Vinotology Wine Blog

I'm Back! Update On My Trip to California

I'm sure most of you have started wondering if I have fallen off the edge of the world after my prolonged absence and total radio silence since I returned from my trip to Napa and Sonoma. Well, I am here to report that I did not, in fact, fall off the edge of the world. I will fill in some of these events with more details later, but I wanted to get you something about my trip, just to let you know what I was up to while I was out there.

I landed in Oakland last Thursday, and after an excruciatingly long wait at the baggage claim and rental car center, I immediately headed for the nearest In-N-Out Burger (no, I didn't get animal style), and then worked my way toward Deerfield Ranch Winery for a Facebook meet-up that was put together by my friend Sonoma William. I had the opportunity to meet a number of new people, including my old friend Brian Wing of Norcal Wingman and Shana Ray, as well as see some old Wine Bloggers' Conference friends again, such as Ed Thralls, Jill Dever, Andrew Lazorchak, Steven Washuta and Eric Hwang. It was great to get a chance to network right after I hit the ground in California.

No wine gathering is complete without an after-party, so immediately following the Deerfield meet-up, we worked our way over to the Russian River Brewing Company, where I indulged in a little hoppy bliss. I had their Pliny the Elder Double IPA and a sour brown ale called Supplication. After satisfying our urge for brew, we headed to the after-after-party at my buddy Steven's place. It was great to have a little more conversation time with Steven, Shana Ray, and Ed.

Friday was a busy day. I met with the crazy smart folks at VinTank and Cruvee and then worked my way over to an afternoon visit with Marita's Vineyard. Marita's is a Napa Cabernet producer that I have been working with a little that has a really great story. It was fun getting to experience their Ranchito and a wonderful meal and some of their great Cab.

I spent most of the afternoon at Marita's before heading over to Harris Estate Vineyards for a going away party for Seth Johnson, who is taking off to do a little Sommin' on the ocean. I was only two days into my trip, and already I had been to three really awesome estates. Harris is beautiful, with a great pond and a luxurious house on the property. I will write more about this later, but there is some really interesting history to the property. Did I mention that it was beautiful?

The weekend featured a drive through the Sonoma Coast area with my boy Drew, followed by a visit to the NPA, which will also be written about in more detail later, a tasting at Ridge, dinner with some great peeps at Willi's Wine Bar, and some Sunday hiking with Hardy Wallace and Drew amongst the redwoods of Armstrong Woods State Park and along the coast at Goat Rock. This trip pretty much cemented my love of the Sonoma Coast area. There are just some places that are so beautiful that you really can't even do justice to them with words. Even these pictures are a feeble attempt at capturing the incredible scene.

Monday kicked off with an interview that went really well, followed by a full evening at the #MerlotMonday event at VinTank, and then a "White Party" at John Anthony. The John Anthony event was great. I met my Twitter buddy @jandrews71 (formerly @hondajohn), some great new peeps, and hung out with my friends Jill Dever and Christophe Smith from Titus Vineyards and Wine Biz Radio. Made some really great connections that have already been helpful in my job search.

Tuesday might have been my single busiest day of the trip. I had a meeting with a recruiter in the morning at the Sunflower Cafe in Sonoma, a tasting at Titus with Christophe, an incredible interview, and then dinner at Oenotri with Chris Oggenfuss of VinTuba fame. I am really excited about the results of this interview, and I really feel like this day was one of my most productive.

This post is getting really long, so I'm going to finish my update tomorrow.

Deerfield photo is from Eric Hwang's Facebook page. Eric did a great job of chronicling the event.

Food and Wine Pairing: You Can Do It, Too!

Today's post is a guest post from Toni Ambrosini

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I have a healthy obsession with food. I am happy to share Twitpics of various pizzas and grilled meats. Then my followers can be envious that they don’t have any.

I also have a fascination with wine, also well-documented on Twitter. If I didn’t, there is zero chance of me contributing this guest post to Vinotology today. Reading and tasting are two things I wish I could do all day, every day.

But putting the two together can be a headache for some, and occasionally for me. With so many flavor and aroma combinations…where do you even start?

