Day 1 at the 2016 Wine Blogger's Conference

WOW!!! There is no better word to describe Day 1 in beautiful Lodi, CA at the Wine Blogger’s Conference. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Lodi (this was my first time coming here), it’s located an hour and a half northeast of San Francisco.

Lodi is a town steeped in agricultural history. Most farm families in this area started out growing and selling fruit. Watermelon was the first fruit of choice. As the demand for grapes to be processed in wineries on the West Coast started to grow, Lodi farmers quickly realized that they had the ability to produce high quality grapes in large quantities. Lodi farmers, under the direction of very astute leadership, realized that they could not only produce grapes for wineries outside of Lodi but, should also invest in their own wineries, brands and labels. This created the Lodi that we know today. Rest assured though, your visit to Lodi won’t be filled with large buses and limos full of over-indulging people lining the main roads. Lodi is still a small American farming town at heart. They have great hotel amenities, a few small restaurants and a welcoming spirit that make a weekend visit here relaxing with a chance to make new friends. I encourage wine lovers to make a trip to Lodi (www.visitlodi.com).

Registration held an interesting twist – I needed to decide which one of 18 different excursions in Lodi would I attend on Friday evening. Now this wasn’t an easy choice because none of the excursions listed the name of the vineyard. All that I knew is that I would be served dinner and get to hang out with 10-15 of my new Wine Blogger buddies. With names like 99 Bottles and Clone Wars, I didn’t have much in the way of hints. Since my children have referenced our home as a chaotic symphony, I choose Three Ring Circus. The choice that I made ended up being pretty special for me in my journey as a blogger.

                                                       

                            "Three Ring Circus" - A Peak into the Evening's events

Day 1 at the conference started out with talks from Andrea Robinson (www.andreawine.com), community farming leaders from Lodi and viticulturists. Check out Andrea’s website. She is one of only 32 female Master Sommeliers in the world and she graduated from SMU so there are Texas ties! I learned how to actually blend wine under the guidance of Oakland Urban wineries Dashe Cellars (www.dashecellars.com) and Periscope Cellars (www.periscopecellars.com). The blending process was fun and I actually made a couple of wines that were well balanced and tasted great! I’ll introduce you to blending in a future blog.

Perhaps the most engaging part of the day was a Speed Blogging activity. Wine Bloggers sat at tables of 10 and local wineries from Lodi, Livermore and surrounding counties had 5 minutes to present their wines to us. I very quickly learned how to taste without drinking so as to be able to stand up straight. In 5 minutes, I had the task of tweeting my impressions of each wine. There were some pretty good ones with my favorite being the Sparkling Brut Rosé from JWine (www.jwine.com).

JWine's Brut Rose

You can read each of my tweets by following my handle @Positive_Vines on Twitter. You’ll see pictures and a snapshot of each sampling.

Now back to the twist at registration. When I chose Three Ring Circus it was partially because my children believe that that’s what I run in our home. Another thought that I had was that this may be a particular winery that I have a special connection to. For those of you who have been with me from the beginning of this journey you will know that I started my wine demos with varietals from Lodi clearly through an act of divine providence. One of my favorite Cabernet Sauvignons is Freakshow by the Michael-David Winery (www.michaeldavid.com). If you go back to my blog post of June 24, 2015, you’ll notice that the Freakshow label features a scene right from the circus – most notably Barnum and Bailey. My guess paid off and I was part of a small group of 10 who were hosted by the Phillips family – owners of the Michael-David Vineyards and Winery. It was incredible!!!

I’ll end now with a picture of some of the vineyards on the Michael-David properties.  In a future blog I will write about the Phillips family and their journey to wine making prominence in Lodi. I will share this – I chose well and was treated to an evening with new friends, good food and of course – great wine! I couldn’t have scripted it any better. Stay tuned for Day 2.

Remember to drink what it is that makes you truly happy and always think positively!

Drink Responsibly!