“Doing for Forgotten Grapes what Dancing With the Stars does for forgotten celebrities.”

Thus reads the tag line of Chris Kern’s website ForgottenGrapes.com, the purpose of which should hopefully at this point be glaringly obvious to you.

You’ve got to like a tag line like that.

Chris contacted me to invite me to one of his upcoming events in Arlington, VA, during which five different off-the-beaten-path wine varieties will be poured while Chris will “tell stories, cracks jokes, sings songs, dress up in costume, and relate each varietal [sic] to a pop culture icon as a way to introduce D.C. wine lovers to these exceptional wines that they really should be drinking.”

I don’t promote local events often enough here on 1WD – mostly because as the blog has become more successful, the chances of you not being in my general neck of the woods have increased.  But it feels good to “go local” once in a while.

I can’t make the event, but I really dig what Chris is trying to do in highlighting some of the more unsung grape varieties.  On his website, Chris pulls together fun info. about each grape including trivia and food pairing recommendations from chefs, and thoughts on the wine grape from winemakers (see an example).

According to Chris, “We’ll be pouring a dry Semillon, a Gruner Veltliner, a Carmenere, a Mourvedre/Monastrell, and a Brachetto d’Acqui. A pretty eclectic mix, to be sure, and something I really think the DC wine lovers’ community will enjoy.”

Vital details on the event are below.  If you go, I’d love to hear about the experience!

“First pour for “Getting Friendly with Forgotten Grapes” will be at 6:30 p.m. sharp Wednesday, August 18th, and the cost of the event is only $35 per person, which includes the two-hour show, generous pours of each of the five Forgotten Grape wines, and a cheese plate paired with the wine. Reservations can be made by calling Twisted Vines directly at (571) 482-8581, but please note that seating for the event is very limited and it is expected to sell out, so if you are interested in attending, call Twisted Vines as soon as you can to make your advanced reservation. Twisted Vines is located at 2803 Columbia Pike in Arlington.”

All this got me thinking about “unsung” grape varieties – the “ABC: Anything But Chardonnay/Cabernet” set.  What are YOUR fave “unsung” varieties?  Shout ‘em out in the comments!

Cheers!

The 2010 Americas Wine Bloggers Conference is nigh upon us (June 25-27 in Walla Walla, WA), and I’m getting excited to attend (despite the major pain in the ass it is going to be for me to even get to Walla Walla from Philly in the first place).

There’s a great deal to be excited about in this case – the sponsors and participating wineries will allow us wine bloggin’ types to get a deeper dive into the WA wine scene; the lovable madness of the live wine blogging “speed tasting” sessions is back (in an expanded format); friend of the Dude and Wine Enthusiast West Coast editor Steve Heimoff will be delivering the keynote; last, but most importantly, there’s the opportunity to meet with friends, old and new.

This year’s conference will be a bit more involved for me than in the past (in other words, I have to be sober on Friday) as I’ve been asked to sit (with Jeff Lefevere of Good Grape and RJ Hilgers of RJ’s Wine Blog) on the “About Wine Blogging” Breakout Session panel, specifically for the “Advanced Bloggers” session.

Which is kind of odd for me, because otherwise that was the session that I’d planned on attending.

I’m totally cool with this – and in fact I’d told the WBC organizers to feel free to consider me to help out or sit in on a panel (though I’d imagined then that it would have been the “Novice Bloggers” track or something similar) because I really wanted to try to give something back to WBC and to other bloggers this year, if I could.

I know that a lot of other wine bloggers read 1WineDude.com, and I’m stoked to go to Walla Walla to meet / catch-up with you, and if there was any chance that I could help make the experience cooler for you (outside of spending my hard-earned cash on you, of course) then I really wanted to be a part of that somehow.  I also had a great time sitting on the Social Media / Monetization panel at the 2010 Professional Wine Writers Symposium, and so I thought I would potentially be bringing some legitimate and useful panel experience to the mix.

But now… the pressure’s on, and I’m hoping that YOU can help ME…

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The latest video edition of 1WineDude.com, in which I recap. my experience at the D.C. Toast of the Town event, and wax all googly-like about one of the most awesome Ports on the planet.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Wine Enthusiast’s Toast of the Town D.C.
• Erika Strum
• The Capital Grille
• Destination Riesling
• Quinta do Vesuvio
• Arrowine

Cheers!

