Travel – Page 8 – Ward Kadel

Ward – drXeNo @ ZAP Live!

January 31, 2009January 31, 2009Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNo

Another year means another crazy adventure in the world of California’s “home” grape! The Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP) are having their annual ZAP Festival at Fort Mason on the San Francisco waterfront this weekend. Many events have already occurred in leading up to today’s press and consumer grand tasting. Over 275 wineries, 400 wines, countless other food and wine specialists and 10,000 attendees will participate with food and Zinfandel wines, again making this the largest single varietal wine festival in the entire world!

I will be posting in real-time throughout the event today until about 5pm from the Wine 2.0 Bloggers Lounge (Thanks so much to Cornelius and Abdi from Wine 2.0 (Twitter) and Lisa (Twitter) from Hahn Estates for coordination!). The post will be on the fly and mildly edited for content (especially later ;-), similar to the now famous, Live (Speed) Wine Blogging event at last year’s 1st Wine Bloggers Conference.

5th Pops & Son Wine Trip in Napa: Day 1 Morning

January 22, 2009January 22, 2009Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNo

Another holiday season means another wonder trip to wine country with Pops.Â I usually get the week off between Christmas and New Years from the day job and with that extra time I like to spend some quality father and son time spent, well honestly, what else but drinking wine?Â We also recently added a summer trip to the roster, as one trip is usually not enough for the two of us.Â We decided to continue to explore parts of Napa that were still new to us for this trip, especially with the economy in a wonderful tailspin. The first stop of the day was intended to be at one of the best value-driven brands in the marketplace, Cartlidge & Brown off of Green Island Road. Unfortunately, they weren't open and thus we weren't able to taste nor pick up Pops' wine club selections. Seeing as how we were in the Southern-most part of the Valley, we decided to then head over to Kirkland Ranch Winery, off of Jamieson Canyon Rd (SR-12).

Happy New Year at Moresi's!

December 31, 2008December 31, 2008Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNo

After getting both of our outfits squared away, we decided to start the celebration of the end of 2008 with a stop at one of our favorite local steakhouses and cocktail bar, Moresi's Chophouse in Clayton, CA. Moresi's is housed in were two historic 1800's era buildings, now combined, in the long-standing rural enclave of Clayton, CA. Ed Moresi, longtime proprieter of the outstanding family dining and sports bar establishment Ed's Mudville Grill (check out the amazing collection of sports memorabilia!) son Dom and the rest of the Moresi clan have created a wonderful stop within the small, comfortable downtown of Clayton.

WBC NA 2008: Dry Creek Valley Walk 2 @ Quivira

December 22, 2008December 22, 2008Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNo

The morning of the second day of the inaugural North American Wine Bloggers Conference presented me with an energetic dilemma: which Vineyard Walk do I partake?? This part of the conference was to be an exciting off-site activity, courtesy of Allan Wright (Twitter), conference organizer and owner of the other main sponsor, Zephyr Wine Adventures. After debating between the many walks/hikes available, I finally settled on the second of the two Dry Creek Valley walks, as it was a tour of the Biodynamic estate of Quivira Vineyards & Winery. I was compelled to visit this winery after the great discussion that I had with Nancy Bailey at the previous evening's Wine Growers of Dry Creek Valley tasting, of which I have previously written. Not yet knowing the full extent of the amount of physical activity that I might undertake, I literally sprinted over to Longs to get some protein-based snackies and I ran back to hop on the shuttle that was just about to pull out towards Dry Creek.

WBC NA 2008: Day 1 Recap

December 2, 2008December 2, 2008Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNo

Day 1 of the 1st annual North American Wine Bloggers Conference started with a whirlwind of activities. I caught a ride to the conference with the very gracious founders of WineQ, Marshall (Twitter) and Brittany (Twitter). We arrived right on time at the conference hotel and center of activities, the Hotel Flamingo in Santa Rosa and made our way in a roundabout fashion to Registration. It was a very surreal and invigorating walk to say the least...just in the 100 yards it took to reach the registration room, I handed out 5 or 6 WineLog.net biz cards, three of those contacts being people that I had met through Twitter or their blog...whew!