Well, the great thing about food and wine pairing is this. You can largely do whatever you want! Eat what you like. Drink what you like. That’s what I say. If I want to drink a dry Washington Riesling with my bowl of turkey and black bean chili, that’s what I’m going to do.

However, there are a few basic rules out there that can help you prevent your palate from experiencing complete mayhem.

Don’t get sick about it…remember, food and wine is supposed to be a fun thing to do! It should relieve stress, not create it.

Full bodies love rich foods

Basically, this means if you have some weight to the food, you need equal weight of wine. Weight, body, texture, and mouthfeel can all be descriptors that are not easy to get a grasp of.

Let’s think of it like this. Take a boneless, skinless chicken breast. If you cook it by a method of adding liquid such as braising or poaching, you are adding weight to the meat. Therefore, you need a fuller-bodied wine to stand up to the chicken.

If you cook the chicken breast using a method that removes water, such as grilling or oven-roasting, a lighter or medium-bodied wine will do the trick.

So far, so good, right? Well, what’s going on the chicken? A sauce? A relish? Is it being marinated? Fear not. All you have to do is…

Play with intensity

Oven-roasting, pan-searing, and grilling are all cooking methods that create caramelization, and therefore more intense flavors. Look for a bolder wine, on the nose and the palate, to accompany foods prepared this way. This is why Zinfandel, Syrah, and Pinot Noir can work so well in this situation.

If you are eating a lightly-flavored dish, such as a poached chicken salad or boiled sausages, a delicate, yet fuller-bodied Chablis or Rheingau Riesling could treat you very well with their aromatic intensities.

Smoke rhymes with oak

Barbecue is one of my favorite things to eat. However, when you start adding smoke to the equation, your wine choices fall a bit, but it does make your choice easier! Look for different levels of oak to go with the level of smoke in the meat.

For example, California Sauvignon Blancs that see some light oak treatment take the harsh “green” character away, but add some slight smoky notes. Couple that with California’s warmer climate (compared to places like the Loire, for instance) creates a Sauvignon Blanc with more of a rich, stone fruit profile. This can be absolutely awesome with applewood-smoked (a mild wood), grill-roasted pulled pork.

For something more intense, with more pungent wood flavors (such as hickory-smoked beer-can chicken), look no further than your big, oaky New World Chardonnays.

Heat rhymes with sweet

If you are a fan of spicy foods from all over the world, such as Thai or Indian cuisine, look to the aromatic Alsatian varieties with some residual sugar. Riesling and Gewurztraminer are classic examples.

Think of it this way: you might order the boneless ribs or General Tso’s chicken from your local Pan-Asian restaurant for dinner. Look at the flavors in the sauce. A little bit of sweet, a little bit of heat. When those flavors are balanced, they taste damn good, don’t they?

Same thing goes for a Thai seafood and red curry stew. The hot red curry and the sweet coconut milk play well together.

The hotter the dish, the sweeter the wine should be.

Sharp tongues need a little salt

Sharp flavors, such as raw garlic and onion can be tricky, because those flavors really assault your senses. You’ll find these in Greek dishes, Mexican Pico de Gallo, or a simple Italian tomato and red onion salad. What do you do about this? Minerals and salt match very well in this situation. Wines that have unique, salty “lifts” to them are Assyrtiko, Torrontes, and Insolia.

Remember, you find that stuff in the spice aisle in your grocery store called “garlic salt” for a reason…it tastes good.

This is by no means a be-all, end-all list of rules. Like I said before, eat what you like. Drink what you like. Your only goal when it comes to pairing food and wine is to avoid catastrophic disaster and it is easy. You can do it!

I’d love to hear what you have tested on your own. Share your success stories as well as your failures. It makes everyone else smarter…and a little less intimidated.

