Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

Sep 16, 2013

Where Will the Wine Industry Be Led

Last Thursday at the Women for Winesense annual “Women in Wine” event, three remarkable women came together on a panel to chat about their views of the wine industry, offer some personal observations and inspire the crowd of 100 or so people at Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma. I was honored to moderate the panel. Since that evening I’ve not been able to get one comment made by one panelist out of my head. Michaela Rodeno, owner of Villa Ragazzi…

Jul 22, 2013

Pinotopia

In some circles, the next two weekends represent the jackpot duo: the weekends for which they’ve waited all year. They likely already have their bags packed and a bit less work will get done the next few days as they day-dream about the coming explosion of Pinot Noirs upon their palate and consciousness. For others, like my wife Kathy Berez, the next two weekends represent not just the culmination of a great deal of work, but also a chance to…

Jun 8, 2013

Top 10 Things I learned at the Wine Bloggers Conference

My sixth Wine Bloggers Conference was approached with trepidation. I’ve been questioning the utility of the semantics of “blogger” and “wine blogger” of late. Also, I knew nothing of Penticton, British Columbia. Finally, very few of my closer blogging-friends and colleagues would be in attendance. The format was the same. Bring together “wine bloggers” in a wine region to discover that region, learn about wines from other parts of the world, explore their wine writing avocation amongst their peers and…

May 24, 2013

WINE IDEAS—What if, Imagine, If Only

• What if restaurants provided their customers with $0.10, one-ounce pours of wine immediately upon seating and changed up the wine every evening? • Imagine if there were an annual, televised, celebrated national wine competition. • If only the states put consumers first before satisfying the interests of the largest campaign competitors when it came to alcohol laws and regulations. • What if winery tasting rooms took photos of all their patrons in a “CHEERS!” pose and provided them with…

May 14, 2013

A Wine Education in the Sweet and Obscure

I had an experience last week that reminded me that we ought not ever assume that our world view correlates to the world view of others. Or at the very least, don’t assume that what you drink is what everyone else drinks. Over the course of two days judging at the Riverside International Wine Competition, I and three other compatriots tasted upwards of 250 or so wines…most of which I’d never purchased, never seen, never tasted nor in some cases,…