Pasta with Kale Pesto and Oven dried tomatoes paired with a 2011 Sonoma County Chalk Hill Estates Sauvignon Blanc
Yes indeed, what’s up is I am celebrating a BIG BLOGGOVERSARY!
That would be the anniversary of this blog in November 2008! Which means I’ve been blogging for 10 years!
And this is post #636!
After attending my first Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa in 2008 with my Art Predator blog whic I started Nov. 4, 2007,, I decided to add another blog to my life, “Wine Predator” where I would focus on wine, food, and adventure!
- In November 2009, I attended the European Wine Bloggers Conference and traveling in Portugal
- In November 2010 I spoke at the California Women’s Governors Conference
- In November 2011 I spoke at the International Food Bloggers Conference.
So November is a big month for me! (Other November highlights: in 2001 I bought my house! and in 2003 my son was born!)
Over the years, I’ve also attended the Wine Bloggers Conference
- in 2009 (also in Santa Rosa),
- in 2010 in Walla Walla on a scholarship,
- in 2012 at Portland where I gave an Ignite Wine presentation on the 10 Commandments of wine blogging,
- in 2013 in Penticton BC on another scholarship,
- in 2014 in Santa Barbara, and
- in 2016 in Lodi where I presented the final talk on writing and inspiration.
And today I drove up to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend the Wine Tourism and Marketing Conference (which I also attended in Paso Robles in 2014), Next up is a press trip Wednesday and Thursday to Mendocino to learn more about biodynamic and organic wineries specifically Fetzer and Bonterra, then back to the Hyatt Santa Rose for the Wine Bloggers Conference.
What’s else is up this month?
In addition to the Wine Bloggers Conference where I will likely taste 500 or so wines in the course of 3 or 4 days??
- S 11/4 Chianti
- T 11/7 Merlot Day and Wine Marketing and Tourism Conference in Santa Rosa
- W 11/8 Tempranillo Day and Wine Marketing and Tourism Conference in Santa Rosa
- W/Th Press trip to learn about organic and biodynamic wine pioneers Fetzer and Bonterra.
- W 11/8-13 Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa
- S 11/11 #MerlotMe with Duck and Duckhorn
- W. 11/15 Zinfandel Day: Facebook live event with Lodi at 3pm and a Villa Maria twitter tasting at 5:30m
- Th 11/16 Beaujolais Day
- F 11/24 Carménère Day
So what went down this month? This 2007 Mourvedre from Twisted Oak!
I opened this wine because I started blogging in 2007 and in 2008 at the first Wine Bloggers Conference I met Twisted Oak owner Jeff Stai. Here’s the story:
A group of people were hanging out by the pool under an awning drinking wine. A LOT of wine. Looked like a fun party but I was headed to a session and I didn’t know these people. Until a very tall person asked me where I was going in such a hurry! I told him I’d be back and I was but it wasn’t until later that night that I tasted this wine, Jeff’s wine, Twisted Oak’s River of Skulls Mourvedre.
Read more about the First Wine Bloggers Conference here:
Art Predator Drinks Up 1st Wine Bloggers Conference
October 25, 2008. I’m drinking an iced coffee on a warm sunny day in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, from the lobby of the Flamingo Hotel, host of the First Wine Bloggers Conference and watching cases of wine roll by which they are opening rapidy as they set up for the next tasting of Sonoma wines. Wine bloggers wander around […]
Bloggers Conference: Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote “How To Make $100,000 Blogging”
October 29, 2008 At the last minute I heard from organizer Allan Wright that I could get into the (busting at the seams full!) First Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa, California. After dropping the Big Monkey and the small boy off at the train station so they could go south to Legoland, I jumped on Interstate 5 […]
Zinfandel Heaven
October 29, 2008 So there I was, in the Grand Ballroom of the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa at the Wine Bloggers Conference, surrounded by empty dinner plates, empty dessert bowls, empty wine glasses and empty wine bottles. My stomach too was empty. But the hotel was full, full, full, as full as the bellies in the banquet room. What’s […]
After Zin, Comes New Zealand Vin
October 30, 2008 Unfortunately, my sweet suite at the Wine Bloggers Conference at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa was going to charge me to get on line so I poured myself a glass of Mauritson’s Rockpile 2006 Zin (which I liked even better than the reserve–not as “fruity” but more cherry and better structure and balance and […]
Biodynamic & mostly organic: Quivira
October 30, 2008 Saturday morning I packed up and left my sweet zin suite at the Flamingo Hotel to jump on a shuttle with other attendees of the First Wine Bloggers Conference for a hike through the wine country…except I watched the shuttles head off into the morning without me. Fortunately, I could jump on my cell and talk […]
WiFi on the bus: only in America
October 26, 2008 There’s wifi on this bus taking attendees of the First Wine Blogging Conference to Sebastiani for dinner and a keynote address by Alice Feiring.
“Amazing,” says Elodie my seatmate.
I may be the only person blogging from this bus but here I am.
“Only in America eh?” Elodie says. She’s French and currently living in Prague. She and […]Wine, wine, wine & Alice too
October 30, 2008
“Wine, wine, wine–pass that bottle to me!” sing it to me, Sticks McGee with Brownie McGee helping out on guitar and vocals. Then on the flip side, “I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water…”
After the two blogging sessions at the Wine Bloggers Conference, it was back to drinking with a tasting of Sonoma […]My Morning Wine
October 26, 2008 At 10am on this particular Sunday, I am not in a typical church. Instead I am sitting in the Church of the Early Morning Wine Drinkers, surrounded by 8 laptops and one iPhone. The bloggers wildly tap, tip, and talk, discuss twitter and whatever else comes up in our unconference topic, “Organic Flow,” facilitated by Nick […]
Sharing the Wealth the OWC way–part 1
October 30, 2008 Recently a joke made the rounds of conservative and Republican emails, blogs, and forums calling into question Obama’s ideas of redistributing the wealth by taking an Obama supporting server’s well earned tip and giving it to a homeless person outside the restaurant (here’s my post with the full version of this story).
Sharing the OWC Wealth Part 2: Trick or Treat!
a letter…
October 31, 2008 Hey there friends and fellow wine enthusiasts!
This is no trick, it’s all treat–I spent last weekend at the First Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa and scored a bunch of open wines including a motherlode of Dry Creek Valley zin! These wines were opened Friday so they need to be enjoyed soon! Want to come […]
So what went down in October?
10 posts went up because so much wine went down! And a lot of merlot! I only had a chance to write about one so far but watch for more #merlotme this week with Merlot Day on Tues. Nov. 7 and with a Merlot centric post this Saturday.
Popular posts included:
- First place: Sat. 10/7 5 Chianti for #ItalianFWT
- Tied for First Place: Sat. 10/14 merlot me for #WinePW
- Second Place: Sat 10/21 Roussillon/Languedoc and grilled cheese!
- Third Place: Sat/ 10/7 Cantara Cellars Anniversary Party at their winery in Camarillo
- Tied for Fourth Place: Fires Strike CA Wine Country
- with Champagne Day 10/20/17: drinking stars
And of all time?
The three most popular posts of all time are — in alphabetical order–!
2016’s All Aboard for Albarino!
and from 2017? The most popular blog post so far is:
2017’s French Wine Finds for $20 and under paired with French grilled cheese
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 