 

Tony Ambrosini left his technical sales career after nine years to become a full-time dad. When off the clock from his duties as Operations Manager of the Ambrosini household, he has a quest to be a gastronomic superhero: cooking, writing, studying, and sharing all things food, wine, and spirits-related. Tony recently passed the WSET Advanced Certificate exam with Distinction, and has contributed at Examiner.com as the Wine Pairing Examiner for the Atlantic City, NJ area. He frequently experiments with various recipes in his own kitchen, and has a great passion for the sport of American Football. Tony is happy to chat about anything via Twitter under the handle: @acfoodandwine.

The Case for Beaujolais (not Nouveau)

Today's post is a guest post by Frank Morgan

Last month I had the occasion to spend a few days in Paris at the end of a work trip in the region.  Aside from the usual touristy stuff – visit to the Louvre and Eifel Tower, lots of photos I may never look at again, souvenir trinkets for those who were left at home, 10 pound weight gain due to overindulgence – I took away many random wine related observations for future blog fodder. 

My first, and most obvious observation – wine is ubiquitous in Paris – the local folk drink wine, and lots of it.  I know, not a revelation.  Although the volume of consumption didn’t surprise me, I did however find the ‘type’ of wine consumed interesting. Being a nosey tourist, I made a point of making a mental note of the bottles atop each table at the bistros I visited – the vast majority were drinking Cote de Provence rosé or Beaujolais. 

I get the reason for the mass rosé consumption – France was burdened by an oppressive heat wave the week I was there.  The Beaujolais consumption is what interested me most.  In Paris, the wines of Burgundy, Boudreaux, Alsace, Loire, and Languedoc are aplenty, yet the large majority of Parisians that I observed were consuming the offerings of the Beaujolais.  Interesting. 

 

As a raging Beaujolais fanatic I had to know why, if for no other reason than to validate my own obsession with this wine. 

As luck would have it, on my second day in town, I sat next to a chatty Frenchman during lunch at Le Verre Vole, a quaint wine bar located in the 10th Arrondissement.  When I arrived, this fellow was finishing his first bottle of Regnie (one of the Crus of Beaujolais), and had just ordered his second.  Ordering a second bottle to drink solo – no doubt this was going to be a fun conversation by the time it was over.

An interesting fellow who spent two years in New York working in the hospitality industry, he had an interesting perspective on the differences in French versus American wine consumption.  When I asked him why the Parisians that I observed drank so much Beaujolais and why so many in the States hadn’t quite caught on to the virtue of Beaujolais wines – he answered simply, ‘Americans prefer the big wines that are obvious and convey some type of status, while the French drink wines they enjoy regardless of the label.  Beaujolais is a good wine, but not a status wine.’  Hmmmm.

This is of course the opinion of one man, who was already working on his second bottle of wine at 3:30 in the afternoon.  Although I did not totally agree with my new friend’s opinion, I conceded there was certainly some truth to it – many consumers’ choice of wine is predicated on the score or status of that wine. 

Here in the US, Beaujolais is obviously not a status wine and unfortunately suffers from a perception problem brought on by ‘Beaujolais Nouveau guilt by association syndrome.’  Beaujolais Nouveau is that very young, thin, banana scented; poor quality juice with the bright, flowery labels intended to appeal to impulse label buyers released globally on the third Thursday of each November just a few weeks after harvest.  There is so much more to Beaujolais than insipid Nouveau.

All Beaujolais red wines are made from the gamay grape, and are typically fresh, fruity, high acidity, low tannic, approachable wines.  The Beaujolais area is only 34 miles from North to South and 8 miles wide but produces millions of cases of wine (much of that in the form of Nouveau).  Beaujolais wines are often considered a reasonable economical alternative to Burgundy.  There are four ‘types’ or classifications of Beaujolais:
•    Beaujolais Nouveau: Insipid, thin, too young.
•    Beaujolais: Can come from grapes grown anywhere in the Beaujolais region.
•    Beaujolais-Villages:  The intermediate category of Beaujolais – these wines are made from grapes grown in thirty-nine villages in the center of the Beaujolais region.
•    Cru Beaujolais: The highest classification in Beaujolais – this is the northern part of the Beaujolais region and is home to ten hillside villages (Crus) that produce the region’s most notable wines.  The ten Crus from lightest to fullest bodied – Brouilly, Regnie, Chiroubles, Côte de Brouilly, Saint-Amour, Fleurie, Chénas, Juliénas, Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent.

