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Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 (#WBC14), Day 2
Yet another ambitious project hitting the dust. I was determined to write blog post updates in the morning of the very next day of the Wine Bloggers Conference – and as you can see, it didn’t happened – I’m back home in Connecticut (nope, not even that – I’ actually on vacation in Cape Cod, and Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 is fading in the metaphorical rear view mirror. Nevertheless, I will finish this the way I initially envisioned – as a series of the blog post about WBC14. Let’s get to it…
Friday was the first full day of Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 (WBC). My impressions in a few words? Overwhelmed. Is there a word for “more than overwhelmed”? The pace of learning, connecting, tasting, analyzing, networking, mingling and tasting more, more and more was incredible. Here is what was happening throughout the day – brunch (yep, a 10 AM brunch) with Portuguese wines and dishes from Brazil, India, Japan and Portugal – 11 wines and 12 different dishes. Then the opening of the conference and a keynote by Corbett Barr. A panel session with Santa Barbara County winemakers (rather founding fathers of the winemaking in Santa Barbara). Speed tasting of the 10 white wines in 50 minutes (very intense). A breakout session called “How The Pros Taste”, which included both the Pros and the wines. An excursion to the mystery destination (yes, with more wines). The Wine Tourism in North America Expo (yep, with more wines to taste), an unofficial before-party in one of the hotel suites before the actual official after-party, and then finally (oh yes, the best for last!), an official after-party, hosted by Jordan and J Wineries. So, how is that for a day for you? Pretty full schedule, huh? I will leave speed tasting and our mystery excursion for the separate posts, but for the rest of the program, here are my quick impressions.
Brunch with Portuguese food and wine was the very first in our day’s program. As I wrote a few times about Portuguese food and wines before, I would definitely agree that both Portuguese wines and cuisine are well worth the attention. At the brunch, we had an opportunity to experience 11 different wines (both white and red), as well as 12 different dishes. If you take a historic perspective on Portugal, hundreds of years ago, Portuguese influence was spread all over the world. To show that world-wide influence, the dishes in the brunch we coming from the different regions which came into a close encounter with Portuguese culture – namely, the dishes from Brasil, India, Japan and Portugal itself (of course!) were part of our brunch. I will not inundate you with all the details of the dishes and wines (despite taking the detailed notes) – I just want to mention two of my favorite wines. For the whites, 2012 Julia Kemper Branco Dão DOP was delicious, with touch of grass and flowers, very interesting nose, light and simple on the palate. As an added bonus, this wine also added one more rare grape to my collection, Encruzado. From the reds, 2010 Quinta do Romeu Colheita Douro Tinto was my favorite, with very nice dark fruit, medium body, open and round, and good balance. And for the rest of it – here are the pictures of the wines and dishes.
Next up – the conference officially opened with the keynote from Corbett Barr. Listening to Corbett Barr, an entrepreneur whose business, Fizzle, was built starting from the blog, was very relevant at the wine bloggers conference – if not as a role model, definitely as a success model his talk was reaching to the heart and soul of all the attendees (and if someone would tell me that it was not, I would question your premise of being at the bloggers conference). 
After telling his personal story, Corbett offered a number of do’s and dont’s for building the successful blog and converting it to the business. In short, here are the main ideas:
- Character Trumps Credentials – your passion is more important than many technical accolades and certifications you can achieve. Yes, the certifications are important, but it is passion, will and tenacity which will be a foundation of your success.
- Be different. Stand out. Don’t blend in. Yes, you have to find your own way, don’t be “one of many”.
- Find what works. Don’t repeat exact same thing over and over again, expecting that magically what was not working 100 times, will work on 101st. If something doesn’t work, looks for what will – but keep going.
- Hope is not a marketing strategy. Find where your readers are and figure out how to get in front of them.
- Your blog is not your business. Understand what your business is. The blog is just a tool to help your business, but not the business by itself.
