WBC09 - Oh man, that was only day one

Really unbelievable that so much was packed into such a short span of time. From the moment the conference started till right now when I am going to bed, there has been an immense about of wine. But that is what we are here for right? To taste oodles and oodles of wine.

I will get into most of the wines that I tasted and what I thought of them later in the week, once I review my notes (scattered and drunken as they are). For now let me just give you some overall impressions of the conference.

No question I am falling in with the kids table. I found that, while I might not be the youngest person at this conference, I am close. In fact, I am exactly the fifth youngest person at this conference (which has 275 people at it). Loving every minute of it.

Everyone at this conference is married, and many with children. Many I would say are well experienced individuals. I would say that the bloggers are also heavy one the website design/IT/technology side of things that have a comfortable job that allows them to buy a lot of wine and are passionate enough to write about it online. I do not think many seriously consider their blogs to be avenues to make money, and the presenter who gave us a 30 minute talk about the next evolution in their website programing might not have considered that in his talk.

There was a speed tasting portion of the day, which was a lot of fun. It was supposed to be a "live blogging" event and everyone was supposed to tweet/blog as they tasted. Unfortunately, I COULD NOT GET ON THE INTERNET! Nor could many others. I cannot say it was a bust because there were some great wines poured. Top wine was the Le Cigar Volant 2005 from Bonny Doon. I have always been a fan Randall Grahm's wines and I think he is a fantastic winemaker. The 2005 was stellar!

Tomorrow, another day of mass tasting and socializing and meeting the bloggers. I cannot image why everyone does not blog about wine...

Wine Blogging Conference - Before the Storm

Today marks the first day of the Second Annual Wine Blogging Conference in Santa Rosa, California. I was not at last year’s conference and I am excited to take part in the action.

My expectations:

I will be the youngest person in the room. I know, what a weird way to start but I find it to be true that most bloggers average about ten years older than I am. It gives me an instant disadvantage since I have had less life to taste wine, and just about all of the people at this conference will be well experienced wine drinkers - I mean tasters. There are of course exceptions.

There will be more wine here than anyone could taste at once. It cannot be helped, whenever there is such a large concentration of people interested in drinking, thinking, and writing about wine then there is sure to be an over excessive amount of wine to be tasted.

There will be a ton of people who do not work in the wine industry. It is extremely refreshing to meet people who drink wine because they want to, not because it is their job.

There will be a ton of people who work in the wine industry. These people do not just do it because they love wine; they get paid to play with wine. I count myself one of the lucky ones whose job it is to think about wine and its relationship to the rest of the world.

This will be a marketing extrrrrrrrravaganza! That is right; I expect to be marketed to. I expect the California Grape Growers to tell me how amazing the climate in California is for growing grapes. I then expect the Portuguese representatives to tell me how amazing the wines from Portugal are. I then expect to be given enough paperwork to break my back, filled with phrases like “outstanding value” and “exceptional quality.”

I expect to get drunk.

I expect to walk away feeling that I was given an amazing opportunity to meet great people who love culinary experiences, enjoy the company of some of the thought-leaders in the wine industry, and taste hundreds of wines that I might not otherwise of have had a chance to taste.

Off to the Wine Blogging Conference

That's right, off to California to participate in the second annual Wine Blogging Conference.

I have had one experience with wine bloggers and it was an eye opener. It was geektastic. They were all older than me by an averae 10 years. They got into wine through drinking it and they definitely had more experience than I had in buying wine. They were all amazing people and I feel honored to have met them.

Which is one of the reasons why I am so excited to go to California to meet more of them.

Look for more blog posts in the next few days about the people I am meeting, the speakers I am listening to, and (certainly not least) the wine I'll be tasting.

Finally Got the Tickets - Wine Blogging Conference

So I did finally buy plane tickets to go to the North American Wine Blogging Conference. This year the conference will be held in Sonoma, July 24 - 26. This will be the first time I will be at the conference and I am very excited to meet face-to-face with many of the bloggers that I have spoken to over twitter and e-mail. It is also nice to meet the person whose blog posts you read religiously.

Already around the blogosphere there is a building wave of posts about the conference. For instance, if you wanted to donate so that a blogger can go to the conference I would suggest checking out http://wbcscholarship.wordpress.com/.

Thea The Wine Brat has also posted a list of all the bloggers that will be attending, along with their website URL's and their twitter handles. You can find all of that here.

Taking a look at that list, I am wondering how I am put on the industry blogger list while there are some other winery representatives that have been put on the citizen bloggers list. Without a link to a blog! I do not want to call anyone out, especially the friends of mine in the industry, but some of the people on that list are not even in the wine industry!!

I am just saying, if you are going to break people out into groups and call them all bloggers, at least be fair about it. I noticed that on the WBC09 website they changed the list and just grouped everyone together. probably a smart move.