There were dozens of those little cards left, staring back at me when I opened my pack.  Cards that I should have given away to friends old and new at the Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla.  The “normal” Joe would have been handing out those cards left and right. Instead, they were practically shouting their futility – after all, what good are they to me? I already know who I am.

It wasn’t the fact that I had been in a new place for the first time, seeing new faces (I’m well used to that scenario); it also wasn’t the fact that back home one of our 100+ year-old trees came down on our neighbors garage in a fierce storm, cleaving it nearly into two (no one was hurt, apart from the trees).  The reason I wasn’t myself was that my teacher was dying.

My teacher was my dog, Sam.  He passed away while I was at the conference (if you were in attendance and I appeared out of it or seemed dismissive, please understand that it wasn’t you, it was most definitely me).

Sam was pretty sprightly for a guy in his 80s (people years, of course), still weighing in at 85 lbs. of mostly muscle.  Still fairly strong, too (he had once accidentally broken my left hand when we were out for a run).  Stubborn, too – in fact, I used to joke that I could sum up Sam’s thoughts in one sentence (“Hey guys – this is what I want to do now”).

Our experience with Sam was more Marley and Me than Lassie – he had a penchant for stealing bread, licking the icing off of cakes on the kitchen counter, eating through metal cans of dog food, and practically destroying the house during thunderstorms.  BUT… he was one of the sweetest souls I’ve ever known.

Sam taught me a lot about how to really appreciate wine (yes, I’m serious – read the post).  But his greatest lessons were in teaching me compassion and patience – the latter being something that I’ve often cited as the ‘secret sauce’ of wine blogging (and life in general, really; yes, I’m serious – watch the vid).

My only real regret is not that I wasn’t there to say goodbye when Sammy passed – it’s that I wasn’t the quickest study when it came to fully grasping all of those lessons in compassion and patience that Sammy tried to teach me.

Here’s to a friend, a sweet soul, an old teacher – long may his lessons be remembered.

Cheers!

I haven’t hosted a WBW event since November 2008 (WBW #51), so I wanted to make sure that I had a really cool theme for the event – and I think the one that WBW founder Lenn Thompson and I agreed on is pretty cool and will generate some great discussion.

The Theme

This month’s WBW theme is Seeing Red For the First Time.

To participate, you’ll need to pick a red wine that you would use to introduce a white wine drinker to red wines for the first time.  Think of a person that only ever drinks white wine, and answer the question: What Red Wine would I use to convince that white-wine-only person that they should also drink reds?

Include a review of the wine, and be sure to tell us why you chose that style of wine, or that wine in particular (or both).

We’ve deliberately kept this theme open-ended so you can go as crazy as you like in your choices.  ANY still red wine is eligible (including Rose wines, provided that they’re made primarily of red varieties).

Would you ease them into the world of reds with an off-dry Rose? Or go full-bore and knock their socks off with a classic, expensive, explosive fruit bomb?  You decide!

The Logistics

The way that WBW works (in summary): You get a wine that lines up with the theme, you review said wine, post your review and related thoughts, and send a link to the host, who will then summarize the event and write a wrap-up with a link to your review.

So, to participate in this round of WBW, post a comment to 1WineDude.com on or before March 24th (either comment on this post, or to my WBW post that will appear on March 24), and include the link to your review.

Easy-peasy-nice-and-squeezy.  Please spread the word, this one is going to be fun and has the chance to introduce many of us to Reds that we might not otherwise be trying – and that’s always a good time!

I know that I’m looking forward to reading what you come up with!

Cheers!

(image: matteogonet.com)

Who’s a Big Winner today?

YOU’RE a Big Winner today.

No doubt that the wide world of wine media is awash in well-weathered year-end recaps (not too mention consonation!), with thoughts about the wines and wine-related happenings of a 2009 that has nearly gone by.  While I enjoy the year-end recap thoughts as much as the next guy or gal, I’m not going to provide another look-back wine list or article review, mostly because I already have those posts published and can’t fool you into reading another one because you’re too smart.