- Keep going, constantly evolving. If you will continue looking for what works and improve all the time, you will [almost magically] leapfrog at some point to your success.
- Mastermind 101 – “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” – Jim Rohn. Talk to the people who “get it”. If you will talk to “achievers”, you will [at some point] becoe one yourself.
This is a very lose approximation of what Corbett Barr had to say, but I hope I was able to give you at least the basic idea. And for more information, head over to his web site and read, read, read.
Our day continued with the panel session of Santa Barbara winemakers. Session was moderated by Larry Shafer, the winemaker behind the Tercero label, and it brought together the people who were instrumental in starting and growing Santa Barbara wine industry – Richard Sanford, Ken Brown, Rick Longoria and Bob Lindquist. We learned about the Santa Barbara wine region which started in 1968 with the Santa Barbara Winery, and had grown into the prominent producer of Pinot Noir and Rhone-style wines. 40 different grape varieties are growing today in Santa Barbara area, and a lot of Santa Barbara grapes are shipped to Paso Robles and Napa and used in the coastal blends. Passion, friendship and love to the beautiful Santa Barbara wine region is something which was clearly showing through the words of all the winemakers.
Our next session was the speed tasting of white wines and Rose, which I will be talking about separately – I can only tell you that it was a fun exercise.
You know what else is great about the wine bloggers conference? You get to taste the wines which are not necessarily are even yet available to the general public. Case in point – a unique Viognier, Marsanne, Roussane blend from … Argentina – 2012 Hand of God Fingerprint Series Sobremesa Vineyard VRM White Blend. The wine is in the process of being brought to the United States, and nevertheless we had an opportunity to taste this aromatic, big and well structured white wine, which was simply poured by the winemaker while we were walking from one session to another.
The last session of the day was a so called breakout session, where we had to chose between three different sessions running in parallel in the different rooms. I decided to go and learn “How the Pros Taste”. This session was a panel discussion led by Steve Heimoff, the wine writer who is now the Director of PR for Jackson Family wines, Joe Roberts, a.k.a. 1 Wine Dude, and Patrick Comiskey, senior editor for Wine & Spirits magazine. The idea of the panel was to discuss the ways of the professionals tasting tens of thousands of wines every year, and issues they are facing – and I think the panel did the fine job with issues and challenges. Talking about the “ways” was a bit less successful – I would expect the panelists to explain more of a “how to”, their methods for assessing the wines in the mass quantities – which didn’t take place. And then we tasted 4 wines, 3 of which we selected by the panelists, and one “double blind”, unknown even to the panelists. The selected wines were supposed to represent the unique view point of each panelist, the wines which are “best of the breed” and emotionally engaging. Considering that, I would highly question the rationale of including very obscure wines in this “representative” tasting, but this is mostly what happened. The 2012 Yves Leccia Patrimonio Blanc, a Vermentino wine from Corsica, had nothing but the acidity and didn’t speak to me at all. It didn’t create nor demonstrated any emotional connection. 2013 Poet’s Leap Riesling Washington, while might be typical for Washington, didn’t deliver much pleasure either, and it didn’t connect with the Washington Rieslings as I know them from the Chateau St. Michelle or Snoqualme. Again, I would highly question inclusion of such a wine as “exemplary”. The red wines fared a lot better. 2011 Cambria Clone 4 Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley was quintessentially Californian, with beautiful nose of smoked cherries, exemplary palate full of forest floor, gentle fruit and perfect balance. Our double-blind wine surprised everybody, including the esteemed panel – clean cherries and acidity were pointing in the direction of Montepulciano from Italy, and the wine happened to be an Yangarra Grenache McLaren Vale from Australia – but it was a very tasty wine. All in all, this was an interesting session, but I would like to see it done differently, more focused on classic methods and classic wines (definitely for the whites).
