You might think that Great Britain is not particularly important in the wine world since one will hardly recognize it as a wine country with tradition in making wine. However, London managed to position itself as the centre of wine business, which hosts one of the most prestigious wine fairs - LIWF (London International Wine Fair). This fair has a primary focus on trading wines from across the globe and brings together a number of professionals and visitors, so it makes the right place to promote your wine and winery in professional circles and potential search for distributors in UK. This year, London International Wine Fair 2012 will be held on 22-24th May, 2012 in London. More information about this event can be found on website: www.londonwinefair.com As you can see on the website of London Wine Fair, there will be no Serbian wineries among exhibitors. This can be an indicator that more needs to be done in order to change the approach in presentation of Serbia as a wine country. Just in comparison, here we indicate the number of exhibitors from other countries: Croatia (18 wineries with 96 exhibited wines), Austria (35 wineries), Macedonia (1 winery), Slovenia (7 wineries), Hungary (17 wineries), Romania (12 wineries), Russia (11 wineries). We would also like to turn your attention here to changes in doing winery presentations. Modern technologies and social networks have permeated all spheres of our life, including wine trade. For the first time at London Fair, wineries will be promoted in a different way. Similar to popular shows such as "American Idol", "I have Talent", etc, a wine contest called "Wine Stars"  will be held during the fair. Completely free of charge, all wineries around the world can apply to present their wines at this contest. They are required to prepare a 3-minute presentation, where the story of their wines will be told to leading British wine distributors and supermarket chains: Waitrose Supermarkets, Laithwaites/Direct Wines, Mitchell & Butler Pub Group, Hanging Ditch Merchants. This way, smaller wineries can also get an opportunity to be seen among large wine producers. Wineries which qualify for the next round of contest will be auctioned online at website www.wine-stars.com , where retailers and importers will bid in the period from 26th May till 10th June, in order to include these wines into their offer. This can be an indicator how social networks and internet can be used for promotion of wine. Therefore, this news should not pass unseen by our wine-makers, who will probably face more and more this kind of international presentation in the future.    

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