Last Thursday, during the Web 2.0 Expo, there was an event called Wine 2.0 held at the Crushpad offices in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco. It was hailed as a merging of technology & wine that would showcase both area wineries as well as technology related to the wine industry. While there were plenty of wineries there was a lack of any interesting wine technologies sans Crushpad itself. The event was a lot of fun but it was more of a boozing, singles party than a true wine tasting.
Finally read George Taber’s Judgment of Paris,
the book that chronicles the fateful afternoon of May 24, 1976 when nine French
judges, in a blind tasting, proclaimed a California Chardonnay & Cabernet
Sauvignon superior to first growth French wines. I flew to London for a week of work yesterday
and am visiting Paris over the weekend, so I wanted to read it before I get to France.
I had a small gathering over today for the tourney games, called it 'brats & elite eight games'. I carmelized onions, grilled up red & green peppers, bbq some Wisconsin brats and made a plantain starter from a vegetarian cookbook. But my mind was reflecting on how I was the only one pushing wine, while others were content drinking beer, I couldn't stop thinking about how much more interesting vino is.
Another all day wine tasting affair. Our guide/driver, Gustavo Delucchi, has planned a trip to the Uco Valley, its up country (between the Mendoza foothills and the Andes mountains - about 3500+ feet above sea level) to Salentein, O Fournier & Andeluna wineries. I’m fired up!
A friend sent me a link to this really cool web 2.0 (for a lack of a better term) wine site called Snooth.com. Snooth allows users to create their own set of rankings, review wine, aggregates both user opinions and professional ones and create friendships with other wine fanatics. I've felt for a long time that the web needed this, and as I mentioned on my fantasy football league blog, PAFFL.com, yesterday on a post for a Indianapolis Colts social network, there is a need for passion vertical networks.
Ernest Gallo, who along with his brother, created the world's largest winery passed away Tuesday at the tender age of 97. Gallo will be remembered for his tireless work ethic and efforts to convince Americans to drink wine. He was innovative and successful creating a business empire that many calculate is worth more than a billion dollars today. The Gallo wine company is still privately held today, it employs more than 4,700 people and sells wine in 90 countries.
Last weekend the annual San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition was held in the Fort Mason Center of the city. The Chronicle event annually judges a wide range of California wines over a two day period. We attended the public event and was able to enjoy a wide range of tastings.
After a lengthy wine hiatus (my day job has been stealing my nights recently) we were able to spend the weekend in Napa enjoying harvest with friends. On Saturday we were at Farella Vineyards where the question of whether the major wine writers, in particular Wine Spectator's James Laube and Robert Parker, are changing the way Cab's are made. Tom Farella, the winemaker & proprietor of Farella Vineyards, said, when you only have two minutes to impress a critic, you need to make a quick, big impression. His opinion is the style of new world Cabs has shifted to aim for a heavy handed, 'fruit bomb' huge alcohlic effort.
As reported by Vinography.com, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) is fighting against a study that claims over 95% of wine closures by 2015 will be alternatives to cork. Their fight is with the potential cork industry demise, specifically stating that it would cause poverty, would be harmful for certain animals, would result in more forest fires and is a sustainable activity. Furthermore they claim that alternative closures are generally bad for the environment. The Vinography article on this can be found here.
A good friend recently announced a business to put together private wine tastings or parties. While I wish her the best and hope she's successful, I find it interesting that such a service business is evolving around wine, and so soon. In fact my friend, Kari, is one of many who are getting into the wine service industry - and they're leveraging the same trend. Wine sales are up across the board, and earlier this year studies showed that wine consumption surpassed beer or liquor for the first time in US history with the largest rise coming from the 20-29 year old age bracket.
So the timing is good, and for the sake of winemakers worldwide a welcome sign.
A friend sent me a link to this really cool web 2.0 (for a lack of a better term) wine site called Snooth.com. Snooth allows users to create their own set of rankings, review wine, aggregates both user opinions and professional ones and create friendships with other wine fanatics. I've felt for a long time that the web needed this, and as I mentioned on my fantasy football league blog, PAFFL.com, yesterday on a post for a Indianapolis Colts social network, there is a need for passion vertical networks. 
Last weekend the annual San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition was held in the Fort Mason Center of the city. The Chronicle event annually judges a wide range of California wines over a two day period. We attended the public event and was able to enjoy a wide range of tastings. 
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