And then we had a mystery bus excursion. I will keep it a mystery until the next post (trust me, it was good enough for the separate post). When we came back in the evening, we still faced … yes, you guessed it – more wine! The Wine Tourism Throughout North America expo was focused mostly on California wines (or may be I was too tired to notice anything else). I tried a few wines, out of which 2010 Mad Hatter Napa Valley was clearly a stand out – dense and concentrated, with layered fruit, it had a lot of dark power (similar to its color), very drinkable now, but holding also a great promise to evolve. This wine was made by the famed Andy Ericsson (Screaming Eagle, Harlan, Favia and many others). Few other interesting wines were 2007 Terra Valentine Spring Mountain District Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, very clean and classic. 2011 Steven Kent Vinery Cabernet Franc Livermore Valley was perfectly on the mark with beautiful cassis undertones, and 2012 Vasco Urbano “Norm” Grenache Livermore Valley was luscious and delicate, with nice fresh fruit on the nose and the palate.
The “before-Party” for after party was generously hosted by Banfi folks in one of the hotel suites, and the highlights were mostly Italian wines with the few of the wines from Washington state. The 2013 Pacific Rim Chenin Blanc Yakima Valley was perfectly balanced and had an excellent fresh white fruit, a bit of mineral notes and rounding acidity. The Sartori di Verona Ferdi Bianco Veronese IGT was very unique and unusual, an Amarone-style wine (100% Garganega grapes, dried for 40 days on straw mats), with big fruit notes, full body and somewhat sharp acidity.
And last, but not least – an offical after-party, hosted by J Vineyards and Jordan! Both J and Jordan are some of my favorite wines in general, and what a treat it was! Probably unsurprisingly, I was a bit tired after such a day, so I didn’t take too many pictures. But the wines were outstanding. J were pouring both of their sparklers, the White and Rose, as well as the Pinot Noir. And Jordan… How about a full vertical of the Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley from 2002 until the 2008, including 2005 and 2006 in both 750 and magnum sizes! All the wines, including 2002, tasted fresh and delicious – again, no detailed notes (if you want to blame me for the luck of attention, be my guest). I was especially happy to see that 2002 showing absolutely no signs of age, and 2005 being delicious with still powerful tannins – I have a few bottles of 2005 in the fridge and it seems that I have no reason to touch the for a good while. 
For what it worth, this was an attempt to give you an idea of the happenings in the first day of Wine Bloggers Conference (two more posts will be coming). Hope you are still reading this, and if you are, I want to thank you for your patience. Just one question, if I may – after reading this post, did it make you want to come to the #WBC15, or stay away from it as far as possible? Let me know! Cheers!
P.S. For some reason, this was one of the most difficult posts I ever wrote for this blog… But I’m glad I finished it.
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Science of Taste, #WBC15 coming to Finger Lakes, World’s Best Restaurant Wine Lists
Meritage Time!
I’m still trying to get into my regular posting rhythm, but the Wine Bloggers Conference, which I just attended this past weekend, while was a great experience, became also an issue. Too many experiences worth sharing, and the posts are not easy to put together quickly, yet in the meaningful manner. While I’m working on that, I decided to at least go back to some of the “programming staples”, such as Wednesday’s Meritage and weekly quizzes. Thus I’m starting with the answer to the last weekly wine quiz #108, where you were supposed to identify 7 wines by the image on top of the bottle cap or a capsule. Below are the pictures, now with the answers:
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- 1. Château de Beaucastel
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- 2. Krupp Brothers
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- 3. Silver Oak
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- 4. Waterwall by Field Recordings
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- 5. Tournon By Michel Chapoutier
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- 6. Château Paul Mas
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- 7. If You See Kay
Yes, this was a hard quiz, but I was told by a number of people that they enjoyed it, so we will have another round this coming Saturday. We don’t have a winner in this round, but I would like to acknowledge next stop: tbd and SAHMmelier who both properly identified Silver Oak. Well done!
Now, to the interesting news around the web and the vine!