No, I just want to tell you how lucky you are this year, wine-wise anyways.

Yeah, YOU.  You’re one lucky S.O.B.

Look at it this way: Was 2009 perfect when it comes to wine?  Of course not.  But consider this:

You have access to more wine of higher quality and for lower prices than at any other time in the history of the world. 

You also have access to more sources of quality information about wine (and all aspects of how it is made, distributed, etc.) than ever before.

So, you not only can get great wine for a great price, you also can gain as much knowledge about wine as you’re hungry for, at almost no cost to you.

Think about that for a second.  Most of you reading this have more opportunity when it comes to wine than your parents ever dreamed of.  Unless you’re like 14.  In which case, you should know that I do not have reviews of Peppermint Schnapps on this website.  And no, I am not going to buy some for you at the liquor store down the street.  Look, kid, just buzz off already, will ya?!?

The cherry-on-top of this have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario is that the price of entry for your say in the growing wine conversation (which can positively influence where the wine industry goes in 2010 and beyond) is approximately $0.00.  In short, you have a wealth of wine knowledge available at your fingertips, and as they told you at the end of the G.I. Joe cartoons in the mid-eighties, "Now you know, and knowing is half the battle."  And knowledge, as we all know (ha-ha!), is power.

In other words, who’s the big winner after the wine trials, tribulations, travails, and victories of 2009?  YOU are, my friend, you are.

So, as we draw the curtain on 2009, take a moment to toast yourselves, as you are potentially the most powerful influencer of the future of wine.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

(images: bargreatharry.com)

Put your high-school chemistry goggles on (you know, safety is paramount, right?) and join me today on Corkd.com for a look at the wine flaws.

I’ve been asked by Cork’d to contribute to their Cork’d Content feature, which showcases original content from different wine bloggers each day on a variety of wine topics, with the goal of adding fun, informational / educational wine content for Corkd.com users.

I’m excited to be contributing to  Cork’d and to be apart of the vibrant wine-reviewing community over there.  I’ve also been thoroughly enjoying the articles already posted at Cork’d that were written by friends of mine, like Robert Dwyer and Hardy Wallace.  

My article focuses on the particularly egregious  wine flaws that, while not common, nonetheless create unforgettable moments of awful stinkiness that can abruptly and totally destroy your wine-drinking  experience if and when you do encounter them.

Should be fun!

Cheers!

A hearty shout-out to Randy and Kaz, the hosts of the excellent KVSY radio program and on-line podcast Wine Biz Radio, were very kind in mentioning and discussing my recent post on how to better appreciate wine despite the light-speed pace of how we consumers tend to evaluate our purchases these days.  The WBR podcast also includes an in-studio interview with August Sebastiani, and a phone interview with uber-social media man Gary Vaynerchuk to discuss his best-seller book Crush It – so it’s worth a listen even if you have no interest in what they they had to say about my recent article (of course, if you have no interest in what they had to say about my recent article then I’d seriously question why you’re spending any time reading this article, but hey, it’s your time…).

The podcast is titled Leaving The Nest, in reference to the Sebastiani boys going out on their on in terms of their wine brands, but I found it eerily suitable to the short discussion that Kaz and Randy had about my post.  Randy called it “the best wine blog post ever” – a bit too superlative, even for me, but I was honored and touched by the sentiment.  Especially considering that I almost didn’t run the article because I felt I didn’t quite catch the vibe and continuity in it that I was aiming for – so it almost became a throwaway piece. 

Leaving The Nest – that really sums up how I feel after publishing the posts on the virtual pages of 1WineDude.com, because I never really know where the conversation is going to lead after an article has gone live.  And I love that.  I love that I could never, ever predict a reaction like Randy’s, or the types of challenges, stories, anecdotes, questions, and insights that I consistently read from the comments made by 1WineDude readers.  By people like YOU.

