Damn my over-processing brain.

I was going to write about two wines that I tasted last week while I was in in Napa & Sonoma for the Wine Bloggers Conference… technically I was actually (sweltering) in Tacoma when I tasted them, but I received the wines in Napa & Sonoma…

Anyway, I was going to write about these wines when my ever-processing, never-lets-me-rest brain decided to switch it up on me.  Now, it turns out I’m writing about not getting these wines. Or, writing about writing about not getting these wines.  This will all clear up in a minute or two.  I think.

The wines in question are C. Donatiello’s Rose, and the new 2006 release of Prime Cellars’s Cab.  Both of them are very, very good wines, the kind of wines that I want to get to know and want others to get to know – small production, interesting, made by up-and-coming, passionate winemakers who are tweaking things, trying to find the right balance and improving their wines early on with every vintage.

The thing is, I’ve been wondering if I should write about these wines.

Because chances are that you can’t get them…

Read the rest of this stuff »

“Did we really tell lies
Letting in the sunshine
Did we really count to one hundred?”

- Jon Anderson, Long Distance Runaround

If you’ve been on the “global interwebs” for any appreciable amount of time, and you like wine, you’ll already be familiar with the Wine Century Club.  If not, here’s a short primer: the WCC is an organization that seeks to promote wine appreciation by offering you bragging rights after you successfully taste 100 or more wine varieties.  Download the application, fill it in, send it to the WCC, and then you’re a member.

Of course, there is the matter of tasting the required 100 or more wine varieties. 

I’ve got a buddy who I’ve known for over 30 years (since I was five years old, actually) who is not a wine geek per se, but he does enjoy wine and he loves to learn, and he especially likes collecting categorical experiences.  He recently asked me about the Wine Century Club after seeing that I was a member, generally inquiring about how to go about tasting the 100 different wine grape varieties required to gain membership. 

My buddy is not the kind of guy to get daunted by a challenge like tasting 100 different wine grape varieties, but while being a fantastic idea and also clearly in the camp of spreading wine appreciation to the masses, the WCC doesn’t exactly do itself any favors in terms of encouraging membership when it publishes this sort of warning on its website:

“It’s a simple idea, but it’s not as easy to become a member as you may think. One Master Sommelier could only come up with 82. Of the thousands of applications downloaded, less than 3% are completed. If you feel up to the challenge, have a look at the application!”

With all due respect to the WCC founders, I’ve got to go ahead and disagree on that.  I think my buddy is exactly the kind of person that should be shooting for WCC membership.

In fact, it’s my belief that anyone who wants to learn more about wine should become a Wine Century Club member.

It’s not difficult at all to do this (hell, even I did it).  It just takes patience (I said it wasn’t difficult – I didn’t say it was quick).

If you’re someone who wants to learn about wine, you’d do far worse than seek out 100 different grape varieties to try – you’ve got nothing to lose except time (and a little bit of money), and you stand to gain an immeasurable amount of quality wine experience along the way.  There is no faster way to learn about wine, after all, than to taste it.

So I thought I’d offer some advice on how you can get to the 100 and join the WCC yourself.  The competitive among you (like me) won’t have any trouble motivating yourself (“I will get me 100 grape varieties, dammit!!!”), but if you need even more incentive, how about this: did you know that one of prog rock pioneers Yes’ greatest songs, Long Distance Runaround, from their landmark 1971 LP Fragile, was written about the Wine Century Club (even though the WCC wasn’t founded until decades after the album’s release)?*  How friggin’ cool is that?!??

* – This statement has not been verified by any reputable source and is probably totally false.  But Yes kicks ass, can we just agree on that?

Anyway, onto the advice…

3 Easy Ways to Get to 100 and Join the Wine Century Club

1) Take Stock

If you’ve been drinking wine for a while, likely you have tried more grape varieties than you realize (if you suffer from having a spouse / main squeeze that only drinks one style of wine… I feel for you but you need help if you’re gonna get crackin’ on the 100).  For WCC membership, blends count, so take a few minutes to think back on how many varieties you can check off from those blended wines.  If you’d had a Southern Rhone wine anytime in the recent past, look up that sucker on the web, because you may have tasted upwards of a dozen varieties in that one glass.

2) Take a Class

Wine classes are a great way to up your wine IQ (well… duh…), but they’re also the kind of setting where you often get to try wines that are off the beaten path.  If you don’t know much about a particular wine region, it’s a great excuse to get yourself to a wine class and get educated.  It’s also an opportunity to tick off a likely more than a few varieties on your way to the 100.

