Tag Archives: wine conferences

TexSom 2011

Seven years ago, James Tidwell and Drew Hendricks had an idea. Why not get a bunch of sommeliers together for a conference to help them learn more about wine? Their plan, shall we say, was met with some skepticism.

Which just goes to show how little the wine business knows about the wine business. The group that the two men started, the Texas Sommelier Association, will hold its seventh annual conference this weekend, and it has become one of the foremost wine education events in the country — not only for sommeliers and restaurant wine professionals, but consumers as well. This is where wine drinkers who are ready to take the next step can do just that, and in a mostly friendly and unsnotty environment.

TexSom has become so successful, in fact, that the three-day event is mostly sold out. More, after the jump:

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DLW 2011: Missouri is this weekend

Years ago, when the Wine Curmudgeon was in the newspaper business, I didn't even know there was such a thing as event planning. These days, I get to do it.

That's because DrinkLocalWine.com will hold its third annual conference this weekend in St. Louis, focusing on Missouri wine. Which has given me the opportunity, for the third year in a row, to add event planner to my already long and bizarre resume. (What, I haven't told you about bagging groceries or working at Burger King?)

And a great event has been planned. My thanks to DLW's Katy Jane Bothum and January Wiese, who did so much heavy lifting, and to Danene Beedle of the Missouri Wine and Grape Board, the conference's primary sponsor. What makes it great? We have our legendary Twitter Taste-off — expanded by an hour and you get to keep the Riedel glass that you use. We have winery tours. We have wine seminars. We have the soon to be legendary Missouri Blind Tasting Challenge, in which we dare any wine snob in the audience to tell Missouri wine from California wine. So far, none of them have accepted the challenge, which isn't surprising. And there might even be a surprise or two, given my new-found reputation.

So if you're in the St. Louis area this weekend, stop by. A few tickets are still available, and they're cheap, cheap, cheap — just $35 for the Twitter Taste-off, which includes wine from two dozen Missouri wineries, a buffet reception with the winemakers and media attending the conference, and the Riedel glass. You can buy tickets on the DLW web site.