DLW13: What’s next for local wine?
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
The best news from Drink Local Wine ?s fifth annual conference over weekend in Baltimore is that the local wine movement is, finally, about more than wine geeks. It ?s about local, and that ?s as it should be.
One of the things that always flummoxed us during DLW ?s early years was the antipathy that local food people felt for local wine. I ?ll never forget the phone conversation I had with a prominent Missouri food blogger when I invited her to the 2011 event in St. Louis. I could almost see her turn her nose up: ?Why would I want to drink Missouri wine
More, after the jump:
That attitude, thankfully, is changing. We saw it at the DLW conference in Colorado last year, I saw it during my recent trip to the Texas Hill Country, and it was one of the key points during the conference, which focused on Maryland wine. Richard Auffrey (whose hats are as spiffy as mine) wrote that a Maryland chef who attended the event was there because he didn ?t know enough about local wine. It ?s a good thing I wasn ?t there; if I had heard that, I probably would have caused a public spectacle.
Even better: There were 400 people at the Twitter tasting, an unfathomable number for those of us who remember the doubt and uncertainty of the early days. That ?s 400 people who paid money to taste local wines on an early spring afternoon when there were 20 million other things to do. I ?d have caused a spectacle about that, too. And, as DLW co-founder Dave McIntyre wrote, the conference was Twitter ?s top trend, besting Tiger Woods ? two-stroke penalty at the Masters and Kobe Bryant ?s ruptured Achilles tendon. I did cause a spectacle at the house when I heard that.
Finally, as David White noted in his post on Palate Press, Maryland ?s wineries realize they are in this together. ?Every winemaker I chatted with seemed more interested in promoting the industry as a whole than talking about herself, ? the idea that what ?s good for one Maryland producer is good for all of them, and for regional wine as a whole. That ?s another battle we ?ve been fighting for five years.
The local wine movement is in good hands, because it ?s in the hands of people who care about local. There is nothing better than that.
Amen, Curmudge!
Ditto that! Exciting to see this ‘drink local’ movement evolving…
DLW13 was an excellent event. You were missed. The good news – I ate your share of the lamb belly served and likely drank your share of MD wine as well 🙂