{"id":38,"date":"2008-10-28T17:14:34","date_gmt":"2008-10-28T17:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kenswineguide.com\/blog\/?p=38"},"modified":"2008-12-08T02:27:01","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T02:27:01","slug":"luxury-sonoma-wine-reviews-and-blogger-conference-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/?p=38","title":{"rendered":"Luxury Sonoma Wine Reviews And Blogger Conference Wrap Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WineThe final day of the Wine Bloggers Conference<\/strong> in Santa Rosa started off with some breakout sessions.\u00c2\u00a0 The topics varied, but the session that I found most interesting was on Wine Reviews<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 It was decided that a single scoring system among all bloggers was never going to happen.\u00c2\u00a0 There were many varying opinions about point scoring systems, star systems, and using no scores at all.\u00c2\u00a0 I explained to the group how the KensWineGuide.com scoring system works and how I felt the scores were just a means to\u00c2\u00a0an end.\u00c2\u00a0 That end goal is and has always been to recommend only Very Good or Better wines to our readers.\u00c2\u00a0 Life is too short to drink anything less than Very Good wine.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel our consolidated consensus scoring system does just that.\u00c2\u00a0 I firmly believe that the more professionals or tasting panels that recommend a wine as Very Good or better, the greater the likelihood it is that you will be satisfied.\u00c2\u00a0 So I frequently tell readers that the most important number on KensWineGuide.com is the number of professional reviews<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 The bigger the number, the greater likelihood you will be satisfied.\u00c2\u00a0 Since the KWG Score<\/strong> is a weighted average score, those wines with the greatest number of recommendations will rise to the top of the list.\u00c2\u00a0 We also know people have different tastes and different wines appeal to different people.\u00c2\u00a0 Some folks might think the wine we recommend is Very Good and others might think it is Excellent, but you will both be satisfied.\u00c2\u00a0 If we always suggest winners, we feel you will continue to use us as your source for wine recommendations<\/strong> and your will tell all your friends.\u00c2\u00a0 That is the goal of the KensWineGuide.com\u00c2\u00a0system and I think everyone appreciated it.<\/p>\n

The next and final session was lunch and a mini tasting of luxury and hard to find Sonoma wines.\u00c2\u00a0 I recommended 6 wines from this session.\u00c2\u00a0 Four of them were from Adam Lee of Siduri.\u00c2\u00a0 Adam is a terrific Pinot producer and all of his wines are consistently well made.\u00c2\u00a0 The four we recommended were as follows:<\/p>\n

Siduri 2007 \u201cSonoma County\u201d\u009d Pinot Noir<\/strong> (Very Good)
\nSiduri 2006 \u201cTerra de Promissio Vineyard\u201d\u009d Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)
\nSiduri 2006 \u201cVan der Camp Sonoma Mountain\u201d\u009d Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)
\nSiduri 2006 \u201cKeefer Ranch Russian River Valley\u201d\u009d Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)<\/p>\n

The other 2 wines I recommended were produced by Flowers and Medlock Ames.<\/p>\n

The Flowers<\/strong> wine was their 2006 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 I scored this wine Very Good.\u00c2\u00a0 It was very smooth, silky, and elegant.\u00c2\u00a0 The Medlock Ames<\/strong> wine was their 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon<\/a><\/strong> from Alexander Valley.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a smooth and juicy Cab with many complex flavors.\u00c2\u00a0 I scored it Very Good + and would pair it with a steak.<\/p>\n

That event concluded the Wine Bloggers conference, but not my final day.\u00c2\u00a0 From Santa Rosa I headed north to Healdsburg to meet up with my cousin Kevin, Lynn, and Randy Ullum the chief winemaker from Kendall Jackson<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 We sat down on Hawkeye Mountain to re-taste many of Randy's Highland Estate<\/strong> series wines.\u00c2\u00a0 I reviewed and recommended all these wines in February of this year.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorites still remain the same as earlier this year: the 2005 Napa Mountain Cab<\/a><\/strong> and the 2006 Camelot Chardonnay<\/a><\/strong> (which is now all gone)\u00c2\u00a0 The other gems we sampled were the 2006 Grand Reserve Chard<\/a><\/strong>, the 2005 Trace Ridge Cab<\/a><\/strong>, and the 2005 Hawkeye Cab<\/strong><\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 If you have not ever experienced Kendall Jackson's Highland Estate series wines, I highly recommend that you give them a try.\u00c2\u00a0 They are a steal in terms of quality vs. cost.\u00c2\u00a0 We really enjoyed our visit and conversations on topics ranging from bottle closures, terroir, alternative energy, and the daily tasks of a winemaker.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

After our visit, we headed back to Healdsburg and Kevin & I walked around the square and tried several wines in the many tasting rooms around town.\u00c2\u00a0 I recommended 2 wines from Rosenblum and 2 from LaCrema.\u00c2\u00a0 They were:<\/p>\n

Rosenblum 2007 \u201cKathy's Cuvee\u201d\u009d Viognier<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)
\nRosenblum 2006 \u201cPickett Road\u201d\u009d Petite Sirah<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good+)
\nLa Crema 2007 \u201cLos Carneros\u201d\u009d Pinot Gris<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)
\nLa Crema 2006 \u201cAnderson Valley\u201d\u009d Pinot Noir<\/a><\/strong> (Very Good)<\/p>\n

I closed the trip with dinner at the Healdsburg Bar and Grill<\/a><\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 The food was tasty and we enjoyed our last glass of wine on the trip.\u00c2\u00a0 We also recommended it.\u00c2\u00a0 I scored the Seghesio 2007 Sonoma County Zinfandel<\/a><\/strong> Very Good+.\u00c2\u00a0 This wine sells for $24 retail and will not be around long.\u00c2\u00a0 It is that good.\u00c2\u00a0 It went great with Kevin's burger and my pulled pork slider.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I really enjoyed the Wine Bloggers Conference and my trip to Sonoma County.\u00c2\u00a0 I am already looking forward to next year's conference.<\/p>\n

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

The final day of the Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa started off with some breakout sessions.\u00c2\u00a0 The topics varied, but the session that I found most interesting was on Wine Reviews.\u00c2\u00a0 It was decided that a single scoring system among all bloggers was never going to happen.\u00c2\u00a0 There were many varying opinions about point […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,73,72,71,70,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highland-estates","category-kendall-jackson","category-medlock-ames","category-siduri","category-sonoma-wines","category-wine-recommendations","category-wine-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","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=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}