{"id":37,"date":"2008-10-26T14:22:29","date_gmt":"2008-10-26T14:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kenswineguide.com\/blog\/?p=37"},"modified":"2008-12-08T02:30:41","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T02:30:41","slug":"reviewing-wine-at-the-wine-bloggers-conference-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/?p=37","title":{"rendered":"Reviewing Wine At The Wine Bloggers Conference — Day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WineFor most attendees of the Wine Bloggers Conference<\/strong>, Day 2 started off with some vineyard walks lead by our\u00c2\u00a0conference organizers\u00c2\u00a0Zephyr Wine Adventures<\/strong><\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 I understand that everyone had fun.\u00c2\u00a0 I did not go as I have a vineyard visit planned for Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead I set up some winery visits to review some wines.\u00c2\u00a0 I started the day early with a visit with Adam Lee<\/strong> over at Siduri<\/a><\/strong> and Novy Family Wines<\/a><\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 Adam & I\u00c2\u00a0tasted 14 wines.\u00c2\u00a0 The wines were very impressive.\u00c2\u00a0 Adam does a terrific job and you should seek out his wines.\u00c2\u00a0 I recommended 13 of them.\u00c2\u00a0 The 14th wine was just a little too young as it was a 2007 Pinot which we agreed would make more sense to\u00c2\u00a0review in early 2009 closer to its release.\u00c2\u00a0 The highlights of this tasting were as follows: (I will eventually add the links to the reviews when they are posted)<\/p>\n

Siduri 2006 “Santa Lucia Highlands” Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nSiduri 2006 “Garys’ Vineyards” Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Excellent)
\nSiduri 2006 “Clos Pepe” Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nNovy 2006 “Judge Family Vineyard” Grenache<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nNovy 2006 “Napa Valley” Syrah<\/strong> (Very Good +)
\nNovy 2006 “Page Nord” Syrah<\/strong> (Very Good+)<\/p>\n

All the other wines were scored Very Good and were recommended.\u00c2\u00a0 Look for the reviews in the coming weeks on KensWineGuide.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My second stop was at Dutton Goldfield<\/a><\/strong> & Balletto<\/strong><\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 I tasted through the wines with Chay.\u00c2\u00a0 I recommended 2 Dutton Goldfield wines & one Balletto wine. They were:<\/p>\n

Dutton Goldfield 2006 “Dutton Ranch” Chardonnay<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nDutton Goldfield 2006 “Russian River” Zinfandel<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)
\nBalleto 2006 Gewurtztraminer<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)\u00c2\u00a0This is one of the best Gewurtz’s I have tried recently!<\/p>\n

My next stop was over to Carol Shelton Wines<\/a><\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 I meet with Carol & Mitch Mackenzie.\u00c2\u00a0 We have covered and recommended may of Carol’s wines in the past.\u00c2\u00a0 On this\u00c2\u00a0visit we went thru 4 wines that I had not tried in the past.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00c2\u00a0recommended all of them.\u00c2\u00a0 They were:<\/p>\n

Carol Shelton 2004 “Maple” Zinfandel<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)
\nCarol Shelton 2005 “Maple” Zinfandel<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nCarol Shelton 2005 “Karma” Zinfandel<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)
\nCarol Shelton 2006 “Rockpile” Petite Sirah<\/strong> (Excellent)<\/p>\n

The Petite Sirah was the best wine I have tried on the trip so far.\u00c2\u00a0 You should call the winery and get on the waiting list for it.\u00c2\u00a0 It should be released to club members soon.\u00c2\u00a0 We also did a couple of barrel samples of future Petite Sirahs.\u00c2\u00a0 I would suggest you stay tuned and keep an eye on Carol’s Petite releases as she has some gems coming up as well.<\/p>\n

Then it was back to the conference for 2 very interesting breakout sessions.\u00c2\u00a0 The first session was on increasing visitors to your blog.\u00c2\u00a0 The panelist shared some very good ideas with the conference\u00c2\u00a0attendees.\u00c2\u00a0 The first and\u00c2\u00a0most important message\u00c2\u00a0was to have good content.\u00c2\u00a0 For my perspective, that means quality wine reviews for you my readers.\u00c2\u00a0 The second session was on making money off of\u00c2\u00a0your blog.\u00c2\u00a0 It was also a good session and my take away is that you might not get rich, but we all have to eat and drink.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0So we might as well do something fun, share our thoughts, and make a little money along the way.<\/p>\n

The last 2 events of the day were a Grand Tasting of Sonoma Wines and dinner over at Sebastiani Winery<\/a><\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 At the Grand Tasting I found 5 wines that I would recommend.\u00c2\u00a0 They were:<\/p>\n

Inman Family 2006 “Russian River” Pinot Noir<\/strong> (Very Good)
\nQuivera 2006 “West Creek Ranch” Zinfandel<\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nSeghesio 2005 “Venom” Sangiovese<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nCharles Creek 2006 “Las Patolitas” Chardonnay<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good +)
\nCharles Creek 2004 “Pasatiempo” Merlot<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)<\/p>\n

Finally, we closed the evening with a wonderful dinner in the barrel room over at Sebastiani Winery<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 This was a time for networking,\u00c2\u00a0and enjoying great food and wine.\u00c2\u00a0 My 2 recommended wines were the 2006 Barbera<\/a><\/strong> and the 2005 Secolo<\/a><\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 Both were Very Good.\u00c2\u00a0 I am looking forward to day 3 and a wrap up of the conference.\u00c2\u00a0 Stay tuned for details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most attendees of the Wine Bloggers Conference, Day 2 started off with some vineyard walks lead by our\u00c2\u00a0conference organizers\u00c2\u00a0Zephyr Wine Adventures.\u00c2\u00a0 I understand that everyone had fun.\u00c2\u00a0 I did not go as I have a vineyard visit planned for Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead I set up some winery visits to review some wines.\u00c2\u00a0 I started the […]<\/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":[12,43,66,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pinot-noir","category-syrah","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\/37","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=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}