Vinopanion

Ward Kadel – @drXeNo: WineLog.net West Coast Ambassador & Staff Blogger

I have some very exciting news to share with my happy and wine-loving Vinopanions!  While I hinted at this news earlier this year, I can now announce the official Kickstarter campaign for the fantastic new wine store and web destination, Block122 (Twitter, Facebook, WineLog).  Founded by four BOULEVARD restaurant employees, Block122 will showcase the finest, small production producers of wine from the left coast, much of which lies along the meridian 122° west of the Prime Meridian.  These boutique wineries are those that many times, only produce wines for 1-2 small stores or restaurants, have no distribution, and can’t even provide an online web store. It is these vinous finds that Block122 will revel in sharing with you on their website with stories, videos, and a retail store; all inclusive, with all snobbery excluded.

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Welcome, Year 2013 of the Gregorian Calendar!  I am normally not one to set New Year’s Resolutions…if you want to accomplish something, just DO IT!  Don’t wait until the arbitrary date set by a Pope to change your life.  On the other hand, I happen to have a number of things in flux at the moment and today just happens to be the best day to start doing them, following some weeks of drinking wine contemplation.

First off, and perhaps most importantly for all of you Vinopanions, look for a much higher frequency of postings, including many shorter ones.  While I have been rather prolific at reviewing the many wines that I taste and receive as samples, I have not been so good lately at doing actual Vinopanion posts.  This will change and as such, the Vinopanion Facebook page will also be a lot more active.

Find out more, after the jump!

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Following the great success of the Wine Riot (#WineRiot) events in Boston, Washington D.C., & Chicago, Second Glass (Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo) is bringing their riotous event to the great cities of San Francisco & Los Angeles.  I will be front and center at both with our newest Le Wine Buff, Sam Klingberg (Twitter, Facebook), by my side as we sling the tastiest of affordable Bordeaux (Twitter, Facebook, WineLog) to the vinous masses.  The Bordeaux crew have already hit up the first three Wine Riot events this year, with my boy Sam getting his kicks in before me, repping his home ChiTown. So what exactly is a Wine Riot and how does one partake in this wine drinking tasting event?  Leave it to the crazy peeps at Second Glass to provide a riotous guide for the multitude of activities in which each vinopanion can partake.

More deets after the break!

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Oohhh, happy days are here againnn, for Pinot Days (Twitter, Facebook) is BACK again!  My imbibing readers might remember that I’m a rather large fan of this grand tasting, held each year at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, along with a few other cities around the US of A.  While it has become something of a cliché in this enlightened age of Pinot enjoyment, I truly believe that Pinot Noir is a wonderful conduit to the sense of origin that a wine can transmit to one’s happy taste buds.  As such, it is an exhilarating experience to have the chance to taste over 500 Pinot Noir wines from every major domestic growing region (and some international ones). The Pinot Days Grand Festival Public Tasting (06/16/12) provides this unparalleled comparison tasting experience along with a whole bunch mo’ coolness, each and every year. This year I can help you experience this Pinotphoria, with a handy ticket discount. More after the jump!

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I attend a large number wine events. That might even be an understatement, to which my fine readers can attest! Thus, I feel that it’s saying something to describe an upcoming wine event as one of my favorite series of wine events, ever. The San Francisco Vintners Market (Twitter, Facebook, WineLog) wine tastings are those exact events: totally fun, onsite wine purchasing available, and of course, fantastic wines to taste in unlimited amounts. And lucky readers, for round 5 (DING) of the #SFVM, I now have a fat discount so you cats can partake!

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I do a lot of traveling for wine. Just the last 6 months has seen me pop up in New York twice and Charlottesville once. Strangely enough, this means that I tend to accumulate a fair amount of wine during my travels (I know, cue the weeping and lamentations). This does tend to present a Conundrum, however. When one needs to fly these days, it tends to be very difficult to hide 750 mL of glass-encased liquid.

OK, but that’s fine, right? I’ll just check my baggage with the bottle of red stashed inside…surrounded by all of my favorite clothes because I just went to NYC for the first time. Hmm…not a recipe for success, especially as I watched the suplex being applied to my suitcase out on the tarmac. Cue: the Jet Bag.

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There are many a wine app for iOS and (growing) on Android. Wine+Tech wünderkinds VinTank, have done extensive research on iOS apps (iPhone) over the last few years with the most recent count at 450+, as of 04/14/2011. Indeed, my own content is distributed on two mobile apps, Hello Vino and Wine by the Bar. With that many apps out there for a very specific genre, you can imagine that there is a lot of noise and a lot of well, mediocre (at best) apps for wine. So, it is a refreshingly rare circumstance when one comes across an app that kicks some serious vinous booty. And the new app (iPhone, Android) from Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery (Twitter, WineLog) by MacroView Labs (Twitter) gets my vote for kickin’ that booty.

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So as it turns out, New York is a pretty damn cool place! My first time in NYC was filled with as much sightseeing, vino networking, shopping, eating and drinking as one could possibly fit into 3.5 days. I was in the city for the first time on another adventure as Le Wine Buff for the Bordeaux Wine Council (CIVB)’s Enjoy Bordeaux campaign, on a fully paid business trip. While the point of the trip was to attend the Snooth & Ziff Davis TechEnology event and talk about the full awesomeness of affordable Bordeaux wine alongside my LWB colleagues, I was determined to experience as much NYC as I could handle…and I succeeded.

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The first day waking up in Bordeaux was a slight bit disorienting for this ‘Buff. First off, I wasn’t tired despite all of my travel overnight the day before and immediately launching into almost a full day and night of awesome Bordelaise activities. Indeed, I felt so fit that I decided to go for my first run of the trip, along the riverfront that we walked the day before. Fearless Mutineer, Alan Kropf (Twitter) took up the challenge to join me in my jogging quest.

[The documentary short of the footage taken during our trip, "Meet Le Wine Buffs", has now launched! You can find it, as well as all of our 100 Days of Today's Bordeaux on the Bordeaux Wine Vimeo channel.]

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I’m debuting a new series of guest articles on Vinopanion today, starting with this fine wine accessory intro article by Zsa Zsa Bacaling of Grotto Cellars. These free guest posts will provide a bit of a fresh voice every now and then for you devoted readers who, like my family, get tired of hearing me blather on and on about my vino obsession. This first article by Zsa Zsa delivers some great advice for the newbie wine fanatic, something that I have somewhat neglected over the ~3 years of my Vinopanion writings. Cheers!

Let the right accessories add to your wine appreciation experience

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