This Friday (June 11), Wine Enthusiast will be finishing up their 2010 Toast Of The Town events at the National Building Museum in downtown D.C., where some ridiculous number (upwards of 500) wines will be poured for you to sample.  And we’ve got a discount code for ya!

I’m always of two minds about events like these.

On the one mind – wait, that sounds terrible, let’s go with hemispheres instead – on the one hemisphere… ok, that’s crappy too; on the Right brain (I like this one better), access to so many wines (even more if you spring for VIP tix) provides a fantastic opportunity to up your wine tasting IQ, and it’s just plain fun in an overwhelming, hedonistic kind of way.  Add great food to the mix and you’re looking at a gourmand sensual overdose of awesome.

On the Left brain, it’s probably gonna be crowded, and you just know that some people are not going to be spitting, which means they are going to be drunk.

If the prospect of facing drunk wine enthusiasts (and possibly drunk wine bloggers, since I’m working on attending the event myself) doesn’t frighten you, then I’m pleased to offer you a 1WineDude reader discount to the event:

You can get $10 off Grand tickets and $20 off VIP tickets – just purchase tickets by going to www.wineenthusiast.com/toast and enter in the promotional code WD2010 during the check-out process.

Cheers!

It’s not every day that I get to shout out to my home state for something positive in the world of wine, outside of some of the wine itself, that is – usually it’s to rail against the PLCB monopoly.

In this case, the shout out is for an event that is supporting a great cause (The Fund to Benefit Children & Youth), is hosted by a kick-ass race-car-driving Italian (and now PA-resident) legend (Mario Andretti), and like its host is going for a record-breaker – specifically, an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by breaking the record for the largest ever simultaneous wine tasting.

This event is draped in ass-kicking coolness for me for reasons beyond just having my home-state show well in the wine department.

I grew up primarily in an Italian neighborhood and my ancestry is pretty much all-Italian, so Andretti is like a living legend for me and my old neighborhood buddies.  He’s also an owner of a California winery – which proves yet again that you can take the Italian out of Italy, but can’t take Italy out of the Italian, baby!

The event is being dubbed The Great Pennsylvania Wine Toast and will take place on August 14th, 2010.  Mario is serving as
the event’s toastmaster and will lead the simultaneous tasting via video at all of the participating PA wineries (which includes pretty much all of them). 

A contest is being held to select the toast that will be recited by Mario (I can call him Mario, all Italians are on first-name speaking terms after all) during the event – you can submit a toast (100 words or less) at pennsylvaniawine.com now through June 21.

This is a local event that I can (and probably will) raise a glass to (sorry, couldn’t resist)…

Cheers!

(images: pennsylvaniawine.com, mosindy.net)

The International Malbec Days Festival (May 20th-23rd, 2010 in Cahors, France) is now behind us.  Let’s take the Good, Bad and (in some cases, the very) Ugly of the festival, in reverse order:

The Ugly: Event Coordination and “Wines that Smell of Donkey Poop”

Organizing and executing a wine industry event the size of the International Malbec Days Festival, one that lasts several days and brings together well over 150 people from a dozen or so countries, is undoubtedly a Herculean undertaking, and one in which the organizers almost failed miserably.  The 2010 version, at turns, bordered on chaos.

This wasn’t great for the wines, either, as Tannic and high-alcohol Malbecs were served in a meeting space that was easily over 80F, depriving even the best from showing themselves gracefully.  The execution against our schedule was poor enough that it became a distraction, as essential personnel (e.g., those organizing the various groups of participants from hotels to the various events) by and large were given little (and in some cases, no) information needed to do their jobs.  At one point, our bus driver got lost in the 2km distance between the airport and our hotel for the final evening – and he was using a GPS system.

Score one for French logistics – that is, if the purpose is to distract you from being able to adequately work and instead is trying to break your will.  I felt bad for our handlers, who were trying to do an impossible job with almost no help from their superiors (I encouraged them to totally dookie sock their bosses, but they didn’t seem too keen on the idea) .

Speaking of dookie: as for the Ugly when it comes to the wines, a not-insubstantial portion of the Cahors Malbecs on display at the event were quite bretty – and not in a “smells kind of like bacon” charming way; they were bretty in a “did I just step in some donkey poop?” way.  Which leads us to…

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