First, an article on the subject of … taste of wine. What factors affect the taste of wine, can we distinguish expensive wine from inexpensive in the format of a blind tasting, how do we taste – this well-researched article in The New Yorker discusses all of these questions. This is interesting how many scientists are researching and analyzing the ways we taste wine (I’m sure the food too) – what I don’t fully understand is an actual goal of such a research. Is it to facilitate creation of the wine which will taste universally good for everybody? Or is it to find out how to maximize the profits by changing of the look and feel of the bottle? Or how to decorate a wine bar so we will gladly pay $50 for a glass of wine? Or may be it is all just in the name of science? Read the article for yourself, and then I will be really interested in your opinion.
Now, fresh after the Wine Bloggers Conference 2014, I’m glad to tell you that Wine Bloggers Conference 2015 will be taking place on the East Coast! Yay! And not just anywhere on the East Coast, but namely in the Finger Lakes region, in the town of Corning! Based on my #WBC14 experience, I would highly recommend that if you are into the wine blogging, then put August 13-16, 2015 on your calendar, and start making arrangements to attend the conference – this is your best opportunity for learning and networking in the group of like-minded people. Here is the announcement which provides all of the details.
Last interesting article for today is this post by Dr. Vino, where he talks about the results of the ranking of the wine lists at the different restaurants world-wide, conducted by The World of Fine Wine magazine. The ranking is done similar to the Michelin 3 star rating of the restaurants, assigning 3 star ratings to the best restaurant wine lists. Overall, 750 restaurants received at least one star rating, and out of this amount, 224 restaurant got the highest honors – 3 stars. It appears that city of New York is in the unquestionable lead with 36 highest ranked restaurants in the world – the next comes London, will less than a half of the amount of the 3-star rated restaurants at 17. Still, the best wine list in the world belongs to the hotel restaurant in Vienna, Austria, called Palais Coburg Residenz. The Hearst restaurant in New York has the best wine list in the United States. For more interesting information please visit Dr. Vino’s post.
And we are done for today. The glass is empty – but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 (#WBC14), Day 1
I’m attending the Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 in Santa Barbara, California, and what I will try to do is to give you a brief round up of my daily experiences. This is my only hope to have some level of concise picture of what was happening at the conference – there are way too many wines to taste and way too many experiences to have – unless I do this daily, it will all blur together next week.
In case you are not familiar with the event, Wine Bloggers Conference is exactly what the name says – an event where wine bloggers, wine writers and wine producers get together and discuss all the aspects of the “wine media”. Now in its 7th year, the Wine Bloggers Conference (WBC for short) is taking place in different locations, generally related to the wine production, and this year the location is Santa Barbara county. This is my first WBC event (had been contemplating for a while), so many things are new to me. That’s all I have for the intro, if you are interested in more details, please take a look at the WBC web site.
Here is what I managed to do on my first day. I started the trip early in the morning (at about 3:30 AM) to get from New York to Santa Barbara. The two hours delay, thanks to United (my beloved airline with love/hate relationship), didn’t help, but still didn’t derail may plans, only made me to move a bit faster. Arrived, got a car (with additional unexpected delay now courtesy of Hertz) and then started driving to the Zaca Mesa winery, my first destination. Took the wrong turn, ended up on the beautiful mountain-side drive, so things started to turn to the better.
I managed to visit three wineries which we were on my list for Santa Ynez Valley – Zaca Mesa, Fess Parker and Andrew Murray. I will not give you full details of the tastings now (will reserve for the separate post), but I can tell you that all three wineries had some absolutely outstanding wines (outstanding enough to force me to break my resolve not to buy any wines during this trip). Syrah was a star at Zaca Mesa, Pinot Noir was outstanding at Fess Parker, and I was blown away by the rendition of all the Rhone varietals (Cinsault, Mourvedre, Syrah and Viognier) at Andrew Murray Vineyards – here is one picture for you:
After the tour of the wineries, I arrived to the hotel, and later on went for the expo and reception, where we had an opportunity to taste wines (surprise) and look at some innovative products.
