On Saturday December 13 we had our first Wine Questers Tweetup Tasting. Three of us from the Twitter wine community met for lunch at Gerre Vineyard and Winery’s wonderful cafe. We then proceeded to taste and micro-blog our impression on … Continue reading
WineDiverGirl made a blog post about wine bloggers and wineries working together. Famous, or infamous, Wine Enthusiast writer Steve Heimoff cut up her thoughts on his blog. I posted this response on Heimoff’s blog and would like to share it … Continue reading
Last weekend, October 24th – 26th, we had the first North American Wine Bloggers Conference. It was held at the classic Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa north of San Francisco. It is a fine hotel and the location in the … Continue reading
Wine is all about emotion and connection to people, food, and place. A place could be a dining room, tasting room, vineyard picnic, romantic restaurant, or wherever else. As I’ve blogged before, context heavily influences taste. Out of curiosity I … Continue reading
I’m sure that most wine bloggers sense that the days of wine subject dominance by the old media gang of Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Parker, etc. is coming to a slow end. Many California vintners definitely want their influence to … Continue reading
I sense a bubble. Only a couple of years ago $18 a bottle was commonly available in tasting rooms in most California wine regions. Now $26 is the lowest price almost everywhere. Winery tasting rooms are being added to all … Continue reading
The American Association of Wine Economists met for their 2nd annual conference in Portland, Oregon on August 14-16, 2008. For the full article in Wine and Vines, the industry news Web site, please visit their Article about the conference. A … Continue reading
During 2006 Katya and I visited dozens of tasting rooms and did ethnographic research while tasting. We wanted to blend into the environment and observe people’s habits, preferences, and activities. We paid no attention to their wine preferences, only how … Continue reading
Hard to believe that this wasn’t allowed before since many wineries offer wines-by-the-glass and most let you buy a bottle to consume in a picnic area. So last Wednesday Arnold signed a law to let us do this legally. Good … Continue reading
Katya and I are currently entering the data from our GPS mapping and winery data collection trips last fall (2007). We visited about 600 wineries with tasting rooms regularly open to the public, our initial criteria, and we have about … Continue reading