The first year of Hvino.com

by Alexander Kaffka, publisher

In April 2013 our project www.Hvino.com celebrates its first anniversary.

It was conceived in spring of 2012, after publication of my article For A More Attractive Georgia: A (friendly) view from abroad in the Georgian business daily The Financial. The article attempted to draw attention to insufficient media and PR support of Georgia’s “signature” export products, including wine and tourism.

The readers’ comments to the article suggested that the author should take the effort to improve the situation. After some reflection, I decided to launch the project, which later was called Hvino (the Georgian word for wine). Today Hvino consists of 3 business news and information platforms focusing on Georgia. They are targeted at international readership and published in English and Russian languages.

If you are reading this, chances are you are well familiar with Hvino News – our flagship – and there is no need for further bragging about our daily wine news and information services. We are proud, however, that during just one year our resource has won wide popularity and readership in over 100 world's countries. Hvino has been quoted in numerous international media, including leading industry magazines such as Wine Spectator. Hvino News has became official media partner of several leading industry events, including ProWein in Dusseldorf.

We are honoured to be the only Georgian media resource listed in the official ProWein's List of Publications.

I wanted to highlight some other achievements of Hvino’s first year.

Being a part of Artenom Consulting, Hvino focused not only on news production, but on databases and research as well. Hvino started to collect databases on wine producers/importers, and legal documentation on Georgian wine.

In July 2012 Hvino was the first to measure the Media Rating of Georgian wine companies.

In November we completed much more detailed Individual Media Audits of 14 Georgian wine making companies.

Also in November we launched Hvino Tour News, a sister project of Hvino News focusing on tourism and hospitality.

Besides daily news and research, Hvino has been busy with promotion projects. Miss Georgian Wine 2012 was one of the most successful ideas implemented. The unique Hvino's postal stamp as its original contest award received wide media coverage.

Beginning of 2013 was marked by a breakthrough in Hvino's development, when we became the official partner of National Wine Agency - Georgia's main government authority and regulator of wine industry.

In February we launched Hvino-Novosti, the Russian version of Hvino News.

We are happy with these impressive achievements but have much more ambitious plans for future growth. Hvino's team is looking forward to further assisting in global promotion of Georgian products. And we always welcome all the feedback!