This week, I’m in the historic-but-tourist-friendly French wine region of the Loire, on a press trip attending the the 2012 Salon des Vines de Loire. This annual vinous showcase in Angers features about as many Loire wines as the Loire river is measured in miles (over 600). So, I’m expecting to spit… a lot (and not just at the stuff the French people say to me).

The travel could mean some slightly interrupted service here on 1WD, most likely the week after I return while I’m catching up on the three-to-four thousand things to which I will need to attend when I get back (such as hitting the treadmill overtime after indulging in what the French consider a relatively normal volume of dietary fats). I’m hitting Napa very soon after my return from France (for a ton of producer visits and my annual coverage of the madness that is Premiere Napa Valley), and the space in between those trips will largely be occupied by, I hope, sleeping. All of which is a (very) long way of saying that your patience, as always, is most appreciated!

I’d tell you more about the Salon, except I don’t actually know too much about it because their website is, putting it mildly, in the running for the least useful Internet destination in the history of the known Universe. So I thought that I’d offer up a few interesting facts about the region instead, embellished slightly 1WineDude style for your edu-tainment…

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By some minor miracle, I may actually be able to attend the New York Wine Expo in March.

For the last few years, I’ve had to miss this vinous shin-dig held at the ginormous Jacob K. Javits Convention Center because I’ve been roughly 2,898 miles away from it when it’s been held. But this year, I’ll be just getting back from the Left Coast when the NYC Wine Expo gets going… so there’s a good chance that I might see YOU there, since 1WineDude.com readers get a $15 discount on the Friday March 2nd grand tasting event, now through March 1st!

Why? Because you’re all totally bad-ass, that’s why!

The expo will be taking place March 2 – 4, 2012 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center (trust me, it’s big enough that if you get reasonable close, you can’t miss it). Over 700 wines (dang!) will be poured from nearly 200 wineries, and there will be a few wine-related seminars outside of the tastings.

From now until March 1st, 2012 when you purchase NYC Wine Expo event tickets on-line you can get your $15 discount off the Friday night grand tasting event by clicking “Enter promotional code” at the bottom of the event form (directly above the “Order Now” button), and using the code “WINEDUDE” (without the quotation marks, of course).

If you’re going (and you should, if you want to give your wine tasting IQ a serious – and quick – boost), check out my mini survival guide for getting through these big tasting events alive (Hint: Spit. A lot).

Cheers!

Wow!

You people sure do like your ZAP. Or you sure do like your Zinfandel. Or both, probably.

Between the comments, retweets, Facebook Likes, e-mails, and other versions of time-sucking on-line virtual social water-cooler spots, my giveaway of tickets to some of the ZAP 2012 events generated a few hundred reactions (with over 100 coming in the form of comments alone). That is, by far, the the biggest response to a giveaway in 1WD history! A huge THANK YOU to all of you who made the giveaway so awesome – a special shout-out to reader Leilani Carrara who put us over the 100 comment mark, and in doing so was awarded an impromptu prize (in the form of a free copy of the 1WineDude.com Tasting Guide ebook).

For those who have been playing along at home, you know that the giveaway also determined at least two Zinfandels that I will now be on the hook to review – not necessarily an easy task, since I live in the Communistwealth of PA and so do not necessarily have easy access to the wines demanded by the giveaway winners (attention PR folk: if you have samples of any of these winners, I’m willing to talk!).

And so… the winners of tix for two to a pair of way-cool ZAP 2012 events… aaaaaand their Zin picks, which I now need to get my grubby little hands on to review, are…

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This week marks the kick-off of the 4th annual North American Wine Bloggers Conference, held (for the first time in its history) on the Right Coast (Charlottesville, VA, to be exact).  And I’m excited to be attending for the fourth time.

I’m excited to see old friends. I’m excited by the fact that this year’s conference is on the East Coast. I’m excited to be moderating one of the breakout session panels.  I’m excited to see who takes away the 2011 Wine Blog Awards (even though I’m a finalist for Best Overall Wine Blog, my money in that category is on Tom Wark – like Japan in the recent Women’s World Cup, he’s the sentimental fave, after all).  I’m excited to see the keynote speakers and get a chance to talk to them again in person, because I can tell you from personal experience that they’re as gracious, talented and delightful a duo of wine communicators as ever walked the planet.  I’m excited that every year I personally know a smaller and smaller percentage of the conference attendees.  I’m excited about the whole f*cking thing.

Ok, I’m not that excited about the drive down I-95, actually. But other than that, I’m looking forward to all of  it.  Even the wine speed-dating stuff, if just to see which producers pull it off successfully, and which ones stumble and do the on-line equivalent of a vinous face-plant (dear wine producer participants: sorry in advance for the schadenfreude).  If you’re attending, then I’m excited to meet you – even if you’re that PR guy who keeps emailing me about when I’ll try your clients’ wines (your answer, by the way: I don’t know). I’m excited to see people walking around in colonial reenactment garb… and teasing them with offers to sip whatever wine I have in my glass at the time (okay, I wouldn’t stoop that low… I think…).

I’m excited because I’m a geek, I’m in love with wine the way that I’m in love with music and almost as much as I’m in love with my wife and daughter – and I’m about to go hang out with a supportive community of like-minded geeks for the better part of three days, in a beautiful part of the country, in an area where an historic-and-now-budding wine industry is trying to secure its footing in the national wine market.

I’m not sure it gets much better than that. Actually, I’m quite sure it doesn’t get better than that.  Unless vintage port will also be poured… by lingerie models in swimwear… (note to my wife: the items preceding ellipses in this sentence are, in fact, included for humorous purposes only).

But what I’m most excited about?

My past forays with VA wine have had mixed results, and there have been no shortage of people offering me but-onlys and what-ifs about those experiences.  So, I’m most excited to see if those people are right – I’m most excited to see if the VA wine industry brings its A-game to this conference.

More to come from Virginia, where the proof will be in the anti-Federalist pudding…

Cheers!