3) Take a Trip

When you travel, try wine – preferably local wine.  Tasting wine in its home region, paired with its “home” food, is really experiencing wine in its natural element, and it will seriously expand your wine knowledge.  Of course, traveling is also an opportunity to try funky local wines that might not otherwise be available to you.  Here’s an example: Italy has hundreds of wine grape varieties, so a short time in Italy would get you ticking off wine varieties on your WCC application like… well… like a thing that speedily checks stuff off applications.  Anyway, if you lived in Italy, you should be able to complete the WCC application before your twelfth birthday.

So there you have it – nothing difficult about it.  Well, nothing difficult apart from having the patience to let your wine journey unfold naturally so that you experience the wonderful world that it has to offer you…

Cheers!

(images: amazon.com ,1WineDude, melaman2.com)

Welcome to the first English-language on-line wine resource created specifically for Intermediate wine lovers.

Hi.  My name is Joe, and I am the Dude behind this one-person wine-writing outfit (hence the name); there’s no list of contributing editors, frequent guest authors, board of directors, or evil overlords – just little ol’ me.  I am deeply, madly in love with wine (that makes keeping up with the tasting regimen a bit easier).  That love drove me to create this website in 2007, when I noticed that no wine websites or wine books seemed to service what I was at that time – not a total newbie to wine, but not a card-carrying Sommelier, either – an Intermediate wine lover

1WineDude.com was created to provide “edu-tainment” for Intermediate wine lovers everywhere (but wine lovers of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds and levels of knowledge are also welcome). You can read more about all of that below.  If you’re a PR or media type there’s some info for you at the bottom of the page. Whoever you are, I’m glad that you’re here!

“Now this here story I’m about to unfold…” (How This All Got Started)

There’s a big problem with the wine world today.  Most of the wine world is trying to tell you that in order to appreciate wine, you need to spend a ton of money, memorize wine rating scores from people that you don’t know, and learn names that you can’t even spell let alone pronounce – in other words, there’s a “proper” way to do wine, and if you don’t follow it you will look like an uncultured idiot.

The problem is that they’re wrong.  There is no “right” way. You don’t need to do any of those things to appreciate wine.

This website is trying, in its own small way, to help solve that problem.

Author Joe Roberts, CSW knows how to solve this problem, because he did it himself.

Joe used to be a total wine dunce.  He is now a consultant and musician in the greater Philadelphia area, authors a freelance wine column for Playboy.com (go check it out.. you know, for the articles!), and is the wine expert for Answers.com.

Joe holds the Level 2 (Intermediate, with Distinction) and Level 3 (Advanced, with Merit) Certificates in Wine & Spirits from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) in England.  He’s a member of the U.S.-based Society of Wine Educators, holding their Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) qualification.  He also holds the Wine Location Specialist (WLS) qualification from the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) and the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto (IVDP), and is a member of the Wine Century Club (but that last one’s just for geeky bragging rights, really).

“I like your style, Dude…” (Praise for 1WineDude)

 “A way out east there was a fella…” (More About Joe)

Joe has contributed to and/or been quoted in the L.A. Times, New York Times, CNBC.com, The Washington Post, Mutineer Magazine, Publix® Grape Magazine, Palate Press, Mint.com, Wines.com, Table Matters, Nomad Editions’ Uncorked and Chester County Cuisine & Nightlife; his unique wine mini-reviews (composed in 140 characters or less via twitter) have been used in popular iPhone and PDA wine applications such as Sipp, Hello Vino, TedRec and Pocket Wine Assistant.  He’s also been a judge in wine competitions (such as the Critics Challenge International, the Lake County Wine Awards, California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition, the Wines of Portugal Challenge, and the Argentina Wine Awards), wine writing competitions, and award programs (such as the Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year Award), and authors the freelance wine column Wined Down for Playboy.com.

Why does Joe write this blog? To help you to get to know wine better – how it’s made, how the industry works, and most importantly how to get the most enjoyment out of wine that you can. Every week, he strives to create the kind of content he wished had been readily available when he first was bitten by the wine-obsession bug (it doesn’t leave a welt, but it’s effects are pretty much incurable).

Show the Dude a sacred wine cow, and he’ll turn it into a roast, pair it with an obscure Italian red, and hopefully teach you a little more about wine (and entertain you) along the way!

Joe lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Kerri, daughter Lorelai Kate, and over-sized dog Brunello. When not spending his time writing bio pages in the third person, Joe plays bass guitar and digeridoo for acclaimed singer/songwriter Steve Liberace.

