I confess I'm about to fall over. I don't know that I have ever tasted so much wine in the space of a few hours.
After the rapid round robin tasting at the live blogging (I survived!), we had just an hour before the Grand Tasting of Sonoma wines.
Following the Grand Tasting, dinner, and our next opportunity to taste more wines from Sonoma.
Our dinner was sponsored by the Sonoma wineries and the wine representatives brought a wide variety of the wines from the area. Some were on the table, and if that weren't enough, a couple of vintners did wine pass arounds at the tables.
Whew!
Good thing I paced myself. Our dinner speaker was Chris Alden of Alden Vineyards and the CEO of the company which produces Typepad, the blogging platform I use. He titled his talk "blogging past, present and future" but spent a fair amount of time looking toward the future and the merging of blogging and social media. He described Twitter as "the phenomenal gateway drug to blogging" The future of blogging, he said, will allow for what he called Social Media Optimization. I know he's right, and his examples of Six Apart's latest efforts in this direction illustrated that this could be a powerful branding tool.
After dinner, more wine--this time the After Hours Tasting featuring vintners from the Russian River Winegrowers. Though my bed was calling (okay I'm a wuss) I had to go because I wanted a chance to sample the latest from one of my favorite wineries, the Benziger Family Winery.
Blanc, a pale green/gold color with a wonderful aroma and the kind of
crisp acidity I can't get enough of. My friend Marcy,not typically a fan of Sauvignon Blanc took a sip and declared it quite tasty.
Also in the group tasting the delightful reds of Merriam Vineyards . I tried the Cabernet Franc, and the Cabernet Sauvignon. It was the perfect nightcap for me. By the way, Peter Merriam lives in Massachusetts but flies west every other week to tend to his vineyard in Healdsburg.
Tomorrow, the bus rolls out early and we head to Napa Valley.
Some were on the table, and if that weren't enough, a couple of vintners did wine pass arounds at the tables.
Posted by: vibram five fingers | May 31, 2011 at 10:30 PM