Held each year on February 18, National Drink Wine Day is an easy day to celebrate by all wine drinkers. All you have to do is drink wine!

 According to a survey of 1000k Americans taken by National Today,

• Red wine is America’s favorite, preferred by almost half of those surveyed (42%).
• 16% of Americans don’t know anything about the different types of wine.
• 74% of Americans agree that 2 glasses is plenty.

For more survey results, fun facts, background information about the holiday and ideas to celebrate, visit the page for National Drink Wine Day.

The hardest decision for National Drink Wine Day is what should you put in your glass.
This year, I’m going to recommend you choose a SLOW WINE.

No, a Slow Wine is not one that you drink slow. And it doesn’t mean that it’s not too smart either.

Slow Wine refers to a Guide to the Wines of Italy first published in 2010 by Slow Food Editiore (Bra, Italy) where editors-in-chief Giancarlo Gariglio and Fabio Giavedoni take into consideration the quality f the wine AND the wineries’ sustainable farming practices and the winemakers’ “Slowphilosophy.” This application of the Slow Food ethos brought a new era for how Italian wines would be perceived throughout the world. Slow Wine tells the wineries’ stories from a new and exciting perspective.

Slow Wine editors visit all the cellars reviewed — and in 2020 that means 366 in Italy, 176 in California and 69 in Oregon. The guide describes the lives, the vineyards and the wines of the very best Italian and American producers and uses 273 snail symbols to show they line up with Slow Wine values, 151 bottle symbols for those with top quality wine, 53 coin symbols for top value for money. Over 25,000 wines were tasted by more than 250 contributors in Italy and the USA and 160 cellars offer a 10% discount on the purchase of their wine to individual customers who bring a print edition of Slow Wine 2020 with them when they visit.​

In 2017, editors added wineries from California, and now in the 2019 guide, editors include Oregon — and invited them to join the tour which kicked off today in San Francisco, goes to Seattle 2/19/20, Denver 2/21/20, NYC 2/24/20, and finally Boston 2/25/20.  See the list of participating wineries for SF here.

If you can’t make the tour, you can still access the book FREE. Pam Strayer, author of Organically Sonoma, served as Senior Editor of Slow Wine Guide 2020 and the new edition is available as a free download here! Or you can DRINK SONOMA organic and biodynamic wine by access info collected by Pam Strayer here at the site she has developed “Organically Sonoma.” Learn more about the project in her article about it here.

You might also try the Wine4Me ap to figure out the wine/s you will like most!

One of my favorite Oregon wineries, biodynamic Cooper Mountain is participating and as I have a bottle of their “Life” sulfite free Pinot Noir in my cellar calling my name every time I want a Pinot Noir, I might just have to open it tonight!

The tougher task is to choose a wine for “Open That Bottle Night” held annually on the final Saturday of February and this year taking place on Leap Day Sat. Feb 29! Now that I finally opened that 1999 ChateauNeuf du Pape, it might finally be time to open that 1979 Stag’s Leap Cab or that 2002 Vin de Soleil from The Ojai Vineyard. I also picked up some older York Creek wines at Grocery Outlet so if I’m not ready to let go of one of those two, I can still open something older…

I wonder what else is there that should be enjoyed on this special night??
What will you be opening? Please tell me in the comments!

PS Read about the Kosher Wine Experience 2020 global events here and Garagiste’s 2020 California events here. Soon I will be posting about the big three pinot noir events in California (March 2020), Oregon (July 2020), and New Zealand (Feb 2021)!