DrinkLocalWine will hold its fourth annual conference this weekend in Denver, focusing on Colorado wine.You can follow the fun — because, every year, we do have a tremendous amount of fun — on Twitter at #drinklocal and #colwine, as well as @drinklocalwine and @wine_curmudgeon. Yes, I will be tweeting. No, I am not looking forward to it.
All of which means it's time for a few thoughts about regional wine, what DLW is doing, and how we got here. More, after the jump:
What better way to get ready for DLW 2012: Colorado next week than with a podcast featuring Dave McIntyre of the Washington Post and the Wine Curmudgeon, DrinkLocalWine's co-founders?
We talk about the conference's history, what we'll be doing in Denver during the conference, including the seminars and Nomacorc-Colorado Twitter Taste-off, and discuss the respect that local wine has earned over the past four or five years. And we give ticket information; those of you who want to come should pay attention, since we're selling them faster than ever and headed for a sellout.
We also touch briefly on how old we are and the difficulty each of us has with drinking wine and tweeting at the same time. And Dave has to remind me to give the hash tags for the Twitter Taste-off. You can tell I'm firmly part of this social media thing.
We didn't mention the Amtrak ticket giveway, where you can win two roundtrip tickets between Denver and Grand Junction in the Colorado wine country, but it's not too late to enter. Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 17 minutes long and takes up 16 megabytes.
That's at 8 p.m. central on Wednesday night, where a crowd of people — representing wine from Texas, Maryland, Florida, and Virginia – will talk about what's going on with the drink local movement as well as DrinkLocalWine's upcoming conference in Colorado (and the train ticket giveaway). This is a Twitter event, so follow the conversation at #winechat. I'm @wine_curmudgeon on Twitter.
A big tip o' the Curmudgeon's fedora to Dezel Quillen, Virginia wine blogger extraordinarie, who put this thing together and patiently answered my questions about the format.
Lynn Krielow Chamberlain of iWineRadio has long been an ardent supporter of regional wine, and it's always a pleasure to do an interview with her. This one talks about our upcoming DrinkLocalWine conference in Denver and the Colorado Blind Challenge.
The challenge is something new this year, and part of the Wine Curmudgeo's firm belief that wine should be a specator sport. We have lined up three wine experts, who will will taste similar California and Colorado wines blind and try to tell the difference — in front of a live audience.
Click here for the mp3 version of the interview.
Tickets are on sale for the fourth annual DrinkLocalWine conference, set for April 28 in Denver and focusing on Colorado wine. All you need to know is here, along with the link to buy tickets.
We’re excited about this year for a couple of reasons (besides the usual amount of fun we always have). We’re going to stage a Colorado Blind Challenge, in which several big-time wine experts taste similar Colorado and California wines and try to tell them apart. In front of a cheering audience, no less. The other reason? The event is being held at St. Cajetan’s in Denver, which used to be a church. Which means we can get a member of the clergy to bless the Twitter Taste-off.
By the way, we’re giving this away — $35 a session, and $65 for both, which includes lunch. I got an email the other day for a similar event in Texas, and the prices start at $85. And I know they don’t have as much fun as we do.
One of the difficulties with trying to figure out where regional wine is in relation to the rest of the wine world is the Wine Curmudgeon’s natural curmudgeonliness. Yes, the National Restaurant Association can say, for the second consecutive year, that local wine is a top priorty for restaurants. But I’m the kind of guy who looks at that and tries to decide if the survey was rigged. In other words, I’m not only waiting for the other shoe to drop, but expect it to hit me on the head.
So what happens when I’m in Denver last week doing some groundwork for DrinkLocalWine’s fourth annual conference, set for the Colorado capital at the end of April? Almost complete and total enthusiasm, not only for what we’re doing but for local wine.
Yes, this is a shameless plug for the conference (tickets go on sale Feb. 1). But it’s worth writing about anyway, because the level of enthusiasm that I saw on Friday night was so impressive. We had a full house, some 30 people, for a media reception to promote the conference. And that kind of attendance happens about as often as I write nice things about high-acohol wines. Media people are notorious for RSVP-ing for an event and then not showing up; almost everyone showed up for this. Plus, a couple of TV people attended, and that happens at these kinds of functions about as often as I write nice things about the 100-point scoring system. Which, as regular visitors know, is not at all.
More importantly, everyone I talked to, and I talked to everyone, said they were excited about Colorado wine, the conference, and DLW’s mission: To let the world know wine is made in 47 other states. I had to tell the story about how Dave McIntyre and I started this thing so many times that even I got tired of it. And I can usually talk about DLW until the other person’s eyes glaze over.
The assorted print, Internet and electronic meda on hand, almost to a person, wanted to know what Colorado wine was like, where it was headed, and why we were coming to Denver to do the conference. (The answers: Much improved, and we had some excellent wines at the event from Bookcliff, Boulder Creek and Grande River; only going to get better; and because what’s going on in with Colorado wine is something that other states need to know about.)
The media were especially interested in the relationship between local wine and local food, which is something we’ve been hitting hard over the past couple of years. The local food people sometimes have a difficult time seeing that local wine can be just as local as that piece of bacon or tomato.
The best part of the evening came when one craft beer drinker, who wasn’t much of a wine guy and didn’t really see the local angle, said to me, “You know, I’m going to have to start drinking more Colorado wine. This is really good.”
How un-curmudgeonly do you think that made me?
? Score jiggling: Lots and lots of wine score news in the cyber-ether. Blake Gray has done some number crunching, and sees score inflation. Shocking news, no? My favorite was this article in the New York Times, in which the writer thinks he may have discovered how to buy really nice wine for less money — wait until Robert Parker lowers the wine's score, after Parisian retailers lower the price. It's the equivalent, he writes, of a Moody's downgrade. And any article on scoring that includes a reference to "Spinal Tap's" infamous 11-level sound system is well worth reading.
? Wine with grilled cheese: Food & Wine's Ray Isle, who knows his way around cheap wine, has some intriguing wine pairings for grilled cheese. And not just the classic white bread and American cheese version, but several more esoteric sandwiches, including one with Italian robiola cheese and mortadella sausage. Oddly, enough, the Wine Curmudgeon made croque monsieur, the French version, and tomato soup a couple of weeks ago, pairing them with the Chateau Bonnet red. Who knew I was on the cutting edge?
? Chefs love regional wine: Local wine, for the second year in a year, is one of the top 10 restaurant trends, says the National Restaurant Associaton. It's right up there with healthful meals for kids and ahead of culinary cocktails — pretty impressive, given how much ink the latter gets. I was skeptical when local wine made the list last year, but I'm beginning to see a trend, especially as we travel the country for DrinkLocalWine and see how enthusiastic so many chefs are. (Shameless plug for DLW 2012: Denver on April 28 — tickets on sale soon through the website.)
