There’s definitely been a ZOOM boom the past few months. During these crazy COVID days, when getting out to go wine tasting is fraught with challenges, wineries and wine educators have gone crazy with ZOOM.

At first, it was easy to keep track of the various offerings I learned about from emails, twitter, facebook, etc. But now there are so many amazing opportunities to learn from the experts about wine in free or reasonably priced ZOOM, Facebook live, Instagram and other online sessions that it’s hard to know which to do!

Of course, I’ve been participating in online wine sessions for years with Snooth, #winestudio, #ItalianWFT, #WinePW, #Winophiles, and so many more where I’ve been sent samples of wine and learned about wines from all over the world using twitter, facebook, and other platforms, public and private, to communicate.

Since the pandemic, I’ve also joined in Zoom chats. Just like any educational opportunity, much depends on the facilitator. This is where people like Elaine Chukan Brown, with her background as a college professor, have excelled. I’ve also been impressed by:

• Napa Valley Wine Academy’s quick pivot to move content online, both free and fee, and I try to catch as many of their free Facebook sessions as I can; I’ve been impressed with the affability and knowledge of the teachers in each of the sessions.
• David Glancy of San Francisco Wine School wealth of courses worth checking out–
  June 11- Intro to World Wines
  June 12- SPECIAL ONLINE EVENT: Do Points Matter? A Look at Today’s Wine Rating Systems

  June 13- Wines of Rioja & Erbo River Valley

  June 14- Chardonnay – Burgundy, Butter and Beyond

  June 14- Savvy Sauvignon Blanc – Too Cool for the Poo
• Nick Jackson’s weekly series about tasting wine blind.
• Pamela Busch who did an excellent job when she facilitated a Verotalk with Antonella of La Maliosa which I wrote about for Earth Day in April.
• Verovinogusto importer Sheila Donahue coordination of sessions from her Ventura office; I joined her for a ZOOM session when we tasted the wines of Lorenzo Corino with him while he was home in Italy.

This week, out of all of the choices that have proliferated, both live and available on YouTube, I have calendared five sessions:

• today from 5-6pm, blind wine tasting with David Glancy
• today from 6-7pm  #winestudio’s session on Lugana’s Geography
• Weds from 5-6pm with Clos des Amis (details below)
• Thursday at 2pm with Nick Jackson on discerning three red wines
• Saturday at 8am on New York’s Finger Lakes with #WinePW

On Wednesday, I will be on the other side of the ZOOM chat! Please join me virtually for the next VeroTalk when I’ll join winemakers Bruce Freeman and Gretel Compton in Santa Paula for “Old World Style Wines from the New World in an Undiscovered Part of California” on June 10, 2020 from 5:00 PM 6:00 PM. While I have no intention of being on camera, I will be there to lend a hand in whatever way I can to facilitate! And of course to sample some of my favorite wines on the planet– wines that just happen to get made a few miles away from where I live!