Given the current economic malaise, I am surprised more US wine consumers don’t appreciate the virtues of Beaujolais – wallet friendly, high QPR, easy to drink, great summer to fall transition wine, and a great red wine for white wine drinkers.  Since our unemployment rate remains high and our economy seems to be taking the tortoise route to ‘recovery’ now is a great time to discover the wines of Beaujolais.

Here are a few of my favorite Beaujolais producers with national distribution:
•    As a general rule, you can’t go wrong with Beaujolais imported by Kermit Lynch or Louis/Dressner Selections.  Both Lynch and Dressner focus on excellent, smaller producers.
•    Marciel Lapierre (I especially like the 2008 Morgon)
•    Jean Foillard (2008 Morgon is excellent)
•    George Descombe (especially like the 2007 Regnie)
•    Theirry Puzelat (ultra naturalist, maker of Le Telquel)
•    Louis-Jadot – The 2008 Beaujolais-Village is one of my personal favorites – nice fruit, spice, mineral and great QPR.  At just $8.97/bottle this wine makes an excellent Tuesday night wine.
I would also recommend trying several Beaujolais wines from the 2009 vintage.  According to several vintage reports and wine critics, 2009 in Beaujolais was an epic year, perhaps the best vintage in a couple of decades.

If you haven’t had a bottle in a while, or have never tried a Beaujolais wine, now is the time to expand your palate.  Stop by your locally owned wine shop today and pick up a bottle of Beaujolais-Village or Cru Beaujolais for dinner.  Please remember that Vinotology has a 100% reader satisfaction guarantee – if you don’t like the Beaujolais you purchased as a result of this post, Ben will promptly refund your money.  ;)

Editor's Note: No money will be refunded by Vinotology for displeasure with Beaujolais wine, however, I will happily taste the wine with you to help make a more thorough evaluation. :)

 
Frank Morgan – husband, father, work in the Aerospace industry by day, chronic traveler, reader, kinda runner, wine enthusiast and blogger by night.  Frank Morgan writes the Drink What You Like blog.  Twitter:  @DrinkWhatULike

Hug Your Local Wine Grape Farmer - Guest Post from Jennifer R. Thomson

 

I know, I know – “God Bless Texas” where the cattle are bigger, the men aren’t afraid to wear hub caps on their belts, and you can’t get Chardonnay to grow worth a damn! Whoops, that’s sure to rile some of you Texans up.

Farmers and ranchers don’t seem to be as much of a dwindling commodity in Texas for some reason. Here in California we’re scarce, few and far between. For some reason we aren’t the grower of choice by winemakers who instead prefer to work alongside vineyard management companies who fall into the “Big Agriculture” category managing not hundreds, but thousands of acres across the greatest wine growing regions of California. Napa, Sonoma and the Central Coast.

I remember last year when we began working with a less than Infamous Winemaker who drives an Acura, gets regular manicures and refuses to drink cucumber infused cocktails because the taste reminds him of the cucumbers they put on your eyes at the spa.

Anyhow, one thing he did have going for him is that he took kindly to The Farmer and saddled right up to him at the bar. Both fans of margaritas and the Infamous Winemaker a fan of The Farmer’s Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Merlot they’ve somehow managed to make their relationship work.

But, early on last season he wasn’t so sure about this whole grower/winemaker thing and was getting coaching from a friend on the East Coast about how to fit in with The Farmer.  The Infamous Winemaker in turn relayed to me that the friend said, “I love Farmers, the Old Farmers, who work hard and are simple, easy to deal with, know their stuff, they’re the best.” And with that the Infamous Winemaker was in love, with The Farmer. The Farmer is still testing out the relationship. He’s such a man.

Farmers have become a rare breed. In the early 1900’s, roughly 80 percent of the population worked in farming. Today, that has dwindled to around two percent. No wonder most folks know very little about modern farming. I still get well known wine bloggers contacting me saying, “where can I get your wines.” Either they’re oblivious to Twitter account bio or they simply don’t get that there are actually a few of us out in Carneros, Napa Valley who just farm. Plain and simple.

