WBC 2012 Recap – Day One

I had hoped to update this every day but it just wasn’t possible. We were busy all day long and then there were the after parties … So much wine, so little time!

On Friday morning we had registration for WBC 2012 and dropped off our two bottles of wine for the “Night of Many Bottles.” Each person attending brings a bottle and in the evening they are set out and we can go around tasting everyone’s wine. The bottles are all labeled with your name and twitter handle.

After registration there was a wine trade show. Wines and wine accessories were show cased. There were wineries from all over the world. Chile, Spain, France, Argentina, Australia, Greece, etc. and plenty of domestic wines including Oregon, of course. Even Virginia wines, site of last years conference, showed up so those of us who didn’t go last year could taste their wines.

There was also a lot of good swag given away. Cork screws, T-Shirts, wine bags and back packs, notebooks and even a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir. Quite a lot of fun. We tasted many varieties of wine including eight very nice Albariño from Rías Baixas in Spain.

Along with the trade show we had brunch with wines from Argentina put on by Winebow. They had a room set up where each wine had a chef and each wine was paired with a specific dish. Scallops grilled on heated salt blocks with a Nieto Torrontes, a Catena Malbec with empanadas and many others, all with great pairings. While we were eating and tasting there was a Tango dance show in the center of the room.

Next came the actual conference opening and the keynote speech by Randall Grahm. He gave a great humorous and informational talk. One quote I remember is “We the writer think we are writing about the wine but we are really writing about ourselves.”

Next it was time to get serious about wine tasting with an event called Live Wine Blogging. It is like speed dating, only with wine. We tasted White wines and Rosés. Each winery had five minutes to tell us about themselves and their wines. It was great fun sipping and blogging. We would taste the wine, ask questions and tweet about them. All the tweets were tagged with #wbc12 and we had big screens where we could see everyone’s tweets go by. Each table ended up tasting ten wines from ten wineries, it was quite fun. Highlights were a Tavel brought by @vinesrhone and we met Wilfred Wong, the reviewer for BevMo.

All of this and it was just 2:30 PM and time to get on a bus for a winery tour and then dinner. There were several buses and you weren’t told where each bus was going. We ended up on bus eight and after some prodding we were told we were headed to Carlton which started an entire new round of speculation.

Just as we entered Carlton, however, there was a police road block and we were pulled over and told to get off the bus as they were impounding it. It was still about a mile into town so we took refuge at Carlo and Julian, the nearest winery we could find. They were kind enough to provide us with an appetizer and their Estate Albariño. It was great to have a great crisp white wine in the heat. Yes, it does get hot in the Willamette Valley sometimes, it was close to 100 degrees. Next they took us for a vineyard tour and under a big oak tree we had some great bread and cheese along with their very nice Estate Tempranillo.

By now the police had released the bus so we were able to continue our trip. We entered Carlton and went to the Tyrus Evan tasting room, a Ken Wright winery. Ken was there to meet us and gave us a great presentation on the geography of the Willamette Valley and how it affected the wines in the various AVAs. What an interesting guy! He also had a three year vertical of a Pinot Noir from the Savoya vineyard, 2007, 2008, 2009. It was really interesting tasting the different vintages while Ken described the weather differences for each vintage.

After Tyrus Evan we went to the Horse Radish, a wine and cheese bar in Carlton. They put on a great dinner with cedar planked salmon, braised short ribs, stuffed pork loin and more. Around the perimeter of the room were wineries pouring wine along with tags recommending which meal to pair them with. There were even desert wines to pair with dessert! I ate until stuffed.

We had a leisurely dinner and eventually piled back on the bus for the return trip the Portland Doubletree. The day was still not over, we had Night of Many Bottles and an after party to go to! After a brief rest, we headed to the Night of Many Bottles. There were a couple of hundred wines. Whites, reds, rosés, sparkling wines were set out and we tasted whatever we felt like. We brought a 2010 Tannat from Pasos Vineyards in Lockeford. Anthony Pasos makes some really nice wines from varietals that are not commonly grown in the Lodi area.

My goal at Night of Many Bottles was to taste wines I normally don’t get to taste. I searched for wines from other states or less common countries. I found wines from Colorado, Virginia, the state of Georgia and the Republic of Georgia. There were several other states represented and many other countries, too. Highlights were a 1968 Inglenook Charbono, a little over the hill but still drinkable and a 2010 Rkatsiteli, a white wine from the Republic of Georgia. Even though it was a white wine it had been left on the skins for a year, an incredibly tannic white!

Not wanting to miss out on anything, I headed for an after party hosted by Chris Kern of Forgotten Grapes. Initially it was a Cocktail party and Tom Plant, @wineormous, brought a Four Roses Single Barrel Kentucky Bourbon, very tasty and one of the smoothest I have ever had.

Then Jason Phelps, @ancientfirewines, showed up and brought three different bottles of Mead. I haven’t had any Mead for years so this was interesting. One of them I liked quite a bit. He also brought a bottle of strawberry wine he made himself, in his house. I am not a fan of fruit wine or strawberries but this was really good. He had great acidity so it was very clean and tasted like strawberry shortcake. Nancy had a chance to taste it at another after party and really liked it, too.

Finally it was time for bed and I called it a night. Quite a busy first day of the conference.