As with any conferences and expos, we were offered a number of giveaways. Here is the most thoughtful one – bottle of water with attached travel pack of advil, for the “morning after”:
Water and Advil, how thoughtful!
Before I wil present the highlights of the tasting, let me tell you about couple of interesting product presentations. First, there was a Sonic Decanter – the device which subjects the bottle of wine to the sound energy for about 35 minutes, which completely changes the taste profile of wine. First I wanted to dismiss it as a simple gimmick, but after tasting the wine before and after, I found out that it actually works and changes the taste. If this is a good thing or a bad thing, I will let you decide after the separate post.
Another interesting presentation was given by Nomacork, a producer of the engineered cork. This cork is made out of the real cork tree, but it is not just a piece of the bark, it is made out of the actual cork tree material, and it can be engineered to allow different levels of oxygen exposure to the wine. To show how it works, the folks at Nomacork had a tasting of the same wine, 2012 Viognier, bottled at the same exact time with two different corks, allowing different levels of the oxygen penetration. The wine which was allowed more oxygen was showing considerably better, so this definitely works. The advantage of Nomacork is consistency, as it eliminates bottle variation, ability to control oxygen intake and the fact that it is still made from the natural material (versus Stelvin screw top, for instance) – and it is the cork which you will have to pull out and not just screw off. The disadvantage to me – I like the natural cork, and I like bottle variation, that mystical element in wine. But – as anyone else, I don’t like tainted wine… So I really can’t make up my mind on this.
And now, few of the wine highlights. Here is what I liked during the tasting – I can only give you “best memory effort” notes, as there were no paper handouts of any sort, so I had to rely only on my camera and the memory. Still, these are the wines which stood out.
2012 Ken Brown Chardonnay Nielson Vineyard Santa Maria Valley – beautiful, classic Chardonnay, with all the flavors being present and in balance – vanilla, butter, toasted bread, perfect acidity.
2013 Tercero The Outlier Gewurztraminer Santa Barbara County – I was very impressed – Gewurztraminer is one of the most difficult grapes to achieve balance, and this wine had it – touch of spice, touch of floral notes, creamy and round – an excellent wine.
2011 Alta Maria Vineyards Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley – classic California Pinot Noir, good concentration, very well balanced.
2010 Baehner Fournier Vineyards Solus Cabernet Sauvignon, Santa Ynez Valley – classic, concentrated, hint of green bell peppers, delicious overall.
2011 Santa Barbara Winery Primitivo Joughin Vineyard, Santa Ynez Valley – another surprise – excellent, balanced wine, muted raspberries and good concentration, good acidity. Very solid effort.
2010 Ken Brown Pinot Noir Rancho La Vina Vineyard, Sta. Rita Hills – excellent California Pinot Noir – dark power and finesse.
2012 Alma Rosa Pinot Noir La Encantada Vineyard, Sta. Rita Hills – another excellent California Pinot Noir – perfect fruit and perfect balance.
2011 Longoria Tempranillo Santa Ynez Valley – and yet another surprise. Excellent Tempranillo, more on the level of Toro than Rioja or Ribera del Duero – powerful, dense, but well balanced and not over the top. I’m happy do discover more of the old world grapes perfectly executed on the US soil.
That concludes my report about the first day of the conference. Stay tuned, as we are only getting started : ). Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Round and Around WBC and more
Meritage Time!
Let’s start fromt he answer for the Wine Quiz #51 – Hiding in the plain sight, part 2.
In that quiz, you were supposed to identify as many wines/wineries as possible in my fictional writing. Here is the same fragment, with the actual wines shown in bold and underlined:
– Hey, Gloria, Mr. Giribaldi is here. You really have to tell me if you are going to Sicilia with him. The ticket will cost only $890. Your aunt Elena and cousin Ben will be excited to see you. Your great-grand aunt Olga is turning hundred! Everybody will be there. Remember Livio, the blue eyed boy? He was such a little angel… Anyway, he is coming with Virginia, and I’m sure you will have lots of catching up to do.