In 2008, several farm groups got together in Lodi, California, to discuss the need for farmers to do a better job of talking with consumers. And who better to tell the story of farming than us the real farmers behind the food and wine grape you consume on a daily basis! And so the seed was planted for KnowACaliforniaFarmer.com.

Until Thomson Vineyards actually starts making its own wine, I’d encourage all of you to seek out the wineries and winemakers who are making wine from true wine grape farmers. Ask the winemaker who their grower is? Does a vineyard management company oversee the vineyard where their grapes come from to make their wine? How much time do they spend in the vineyard with their farmers?

It’s not enough to source locally for your food. It’s time to start sourcing local wineries that in turn source local farmers for their wine grapes. Whether that’s a Texas winery you source your next local wine from or Chardonnay from California - The Farmer thanks you for keeping him in the two percent of the population working in farming.

You can get to know more about how California farmers are turning sunshine, cool breezes and a love of growing things into some of the world’s best Chardonnay (and other crops) at KnowACaliforniaFarmer.com.

You may have good lookin’ men in boots Texas, but we’ll always have Chardonnay in California!

Image credit: goldmountaintrading.com

 
Jennifer R. Thomson “The Millennial Daughter” didn’t want to go to UC Davis, they grow corn there and she told The Farmer so. Instead she graduated from Napa High School as a two-sport athlete and went to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo where they have tractor pulls. She has a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Communications and made The Farmer proud when she brought back a Master of Business Administration (MBA) to California after two years spent the Panhandle of Florida. One of just four women in her cohort, her thesis is titled The Economic Climate of the California Wine Industry. Unlike other wine business marketing departments she Tweets directly from the vineyard while driving the Ford tractor, maintains a satellite office in San Francisco and is busy ruffling one Napa and Sonoma feather at a time. Meet her in person though, if you get the chance, and you’ll get a glimpse of just what the Fourth Generation of Thomson Vineyards is carrying on in Los Carneros – Legacy.

The Wine Bottle is a Reliquary - Guest Post by Sam Klingberg

You're rolling your eyes, but I'm serious.

 
Judging from people's reactions to innovative wine packaging designs and marketing techniques, you could only assume that wine is a sacred object.

I find that even in my young, totally bad ass perception of life, I prejudge wine based on my moderately secret desire to be a serious wine connoisseur.

For instance, screw caps. Despite the affirmation of entire nations (e.g. New Zealand) and bastions of the faith (e.g. Jancis Robinson,) there are still plenty of skeptics, and we're still forced to post interminably long and boring tales about the avoidable horror of T.C.A.

Or, How many people have you heard renounce any bottle that features an animal on the label as practically an Iconoclastic heresy?

 
Why was my first reaction to the cross-branded Wines that Rock line, "You have gotta be f*n kidding me!?"

How many of you look at a Tetra Pak and think, "There's gotta be some great juice inside of that!" Why must Black Box's marketing campaign absolutely be, "But seriously, guys. No, seriously! I mean, we're totally serious here, guys!"

Wine is protected with the most ridiculous fervor. It's as if Jesus not only turned water into wine, but he also instituted exactly how it should be presented: label, bottle, package, and branding.

Wine is a staggeringly confusing beverage choice, and the traditional media counted on that as their business model for years. But, wine bloggers have destroyed that model with the advent of new media and the web.

Yet, I don't think that we've done enough to push wine forward for the next generation, my generation.
Wine is magic. And there will always be room for the way things have been.


But let's look for the way things could be, accept it with open arms, and stop trying to pretend everything great should be circa 1862 and French.

Ironically, southern France makes most of my favorite wines.

So I ask you, mighty citizens of the wino interwebz: Do you think innovative wine packaging and branding is a good thing, or detrimental to wine as an art?

"The way of the future. The way of the future. The way of the future."

 
Sam Klingberg writes The Broke Wino blog, and was kind enough to do this guest post. He's one of my favorite bloggers, and was recently profiled by Sacre Bleu Wine. If Sam isn't already in your RSS feed, he should be. Follow him on Twitter @brokewino.