“I’ll tell you what I’m blathering about!  I got information!…” (For PR and Media Types)

Please feel free to download the 1WineDude.com PR primer for advertising and totally out-of-date website traffic and reach/influence information. Here’s the skinny on some questions that our PR department (a.k.a. Joe, on Saturdays) frequently gets asked:

• Wine Samples – Samples are accepted, but the right is reserved not to review them. Details behind this can be discussed by contacting Joe (contact info. is below).  Please consider using environmentally-friendly packaging options if available. Joe doesn’t review every wine sent to him – he hopes to be able to do this in the future but for now it’s simply not possible.  Note that samples received without information will not be reviewed.  Please fill-out and submit the wine sample submissions form for each wine sample sent(or provide equivalent information via press kit, etc.  Retail price information MUST be included for the wine to be reviewed). Conditions described below under “Reviews.”
• Book Samples- Also accepted, but the right is reserved not to review them.  Please note that sending the books in eBook format will mean that Joe can probably get to them much more quickly than he can printed versions. Conditions described below under “Reviews.”
• Other Samples- Also accepted, but they must be related to wine, and the right is reserved not to review them. Conditions described below under “Reviews.”
• Reviews -  Joe reviews wine samples and wine-related products, but reserves the right to write actual views on those samples and products – positive or negative.  No conditions can be accepted for receiving samples; if you have conditions, then the samples cannot be accepted, period. Sorry, them’s the breaks.
• Advertising – Wine-related advertising is accepted, however direct advertising for a particular wine brand or winery, without also including competitors and their products, is not accepted.  Did we mention that the advertising should be wine-related?  Happy to discuss your ideas for wine-related advertising on this wine-relatedwine blog (contact info. is below).
• Press releases – If you do send them, can they at least be about wine, please?  Contact info. is – you guessed it- below.
• Junkets and such – Please read the details on my policies regarding accepting samples & junkets here. Bottom line is that they’re considered, but if accepted no promises of coverage (positive or negative!) are made.

Contact Joe (e-mail, facebook, and twitter are best):

facebook | Twitter | Google+ | e-mail: joe (at) 1winedude (dot) com

Wow.

To say that I was impressed by the energy, turn out, and quality of the Wine Blogging Wednesday #51 participant posts would be an understatement.

Sort of like saying that the Grand Canyon is a minor geological anomaly. That kind of understatement.

To be perfectly honest, I was dreading (somewhat) having to carve out the time to read each entry for the event. That dread quickly turned into anticipation as my perceived labor became a labor of love.

And that is entirely due to the high quality of your posts – for those who participated, I can’t thank you enough.

Once again, Wine Blogging Wednesday drew participants from varied backgrounds, different areas of wine-world involvement, multiple countries, and represented nearly the entire spectrum of wine expertise…

For those who didn’t participate, below you are links to some great reads on a wine category that gets precious little attention these days – fortified wines – but whose expression can be just as sublime and enchanting as any of the typical, more attention-grabbing styles (for an excellent primer on some of this, check out K2′s Madeira overview at the Wine Blog).

If you’re still skeptical as to the power, finesse, and quality of baked / madeirized / oxidized / fortified wines, witness these two posts from two venerable and long-standing wine bloggers:

• Tim at Winecast.net tells us about the highest scoring wine he’s yet tried.
• Dr Debs from Good Wine Under $20 tasted the best wine she has ever tried.

If that doesn’t convince you, then you’re probably not paying attention.

Following are links to the other fine articles from the event’s participants, roughly in the order I received them.

Some revisited old faves, others tried something new, and many, many of them were pleasantly surprised by what sweet and fortified wines had to offer. If you’re thinking of taking a plunge into the world of kick-ass fortified wines, you’d do well to read these posts as they offer a great summary of what’s available to you on the market.

If you participated in WBW #51 and I didn’t link to you below, please accept my apology in advance and leave me a comment here so I can rectify the situation!

• A Good Time With Wine
• StrumErika.com
• GeneveltnSteeleSwallows
• 2 Days Per Bottle
• Catavino.net
• Wannabe Wino
• Smells Like Grape
• Anything Wine
• Under the Grape Tree
• Wine Peeps
• Pour Favor
• Bloviatrix (Go STEELERS! Sorry, couldn’t resist…)
• ChronicNegress.net
• Eating Leeds
• CheapWineRatings.com
• LENNDEVOURS
• The Wine Case
• Oenophilia (who coined the the term “Area 51 WBW”… man, why didn’t I think of that…)
• Brix Chicks
• Wine Connections
• oh, yeah, and 1WineDude.com, too (as for my penchant for Marvel Comics Super Hero references… honestly, at this point, what did you expect from my blog??…)

In case any further proof is needed that WBW #51, in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, “totally CRUSHED it,” and also stomped it, killed it, and ripped off it’s head to feast upon its supple eye jelly (sorry Gary, couldn’t resist that one either), check out the way-cool WBW #51 mention on Wine Biz Radio – you can listen to the raw TalkShoe recording below, or download the entire show.

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Cheers!
(images: 1WineDude.com gpb.org)