Happy New Year, #Vinopanion‘s! I, ahem, recognize that we are already in our 2nd month of this new decade but hey, I’ve been busy! 😛 The holidays were fantastic, starting with an early Christmas with my fam, then we headed out with Piper Roja and drove 13 hrs to my in-laws, outside of Surprise. It was...
Category: Wine Events
#Vinopanion #Wine Bits & Pieces: Holiday 2017 Edition
The end of 2017 is nigh…that means really good reasons to drink #wine and, in particular, bubbles! And while the Lady and I are lovers and club members of our very local Domaine Chandon sparkling wines, we do have quite a tasty spot for Spanish Cava. #Cava is the most renown sparkling wine from Spain and...
#NapaFire: Devastation & Community
The week of October 8th, 2017 was the most bizarre week of my entire life to this point. The fires that struck the NorCal counties of Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino and Solano wreaked an incredible amount of devastation, yet as many disasters have shown around the world, it also taught the Lady and myself a beautiful...
#Vinopanion's new wardkadel.com is live!
Well…the long wait is over! If not for my fellow #Vinopanions, at least for my own incessant #wine cravings and the need to blast out my ramblings de vinos. WardKadel.com is finally live, as we are in the process of shutting down the long-running WineLog.net. With this relaunch, you will find more content combining my two...
Taking my #wine kung fu to the next level: #WSET II & Napa Valley Wine Academy
I have been immersing myself in the study of #wine in a semi-systematic manner for much of the last 8 years. Indeed, #Vinopanion's 8 year anniversary with @WineLog is approaching in the middle of this month. Yet I have slowly realized that something is lacking in my devotion to the knowledge of the vinous delights: focus, structure and external credibility. You'd think that a trained scientist would have recognized this long ago and I did notice these thoughts in the back of my mind a few years back. But they were always battered back by "where's the time?" and "I'm still receiving plenty of media travel & event invites," along with "my wine consulting services continue to expand." Then I reached last year and I started to recognize some clear patterns in my wine work. While I had plenty of media opportunities and my fellow wine colleagues were continuing to get work, I could see that the pace of my own trade offers beginning to slow down. It was then that I noticed that most of my colleagues began to sport letters after their names on their business cards: they were taking certified educational courses to formalize their wine training. I needed to set up my wine game. It was then that I contacted the good people at Napa Valley Wine Academy (FB, Tw): "help!"