I had the rather outstanding opportunity to go to my first
Wine 2.0 event last Thursday, their "
New Releases Only" wine-tasting at
Varnish, a wine bar and art gallery in San Francisco. I've been to Varnish a lot over the years since it opened to grab a break from working at the Wednesday happy hour party
Qoöl at
111 Minna Gallery around the corner. As a nice aside, it also doubled as a great way to spend the night of my 30th birthday. So, I grabbed my friend Alberto from Minna and we headed over to the party.
Wine 2.0 is, essentially, a wine industry networking group that intends to push wine into the open source and social networking new world that is "
Web 2.0." Really though, that's kind of a stuffy description for what is a really cool and vibrantly active group of young wine entrepreneurs and aficionados. I kind of think of them as the next generation of
"Wine Brats," but taking a different sort of approach than that organization (though Wine Brats is
still going strong!). Despite this younger crowd pushing this movement, I was happy to see a widely diverse group of 200+ patrons that at the event that were all over the age map.
In honor of my beautiful mom's birthday, Beth and I traveled up to Napa to join my sister Shauna and my parents Donna and Ed, for a day spent on the Napa Valley Wine Train (NVWT).
The Wine Train has had a long and sometimes contentious history in the Valley. The movement to start the NVWT was headed by Vincent DeDomenico of Rice-A-Roni fame, among many other food brands. The long legal battle was bitterly fought throughout the valley with many residents against the idea, including my own grandfather Bud Schroeder. Local protesters argued that the Valley was already fraught with enough tourists, a rather reasonable view, actually. Eventually the legal battle ended up in the California Supreme Court, where DeDomenico et al prevailed. The original dissension has dried up over the last 18 years of operation and, for the most part, the Wine Train is now an accepted part of Valley life. 
I got quite the (early) 30th birthday weekend over Thanksgiving weekend, whew! My family and Beth, especially, truly went out of their way to make my 3rd decade start off with a wonderful wine-soaked bang.
We had a very special start to the weekend with Thanksgiving night at my sister's condo in Napa, where she provided a cozy and well-appreciated dinner aided by my mom and Beth.
The next day my family and I went tasting around the 
One of my favorite things about wine is its ability to encourage a very communal and sharing atmosphere. Yes, the alcohol in wine can, of course, kick the social aspect of a gathering into high gear, but I'm speaking more about the inclination for wine lovers to want to share their favorite bottles with friends and family.
I have many great bottles in the "cellared" portion of my 
and many others that are ready in the near-term, yet I rarely open those bottles on a normal weeknight. People save bottles of wine for special occasions all the time, it's one of the main things you read about around the holidays in all of those adds for 
