Holding a spit cup and tasting sheet in one hand, a wine glass and pen in the other, and cradling a sheath of papers between her forearm and chest, with her glasses sliding halfway down her nose, the wine blogger shuffled into the hallway to square off with eight wines from Maryland. Pressed around the little table to which the Free State’s vino was relegated, another half dozen bloggers were typing onto the tiny screens of their smart phones, all the while swirling and spitting. Inside the adjoining conference room, the scene was writ large as 80something wine types sampled and rated 40 or more Virginia wines. Welcome to the new age of instant wine judging: The Twitter Taste-Off.
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A couple of weekends ago, I joined five or six dozen people from across the wine industry (though most were bloggers) for the annual conference hosted by drinklocalwine.com, whose mission is exactly what the name tells you, and which this year set up shop in Leesburg. (Media were comped for the entire weekend at Lansdowne Resort courtesy of the Virginia Wine Board, which, thank you ladies and gents of the Commonwealth, are your tax dollars at work.) Drinklocalwine is a labor of love for Jeff Siegal of Texas, now known as The Wine Curmudgeon, and Dave McIntyre, who covers wine for The Washington Post. Two geekier and more enthusiastic wine lovers you won’t meet. Prior to the Taste Off, topics of concern at the two-day conference included which grape varietals thrive in Virginia and why; whither local wine in restaurants that nonetheless tout local food; and the role of social media in the wine business.
Wine writing has changed dramatically in the past decade, with blogs and social link-up sites like Twitter crashing the gates once guarded by scorekeepers such as Robert Parker and Wine Spectator. Events like virtual tastings, or VTs, are now SOP on Twitter—notes being rapidly shared to the tune of 140 characters max. Once the drink-what-you-like school of wine writing took off, it was inevitable that regionalist factions would surface, too.
Here at The Working Pour, where the philosophy “Drink local. And often.” prevails, we delight in finding the bandwagon so darn full, but while we made a valiant effort at tweeting and tasting simultaneously, eventually we gave up in favor of tasting and schmoozing. (Virginia has an abundance of personable winemakers, and, as an indication of how important this event was to their work, many of them poured at the Taste Off in person.) Our blogosphere colleagues managed well, however, with comments rapidly springing up on the big screen, such as this one from Sean Sullivan of Seattle, a.k.a. @wawinereport: “Finding lots of pretty cedar aromas on a lot of the #vawine BDX varieties.”
Ninety minutes later, the winners were announced. Breaux Vineyards led the reds with its 2002 Merlot Reserve and picked up the Media Choice award, too. Best white was the 2008 Albarino from Chrysalis. People’s Choice for best wine overall went to Michael Shaps’ 2008 Viognier.
If you want to start drinking local wine, those are three lovely suggestions.
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Big news for wine-related tourism in the state: Last week, Governor Bob McDonnell announced that the Wineries Unlimited trade show will relocate to Richmond from Pennsylvania next year. His office estimates the 2011 event will bring over 2,000 visitors and $1.5 million to the Commonwealth.
And, as promised, Claude Thibaut, the stellar sparkling winemaker, released his Virginia Fizz late last month. A crémant-style sparkler, it’s now on the shelves at local wine retailers.
