I’ve got some huge news for you fine wine-&-travel-lovin’ folk!

This November, I’ll be co-hosting a wine-soaked jaunt to Rioja wine country with esteemed wine writer Ben Weinberg. And hopefully, YOU will be along for the ride!

I’m pretty stoked to be working with Ben on this, and for the opportunity to show you the vinous, cultural, and culinary wonder that is Rioja.

There’s much I could write about the awesomeness that will be encountered on this tour, but the high-level summary is that by joining us, you will get the insider, VIP treatment in Rioja wine country, without having to do an of the work (wine writing, reviewing, spitting) that Ben and I normally have to do to get the same. Score!

You can check out all of the details at http://www.wineontheroad.com/spainwith1winedude.php. If it whets your appetite / blows your skirt up / etc., then download the Preliminary Itinerary and Booking Form to get started. You can, of course, always contact Ben or me for more details. For more on Rioja in general, take a gander through the past here at 1WD land. A bit more detail about our upcoming Rioja jaunt is available in video form below after the jump.

This is going to be an entertaining, informative, and incredibly FUN trip. You’ll need to prepare your wallet, your mind, and your liver for this incredible jaunt…

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I don’t mean here that if you lick a wine expert (something I do not recommend, unless you happen to be Heidi Klum and the wine expert you plan on tasting is me) they taste like chocolate-covered hazelnut while you taste like a dog coming out of the rain.

I mean, are wine experts hard-wired to taste wine in a fundamentally different way than you are, physiologically?

Sound crazy? Well, crazy or not, that’s the conclusion suggested by results published in a recent issue of the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, from a study performed by John Hayes (assistant professor of food science) and others at (WE ARE!) Penn State. Even NPR jumped in on this action despite the study results not having been repeated yet (see “Most Of Us Just Can’t Taste The Nuances In High-Priced Wines” – not that they’d stoop to using an incendiary title that insinuates the conclusions as unalterable scientific fact or anything gimmicky like that…).

The coverage of the study at PSU.edu is pretty sparse, and open to some rather gaping critical holes, but assuming the results hold up to further scientific scrutiny they will bolster the controversial position taken by Master of Wine Tim Hanni (and others) that individually we perceive wines differently based on a number of factors, some of them physical.

To the tape, quoting Mr. Hayes (emphasis mine):

“While learning plays a role in their expertise and other factors matter, such as how they communicate their thoughts and opinions on wines, some wine experts may have an innate advantage in learning to discern small differences in wine.”

The most interesting thing about this study? For my money, it’s the further implication that reviews from wine experts are actually even less helpful to the general public than previously thought…

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Ladies and gentle-guzzlers…

I’m pleased to announce that 1WineDude.com will be hosting Wine Blogging Wednesday #75 (holy crap! seventy-five?!??) on Wednesday March 21st!

The entire idea behind WBW is to get YOU involved, tasting, and talking – so please share and retweet the living hell out of this because it’s only going to be as awesome as YOU make it (and you don’t do anything un-awesome, right?).

And let’s not even get into how awesome it is to be part of something that has run on-line for 75 consecutive months. Sh*t, most wine brands probably don’t last 75 consecutive months these days!

WBW 75’s theme is “Singles Night” – which does not mean that you should be drinking alone (not that there’s anything necessarily wrong if you do… we’re not judging you here…); it means we’re going to taste and talk about wines that come from single vineyards. One of the most special aspects of wine is that I can connect you with a particular time (a vintage) and a particular place on earth (a vineyard). Few other foodstuffs can offer such magic, so on March 21st we’re going to go big for numero 75 and celebrate both.

Here’s the skinny on how you can participate in #WBW75 “Singles Night”…

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The first thing most people over the age of twenty-five think of when you ask them to name a song about wine is probably UB40’s Red Red Wine, which is ironic because they’re all totally drinking beer in the vid for that tune.

In a similarly ironic case of music-meets-wine creative worlds colliding, the band I’ve been playing in for… well… for a long time (some of you will remember us as the dudes who recorded a rock version of the Snow Miser/Heat Miser song, and a reggae/dub take on the Oompa Loompa Theme – we’re kinda into the holidays), has just released a video (available for your viewing pleasure below, after the jump) for a tune titled Wine Kissing Days.

The ironic part: the song is about the social pleasures of sharing wine (a near-constant theme among these virtual pages), was filmed in part at local PA producer Chaddsford Winery (which has been profiled here) BUT… apart from playing bass on the tune I had nothing whatsoever to do with it. More on that in a minute or two. Also, since we know that the music played during wine tasting impacts the qualities that people recall about the wine, if I were a tasting room manager I’d buy a few copies (you know, like, 10,000 or so) of this song. Just sayin’.

Anyway, you can hit up iTunes to grab the tune (and the album from which it comes, “Tricky, Seabass & the Hun” – and damn, it sure makes me feel old to even talk about the conceit of an album at this point), but I’m giving away a copy of the new Steve Liberace Band CD (another near-ancient conceit!) to three lucky randomly-selected commenters!…

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