– okay, mom, I will go. By the way, if you see Kay, tell him that I’m through with him.
Now, in the order of appearance:
Chateau Gloria – Famous French winery from Saint-Julien
Mario Giribaldi – winery and winemaker in Piedmont
Vega Sicilia – legendary winery from Ribero del Duero, Spain
La Rioja Alta “890” Gran Reserva – one of the top wines from La Rioja Alta
Elena Walch – great winery and winemaker in Alto Adige region
Olivier Cousin – rebel natural wines wine maker in Anjou area of Loire
Ben Ryè – spectacular sweet wine produced by Donnafugata in Sicily
Olga Raffault – great winery in Chinon
Turning Leaf – Vineyard in California
Hundred Acre – a cult wine from California
Livio Felluga – great Italian producer from Friuli
blue eyed boy – name of the Shiraz wine from the great Australian producer Mollydooker Wines
Ballet of Angels – white wine produced by Connecticut winery Sharpe Hills
Virginie de Valandraud – second label of legendary Château Valandraud (had a mistake in the spelling – should be Virginie and not Virginia, sorry about that)
if you see Kay – red wine from Lazio region in Italy, produced by Jason Woodbridge
Whew, this was a very long answer. I guess it was a tough quiz, as there were not that many players, but – I can tell you for sure I had lots of fun putting it together. VinoInLove came up with 10 good answers, even though many of the names he came up with didn’t match my intended answers, but as I mentioned in the description of the quiz, this will be still qualified. Thus VinoInLove is our winner, and Frank from WineTalks get honorable mention for coming up with 5 right answers. Great job!
Now, to the interesting stuff around the vine web. I got an e-mail from Wine Bloggers Conference, and it lead me to the collection of noteworthy information on Wine Bloggers Conference (WBC) web site. First, a few weeks ago I got an invitation from WBC to complete the wine blogging survey, which I did. Preliminary results are already available here, and you can learn there a few interesting things. For instance, it appears that average wine blogger has 3,418 follower on twitter – I guess I’m well below of an average wine blogger, as I have less than one third of that number. Another interesting fact is that less than 19% of the wine bloggers had being blogging for 6+ years. Anyway, check it out for yourself, and if you didn’t take the survey, you still have time to do it ( you can found the link on that same page with preliminary results). WBC site holds other interesting links – for instance, here is the link for so called Citizen Wine Blogs in America ( which includes both US and Canada) – the WBC web site is definitely worth exploring.
Another important news is that the call for nominations for 7th Annual Wine Blog Awards is now open! It will be open until Sunday, March 31st, so if anyone thinks this very blog worth a nomination, you can do so using this link (needless to say that I will be forever grateful).
Moving on, I still have a few interesting things for you. There are new wines on the market from the state of Washington, produced by Paul Gregutt, who you might know by his blog called Unfined and Unfiltered. The wines are produced under the label of Waitsburg Cellars. While I’m sure it will be difficult to find those wines, at least you can enjoy the descriptions coming under the theme called The Aromatics.
While this might be an old news for many of you, but it is interesting to see that now Parker is suing Antonio Galloni for the breach of contract. The world of wine, as everything else under the sun, becomes anything but boring once the big money start talking. Not sure if wine lovers will benefit, but the lawyers will be able to afford a few extra bottles of Petrus.
Last for today is a local update. I added a few links to the blogroll for the blogs I follow, and I also created a new link category called Wine Travel. American Winery Guide, To-Tuscany, Winerist and Napa Now are the four web sites listed there. If you have a blog or site dedicated to the wine travel, please let me know and I will be glad to add it to the blogroll.
It was a long post – but the glass is finally empty. Enjoy your Wine Wednesday and until the next time – cheers!
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