Honestly, it’s the dialog with you that keeps me going on this blog. That and the opportunity to drink nice wine while outlaying the smallest amount of cash possible.

I mean, I try to respond to as many comments as I can, because the main difference between wine blogging and printed wine media is the fact that no article is “finished” when it’s posted on a blog – it’s a discussion, and evolution in which you take part and in which your role is essential to teasing out the most interesting aspects.  It’s an aspect that is impossible in printed media, it’s what makes blogging unique, and it turns an otherwise “finished” statement into a jazz composition – I lay out the framework, and you guys and gals add the solos, the tempo and key changes; YOU are the ones who really make it come alive.

So, whenever you get the chance this week, when you’re sipping some wine with dinner or are out at a bar with friends, let’s raise a glass together – Here’s to the opportunity to continue to make kick-ass, beautiful wine blogging music with you for a long time to come!

THANKS!

And that is, the rapid-fire assessment, review, and perfunctory judgment of any given wine.  We are judge, jury and executioner of the glass’ contents, often within the span of two minutes.

We see this happen all the time – in fact in some cases (like certain Twitter Taste Live events, or the “speed dating” wine blogging at the Wine Bloggers Conference), it’s encouraged and necessary.  I often participate in and have grown to love those events, provided that we don’t take them too seriously.

And we shouldn’t take them seriously, at least as far as true wine appreciation is concerned.  Why?  Because every glass of wine, from the pedestrian to the sublime, is speaking to you, trying to tell you something about itself – you need only take the actual time to listen to it.

In the case of many wines made in the ‘Old World’ style (what my compadre Randall Grahm calls Modernist), where typicity of place and nuanced complexity are the goals, that message may be “Come back later.”  New World (Postmodernist) wines usually (and probably unfairly) fare better in rapid-fire evaluation scenarios, precisely because they more often offer their treasures quickly and liberally – “Hey! Over here! I’m talkin’ to YOU!”

In a globally-connected, information-based economy like ours, we are progressively programmed with positive reinforcement to spend as little time as possible on something – in fact, we’re rewarded for doing many things at once, and the more quickly we can shove them into the same time slot, the better.

The trouble is, if you want to appreciate wine fully, you need to dump the Speed Racer + Multitasking Pro persona.  Pronto…

The strange (and wonderful) fact is that you owe it to the wine in your glass to give it your full concentration, even if only for a minute or two.  It will, I promise you, tell you something during that time – you need only have the patience to listen.

How is it that you come to owe a glass of wine anything? Well, you know how people often quip that “everything happens for a reason?”  They’re right.  Sort of.  The Universe has, though a series of progressive events, lead you to this moment, with a glass of that new wine in your hands.  The journey that the wine itself has taken to be in front of you is a kind of miracle, from bud to grape to fermentation vessel to bottle… and let’s not even get into the dust of the stars settling to Earth from the Big Bang to create the molecules that eventually came together to form your glass.

And no, I am not drunk right now – the entire history of the Universe is coming together in this moment between you and that glass, and the meaning of life in any given moment is that given moment. So how could you not owe the moment with that glass to at least some degree?

If that’s too much Zen Wine for you, then here’s another take:

I often hear from budding oenophiles that they “could never pick out those nuances in a glass of wine” and that is best left to some sort of trained professional, as if they were scared of extending a gas line as part of a DIY home project.  It’s times like these when I need to suppress the urge to deliver a Chuck Norris-style roundhouse kick to the side of their faces (that would be rude, of course, since it would likely spill the wine in their glass).

That approach is total crap – if it was legit, it wouldn’t warrant the Chuck Norris face kick.  Anyway, if you pay attention, that wine in your glass will tell you everything that you need to know about it. No license required.

Paying attention to that wine, with total focus, will do more for your wine appreciation skills than reading 5 years worth of any wine periodical. 

So put the Chuck Norris smackdown on your wine multitasking!

Cheers!