Every time I go to a wine event that includes multiple wineries, I will usually find one winery that is new to me and stands out from the rest. I stumbled across many great wineries at the
Wine 2.0 Spring Fling at
Crushpad last April. But two wines from a particular new winery have stuck with me over the last two months. Leon C. Glover III's
Lionheart Wines had two very good
Syrahs that night...and the scary thing is that they were from his very first and second vintages!
2005 found Leon in an interesting spot in his life. As a former and very successful Programmer/Project Manager, Associate Venture Partner focused on technical due diligence, self-taught chef and a recent recipient of an MBA, he was looking at his options in a tech industry environment that was beginning to look like the late 90's again with the Web 2.0 movement in full hype. Then, a funny thing happened. His wife, Jen stepped in and offered him a rather nice gift...of the kind that keep giving.
The Walnut Creek Downtown Business Association launched a new yearly event this past Wednesday (06/25/08) with their first annual Downtown Wine Walk. For a $20 fee, you (were supposed to) receive a commemorative wine glass and a map to that showed the various downtown stores, restaurants and bars that were participating and pouring wine from 6-9pm that evening. This first event focused on Napa wines. The event fit in well with their long-running annual Art & Wine Festival and various downtown art and farmer's market events. It also was well-timed to take advantage of the wine renaissance that is continuing to take place downtown where many wine bars and stores have gone in over the last year or so (and is also taking place across the Bay Area).
I met up with my friends Kristin & Ian and we had high hopes for the evening until we realized that we should have bought Presales...