{"id":36,"date":"2008-10-25T12:13:01","date_gmt":"2008-10-25T12:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kenswineguide.com\/blog\/?p=36"},"modified":"2008-12-08T02:31:26","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T02:31:26","slug":"wine-bloggers-conference-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/?p=36","title":{"rendered":"Wine Bloggers Conference Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WineGreetings from Santa Rosa, CA.\u00c2\u00a0 I arrived here mid-day yesterday in San Francisco and made the hour plus ride up to Santa Rosa for the first U.S. based Wine Bloggers Conference<\/strong> being held at the Flamingo Resort.\u00c2\u00a0 I arrived a little late so the live blogging<\/strong> was happening when I arrived.\u00c2\u00a0 During that event it was announced that the bloggers\u00c2\u00a0were the second most active group on Twitter.\u00c2\u00a0 That was cool!\u00c2\u00a0 I tried\u00c2\u00a05 wines during that session and I will recommend 2 of them.\u00c2\u00a0 I scored them both Very Good+.\u00c2\u00a0 The Bink 2005 Weir Vineyard Pinot Noir<\/strong> <\/a>was delicious.\u00c2\u00a0 There are only 368 cases of this wine\u00c2\u00a0made, so seek this one out soon. (I will eventually hyperlink all the reviews\u00c2\u00a0to this post)\u00c2\u00a0 The other wine I really liked was\u00c2\u00a0“The McNab.”<\/a><\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0 It is an organic blend of 60% Merlot, 26% Cab, & 14% Petite Sirah.\u00c2\u00a0 It smooth, balanced, and a great food wine.<\/p>\n

From there we moved right into the Blind Tasting Challenge<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I was a semi finalist (one of the last 6 tasters) which was cool.\u00c2\u00a0 I guessed all but 2 of the wines correctly over the event.\u00c2\u00a0 But\u00c2\u00a0in the semifinals I missed\u00c2\u00a0on a tricky Cab that had some spice to it.\u00c2\u00a0 I called it a Syrah.\u00c2\u00a0 This was really a fun part of the\u00c2\u00a0conference and I really enjoyed it.\u00c2\u00a0 One taster compared it to the World Series of Poker for Wine.\u00c2\u00a0 Who will be at the final table? Who will win?\u00c2\u00a0 I was pleased to make the final table and participate.<\/p>\n

After this event we moved to a self paced tour of current release New Zealand Wines<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 If you have ever tasted with me, you know the pace is vigorous.\u00c2\u00a0 The results from the Sauvignon Blanc side were mixed.\u00c2\u00a0 I was expecting to recommend more than I did.\u00c2\u00a0 The\u00c2\u00a0ones I did recommend were very true to New Zealand style and varietal\u00c2\u00a0character.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is the recommended list.<\/p>\n

Allan Scott 2008 Sauvignon Blanc<\/a><\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0(Very Good+)
\nVavasour 2008 Sauvignon Blanc<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nKim Crawford 2008 Sauvignon Blanc<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nThe Crossings 2008 Sauvignon Blanc<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)
\nMonkey Bay 2008 Sauvignon Blanc<\/strong> (Very Good)
\nDashwood 2007 Sauvignon Blanc<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)<\/p>\n

As for Pinot Noir from New Zealand, I found 4 that I really liked and would recommend.\u00c2\u00a0 They are:<\/p>\n

Palliser Estate 2006 Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nPalliser Estate 2007 Pinot Noir<\/strong> (Very Good)
\nGladstone Vineyards 2007 Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nClos Henri 2006 Pinot Noir<\/strong> (Very Good)<\/p>\n

The evening closed with dinner being hosted by the Dry Creek Valley Vintners.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite wine poured during dinner was the 2004 Michel Schlumberger Estate Grown Caberent Sauvignon<\/a><\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 I scored this wine Very Good+ and found it to be the most food friendly wine poured.\u00c2\u00a0 Dry Creek Vineyard’s 2007\u00c2\u00a0Fume Blanc<\/strong> was my second favorite.\u00c2\u00a0 The keynote speaker\u00c2\u00a0at the\u00c2\u00a0dinner was Gary Vaynerchuk<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 Gary had a lot of great things to say about where wine blogging is and where it can go.\u00c2\u00a0 Gary sent a very encouraging message to the bloggers to keep it up and do more.\u00c2\u00a0 The oppurtunity is out there for tremendous growth.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Overall, Day 1 was quite a success and I look forward to the next 2 days of my trip.\u00c2\u00a0 Stay tuned.\u00c2\u00a0 Cheers!<\/p>\n

Ken<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Santa Rosa, CA.\u00c2\u00a0 I arrived here mid-day yesterday in San Francisco and made the hour plus ride up to Santa Rosa for the first U.S. based Wine Bloggers Conference being held at the Flamingo Resort.\u00c2\u00a0 I arrived a little late so the live blogging was happening when I arrived.\u00c2\u00a0 During that event it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,68,67,66,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gary-vaynerchuk","category-new-zealand","category-sonoma-county","category-wine-blogging","category-wine-recommendations","category-wine-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}