wines to taste from 20 different countries, so at the end of the day a fair is a fair. We have huge tastings, great seminar programs, the collectors club, and various events, celebrations and other networking opportunities.

Premier Guide Miami would like to thank Mr. Bernard for taking the time to talk with us.

For more information on the Miami International Wine Fair, visit www.miamiwinefair.com

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