I’m in New York for the first time in a long while, taking a look at the Vino2010 conference, also known as Italian Wine Week. Mostly I’m here because I’ll be speaking on a panel (tomorrow) Thursday morning entitled: “Virtual Vino, Millennials and Social Media DECANTED!” The panel is moderated by Anthony Dias Blue, and will have me, Doug Cook of AbleGrape.Com, Susannah Gold of Avvinare.Com, Susanna Crociani of Az. Ag. Crociani in Tuscany, Steve Raye of the Brand Action Team marketing agency, and possibly (unconfirmed) tweeting sommelier and wine educator Kevin Zraly.

The conference is making a big deal out of new media, and have flown a bunch of wine bloggers from all over the country (world?), given them press passes, and set them loose on the event. They’ve even hired their own official blogger for the event.

Our panel is going to be liveblogged by said blogger, and the panel will take questions from Twitter for anyone who wants to join in the fray.

Here are the details of how to participate:

Virtual Vino, Millennials and Social Media DECANTED!
Thursday, February 4th at 10AM Eastern Time
Ask questions using feed: @Vino2010

In addition to speaking on this panel, I’ll also be looking forward to chances to taste a lot of Italian wine at what is billed as the largest Italian wine event outside of Italy. About 400 producers are here, with some ungodly number of wines, several hundred of which aren’t available in the US yet. Several regions are particularly well represented, including Calabria (think: toe of the boot), which I don’t have much experience with and am looking forward to learning more about.

I’ll be posting about my experiences as I go along, provided that I can get WiFi everywhere I go — for a trade show making a big deal of new media, there was a conspicuous absence of internet connectivity in the first seminar I attended today. Harumph!

More to come.