The Five-Step Program to Recover Your Sense of Adventure - Guest Post by Tony Ambrosini

We tend to take this for granted because of the era that we live in, but I am stunned by the amount of resources we have when it comes to food and wine. General information, recipes, publications, blogs…you name it. At the very least, you can find it on our good friend, the Internet. There is so much to experience that it’s really hard to keep up with it all.

So that’s why I’m equally stunned when I talk to people about this subject and every now and then they tell me, “Oh, I only drink Chardonnay” or say, “I don’t really cook, it’s too hard.”

Wait a minute…what? Really??

Even when some folks tell me about their travels overseas, they only go to Italy. Why? Unless you have family or close friends out there, there is no need to keep going back.

Seriously? Where is the sense of adventure?

Look, I know times are rough for a lot of us. Either you are trying to sell a home that’s been on the market for a year, or you have small kids, or you might even have an unbearable boss stressing you out. Maybe even all three of these apply to you.

But when it comes to our meals (whether you include a glass of wine or not), why make that a brutal experience? Shouldn’t this be stress relief?

 
After all, food, wine (and spirits) are social. They’re communal. Intimate. This aspect of our lives should be pleasurable. We deal with enough ridiculous nonsense in our day-to-day activities. Instead we can experience everything that the world has to offer and also not worry about spending the month’s car payment to do it.

Think back to when you were a child. Exploration was just a part of your life; it was how you learned to communicate. Then somewhere along the way, people let that desire to discover go by the wayside.

So how do we go about recapturing this feeling? Follow these five steps.

1)    Get a Magazine or Internet Recipe
One. Just one. This is all you need to get the fire burning. Pick up Everyday Food or Real Simple for the most quick and easy (seriously, 20-30 minutes max) recipes on the planet. Try a Cooking Light recipe if you are watching your intake of certain foods. If you really want to dive in and already have some skills, check out some of what Food and Wine has to offer. Sometimes, you’ll even see a recommended wine pairing. No matter which way you go, just find something interesting…and try it!

2)    Get to a Farmer’s Market or Join a CSA
Make friends with your local meat, poultry, and produce people. They have great material for you to work with. Everything will be in-season. If you have the opportunity to buy into Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) from your local farm, do it! You get a share of all kinds of interesting things, and some places even supply a newsletter with recipes. Have you ever tried kale chips or cantaloupe salsa before? You should…

3)    Stop Leaning on Your Favorite Wine
Brunello di Montalcino is my absolute favorite wine. But I will get a one-way ticket to the poor house if I was to only drink this, and it doesn’t pair well with many of the meals I eat daily. I am also a big fan of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc since it goes well with our meals, but shame on me if this is all I’m picking up at the wine shop.

Drinking too much of your favorite wine prevents adventure in the wine cellar, because you will lean on this crutch forever. Otherwise, that’s what you will believe all good wine is supposed to taste like! Give a red IGT Sicilia a shot, made from the Nero d’Avola grape. Or check out a dry Riesling from Alsace. There is just too much good wine out there to be myopic. You can find quality examples of these alternatives for under $15.

If you need help finding something new, ask an associate at the wine shop. Tell them what you typically like, and that you are looking for something different. A good associate will make a quality recommendation. That’s why they are there.
 
4)    Travel
It doesn’t have to be far, either. If you live on the East Coast, get to the Finger Lakes or Virginia wineries. Live out West? Get to New Mexico or Texas. How about the middle of the country? Get up to the rising star in the wine world that is Michigan. Do you have an opportunity to get overseas? Go to Hungary and get your hands on some Tokaji Aszú. Experience the culture. Immerse yourself. Step out of your comfort zone.

Can’t travel? Read about a different culture. Get inspired to save up some cash to get somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit. I’m not in a position to be Mr. Jet-Setter either, but I can watch Anthony Bourdain eat and drink his way through Rome and Japan, then add those places to my Bucket List.

