Learn About Wine Event
Wednesday, February 8, 2006 23:01As part of our wine event giveaway, I was invited to attend the event and got permission to shoot some photos, explore the event, sample the wines and talk to the vintners. It wasn’t such a privileged position though; other than having my entry comped, all of the other guests had the same access I did. I got in for ‘free’, but I think I can give an unbiased account regardless.
I arrived at the Roosevelt a bit early, I wasn’t sure how parking was going to be and finally sucked it up and paid the $10 ransom across from the hotel. Being a Hollywood outsider, I’ve never stepped foot into the trendy venue, but I have to say, it’s a cool spot. LearnAboutWine had taken over the entire second floor event room, as well as an outdoor patio and small room above the pool. Spread out on the perimiter was vintner after vintner from Napa. Each was pouring samples from at least two different kinds of their wines, and some reps had up to six different offerings.
One of the my favorite characters of the night was Marketta Fourmeaux du Sartel, pictured on the right, above. Mrs Fourmeaux is a firey half Scandanavian, half French woman with a strong pride in the quality of her grapes and the soil that they grow in. She didn’t seem to care much for tedious nomenclature that gets tossed around at wine tastings. As she poured me a glass of the Chardonnay VGS, she asked me: “do you know what the VGS stands for?” I did not. “It stands for “Very…Good…Shit!” And it was. “If it doesn’t taste good,” she said, “it’s just S”.
Another character from the night was a rep from Silverado Vineyards who explained to his audience that Sangiovese is extremely acidic and powerful. “The only thing more acidic,” he told us “is the water in the pool… and I don’t suggest you drink that… unless you fall in”. Hrm, something to keep in mind.
I wouldn’t say that there were abundant food offerings, but there was a nice spread of cheese, fruit and crackers in the middle of the room. When I first entered, I saw a crowd around the table, scooping up the good stuff. “That display will be skunked in 20 minutes” I thought to myself. I was wrong though, the plates were restocked throughout the night.
When you couldn’t make it to the food, the food came to you. Friendly caterers walked around with a few bite sized munchies including spanikopita, mini cheese pizzas and vegetarian eggrolls. You would have a hard time making a meal out of the passed appies, but there was enough to keep something in your belly and soak up some of the alcohol.
Wine, food, and of course, music. The DJ was pumping out some mellow beats to flow over the crowd. One of the more entertaining moments came when an older gentleman stormed over to the DJ from across the room and demanded that he turn down the music. The room was enormous, and the DJ was pushed in the far corner from most of the activity. The DJ and I had a bit of a laugh at how riled up the guy got over something fairly minor and if he turned the music down much, it would have felt more like a cafeteria.
Overall, though, the mood was incredibly light and both the guests and the winery folks were having a great time. There were people who were intent on savoring the different wines, feverishly writing down notes and making sure that they made it to the vintners that they wanted to taste. There were groups of people who were more content weaving their way to one table, filling their glass then meeting back in the middle of the room for more social time. The two groups melded well and everyone was enjoying themselves (how could they not with so much wine flowing freely).
Our host for the night, Ian Blackburn (pictured below, right) pulled together a great event. There were two tiers for entry, $75 got you in at 8:00PM and gave you easy access to all vintners. $30 got you in a half hour later and although it got crowded (I heard that 500 people were attending), it was manageable and I doubt anyone had to wait more than five minutes to engage one of the reps. Either choice, it was an economical and fun way to try a lot of different wineries in one night.
By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.