Great Wine 2.0 "New Release Only" Event!
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. Napa Valley Wine & Food Recommendations
Originally published at my personal MySpace Blog
My wife, Beth, and I have made many different wine trips around NorCal and we've built up a string of places that we really enjoy. As various friends and co-workers learned this over the past few years, I've started writing some rather extensive emails of recommendations for places we like in different regions.
So far, I've made a Napa Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea/Carmel Valley (my favorite AVA), Sonoma Valley, Russian River/Alexander/Dry Creek Valleys and a small one for Amador County (where I actually haven't spent much time). I thought that these would be great to post here and keep kinda updated.
In honor of the home team, I'm going to post about Napa first. I have included links to each individual website, as well as the accompanying information we have on WineLog [WL]. Enjoy! A new wine "Tool?"
In one of the most surprising developments in the wine world since Ravenswood Winery infiltrated NASCAR, I recently found out that Maynard James Keenan of the hard alternative, industrial-tinged rock bands Tool and A Perfect Circle (and the new band, Puscifer) has started his own winery and vineyard [info courtesy of Rasputin Music's Infamous, Incredible Newsletter].
The endeavor has actually been going on for 6 years, meaning that Keenan is already producing wine from his own vineyards in the Phoenix, AZ area.
Keenan has named his winery Caduceus Cellars, after the ancient Greek symbol of commerce (and somewhat inaccurately for medicine in North America). His estate vineyards are named Merkin Vineyards (no comment on that name, look it up for yourselves!).
Read on for more! Two interesting wine articles
Media interest in the wine industry has continued to gain momentum over the last couple decades. In modern times there has always been a multitude of speciality magazines and websites that have tracked the wine world, but as the general public has become more interested in a healthy lifestyle and how food can affect one’s biology,...
Wine and Friends
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 Danby 75 bottle Wine Cooler
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 champagne and nice Napa Cabs or red Bordeaux's.
Yet I'm speaking more about the people at a particular occasion, not the "occasion," itself.