5)    Share Your Experience!
Whatever you do, wherever you go…share your new experience with others! We have so many ways to talk about what we tried. Blogs. Twitter. Facebook. E-mail. And of course if you are old-school…a phone call or an in-person visit to family and friends (it’s actually the best way to have someone truly get a feel for your emotions!). Make them want to be there, too!

99 out of 100 recipes I have ever tested out were at worst, serviceable and at best, outstanding! The same goes for the wines I have tried over the years; only a handful of them have been duds. If all I had to invest was a little time and thought to guarantee a range of acceptable to awesome, I would spend a lot of time at that activity. By sticking to the five steps above, I learned that not all curry is the yellowish-brown stuff that I never cared for. Instead, Thai red curry has become a new favorite for me! Pinot Noir has also rocketed up my list of preferred grape varieties.

So what about you? What have you done to step out of your comfort zone? I’d love to know about it! Remember, you should be following Step 5 after a new experience!

 
Tony Ambrosini left his technical sales career after nine years to become a full-time dad. When off the clock from his duties as Operations Manager of the Ambrosini household, he has a quest to be a gastronomic superhero: cooking, writing, studying, and sharing all things food, wine, and spirits-related. Tony recently passed the WSET Advanced Certificate exam with Distinction, and has contributed at Examiner.com as the Wine Pairing Examiner for the Atlantic City, NJ area. He frequently experiments with various recipes in his own kitchen, and has a great passion for the sport of American Football. Tony is happy to chat about anything via Twitter under the handle: @acfoodandwine.

Eleven Reasons to Participate in #Cabernet Day

The Twitter machine has been all abuzz recently with talk about the upcoming #Cabernet Twitter Social Media event that is being organized by Rick Bakas. There have been a number of this type of event taking place over the last few months, and this one has the potential to break all of the standing wine social media records. All you need to participate in this event is a Twitter, Facebook, or other social media account and some Cab, but if you need some encouragement to join in, try these reasons on for size:

1. Hundreds of people tweeting and posting about one variety of wine, what could be more fun than that?
2. All the cool kids are doing it.
3. Rick Bakas asked nicely.
4. Because you never know what @nectarwine is going to say after he's got a few glasses of Cab in him.
5. There are already almost 50 wineries from around the world confirmed to be participating in the event, including several hosting live events. This is a great opportunity to hear directly from the producers about some great Cabernets.
6. Trying to set the world record for number of tweets in a 24 hour period with the words "social media" and "wine" in them.
7. You were going to be drinking wine anyway.
8. Because it's fun to see the look of confusion on your friend's faces when you say you have to be at your computer for a Twitter tasting.
9. This video from Suburban Wino says it all.
10. Everything tastes better on Social Media.
11. You heard that I said "Cabernet", right? What more needs to be said?

Now that you are convinced, go to the Eventbright page for the event and register. You know you wanna.

It's Going to Be One of Those Weeks

Sometimes you get to a point where you just know that there is no way that you are going to be able to get everything done that you would like to, and you need some help from some friends. This is one of those weeks for me.

I like to keep you all updated on what is going on in my little wine world, and right now there's a ton on my plate. I've still got a lot of material lined up for blog posts, but with the job search heating up and another project that I'm jumping into right now starting to pick up steam as well, my days are pretty much overflowing with activity. I know you are probably worried that this means that you won't have much to read here on Vinotology, but fear not my friends, I have requisitioned the assistance of some awesome bloggers for some guest posts over the next couple of weeks. The guest posting action actually started last week, with my friend Tamara Belgard from Sip With Me contributing an awesome The Good, the Bad, the Ugly post on Friday.

I'm still looking for some additional guest posters to cover a bit of the next couple of weeks, so if you are interested, send me an email and we can work something out. I'm also still working on filling up my schedule for my upcoming California trip, so if you are interested in meeting with me regarding employment opportunities, or if you know someone who I should be in contact with, please let me know.

Cheers!

August 13 - The Good the Bad and the Ugly - Guest Poster: SipwithMe

This week’s Good, the Bad and the Ugly is being delivered by Tamara Belgard of Sip with Me.

The air was so heavy with dirt, with every breath; it coated your mouth and throat. It was so thick with tension; you couldn’t have swallowed it if you tried. It was a week of showdowns, barroom brawls and shoot-outs between the good, the bad and the ugly and once the dust settled, it was easy to see who had the quickest hands in the west.

The Good

Armed with only a spatula, Bill Eyer of Cuvee Corner flipped wine reviews upside down this week with his creative look at a box of wine and his anti-ABC Chardonnay prescription (be sure to heed those warnings though!).

Hosing most everyone down with his twisted take on the “Green Wine” movement is Ron Washman’s “A Healthy Brown Movement”. A post where the comment stream is as rich as the content, this article, though at first glance may appear to be just a load of crap, will actually make several significant points and might even teach you a new vocabulary word or two.

The Bad

Well, I may have finally discovered the reason I’ve been unable to close the deal in my employment search, and it’s bad. Very, very bad. Jon Troutman from Cork’d delivers a painful message in this article: Study finds that job applicants that drink wine are perceived as “less intelligent and less hirable”

The Ugly

Joe Roberts of 1WineDude called attention to what I feel is a very ugly and quite unpalatable marketing ploy by Hedges Family Cellars. The Red Mountain, Washington winery has apparently accepted seven people into their secret society… intriguing. These people wrote mission statements in a contest to win wine and other prizes… good. They’ve also had to agree to have the Mark of Red Mountain tattooed on their body in a supposed stance against the Parkerization of wines and the 100 point scale… just plain ugly. Not that I’m anti-ink, in fact, quite the contrary. I do believe one’s tat should be an individual expression, rather than something mandated by a winery to win a magnum and a fancy night on the town, but that’s just me.  What do you think?

 
Tamara is a freelance writer living her dream in Portland, Oregon. Her blog, Sip with Me, details her journey through wine, Oregon and beyond. She’s a full-time mom, a marketing and social media specialist. When not writing about and drinking wine you’ll probably find her exploring other passions like chocolate, travel and all things culinary.

Getting My Feet on California Soil

The hardest part about relocating is the timing of trips into the perspective new job markets. Things never seem to work out in a manner that is both cost effective and time efficient. The perfect situation would be to have 5 or 6 interviews magically line up over the course of about a week, and each of those interviews be willing to wait long enough that you are able to book travel inexpensively. Alas, I've never seen this perfect storm play out, so I'm always left to try to get a little something going with at least one perspective employer, and then fly out to the area and stay long enough to at least lay some groundwork for other possibilities. Such is the case in my big push to move into the wine industry, a task that might be even more taxing than the standard job search.

This time I decided to get out in front of this whole process early. I do have a couple of people in Napa that I have been in contact with, but I certainly don't have the dream 5-6 options lined up. Despite this fact, I have booked a trip out to sunny (although I hear it's not really sunny this year) California. I will be hitting the ground in Oakland on Thursday, August 26th and will trek out to Napa/Sonoma for about a week. The plan - talk to as many freaking people as possible and hand out about a million resumés. In the two weeks that I have to work with leading up to the trip, I plan to send out yet more resumés and see if I can fill up my schedule as much as possible.

One of the best parts of this whole process has been the incredible community response to my effort. You have all been amazing in your support of this job search, and I'm thankful for each one of you who have sent recommendations, well wishes, and leads. If any of you have any suggestions of people that I should be in contact with in the next couple of weeks, I would definitely appreciate the pointers. I would also love to see some of you while I'm in the area, so feel free to give me a shout if you are in the Napa or Sonoma areas and would like to meet up while I'm there. I'll be spending a lot of time working on my job search, but I'd like to meet up with as many of you as I can. If you are in the wine industry and would like to visit with me about possible employment opportunities, my resumé is located here, and I would love to talk with you.

One way or another, all of this is going to culminate in my wife and I moving somewhere by October. The only question is where that will be, and what exactly we will be doing. I am so pumped about the opportunity to shift gears and move into the wine industry, and if hard work and passion are enough to make it happen, I'll be working in the industry I love when the dust all settles.

Image taken from businesstravellogue.com