My Wine Education

All the News ...

This is a week of news. I have a couple of announcements here and there. We'll start with the least of them.

If you haven't visited in a while, there's a new look and feel as of today. This is really the half-way point in the Big Redesign. I'm still on Typepad, but when time permits, I'm switching to WordPress. The new WordPress template has Cartoon Michelle (seen above), but a lot more grape vines a little bit of everywhere. It's a little cleaner too. But we're halfway there.

My graphic designer for all this awesome vineness and cartoon me was John Rizzo, who as far as I know doesn't have a web site showcasing his amazing art. I love his penchant for swirly bits. And cartoon me is pretty darned cool.

More news a-comin' down the pike, so hold on to your hats.

Big News: BlogHer Panel

If you're in the blogosphere, and female, you know that BlogHer is sort of the end-all be-all of blogging conferences. It boasts an amazingly huge number of attendees (not all women, by the way) and a wide range of topics.

This year, I've been asked to speak on the Food Blogging in Time of Recession panel at the July BlogHer conference in Chicago. I know, I'm not a food blogger. But what's food without wine? I'll be speaking, I think, on both finding Recession Wines as well as how to be a wine (and food) blogger during a recession. It sort of cuts back on fancy dinners and such - unless you're a bit creative.

Being asked to sit on on of these panels is a big honor, and I'm thrilled to have the chance!

I'm lucky enough to grace the panel with "Crockpot Lady" Stephanie, Hetal Jannu from Show Me the Curry, Deborah Hamilton of Lunch in a Box, and Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes. 

Because the other bloggers on the panel are more specialized in home cooking, I'm hoping to talk about both how to find those recession wines, but also (with a little coaching from Julie at Wine Me Dine Me), I hope to offer some ways to eat out on a budget - including finding a sweet spot on a wine list. 

Welcome Hoperatives!

Logo from Hoperatives

Kevin & I want to welcome our good friends Tom & Carla to the alcohol-blogging fray. Tom & Carla are avid beer lovers (they guest-posted for us in the past) and are channeling that beer devotion into blogging.

The new site is called Hoperatives, which should tell you that they're serious about their beer. You can still get Kevin's beer reviews and such on this site (also accessible through beer-guy.net), but Tom and Carla will be taking it further on their own blog, even touching occasionally on home brewing.

Welcome!

Technical Upgrades

There's been a slight technical upgrade at my blog host, Typepad. You and I both reap the benefits.

There are a lot of great back-end features that make my life as a blogger a lot less hassle. But the commenting feature has changed as well, and it's rather cool. You now have no reason not to come make comments!

Comments are now threaded. This means you can reply to someone else's comment. I can't tell you how fantastic that is! So if Ed says something that Jane wants to respond to directly, she can.

The comment form has changed a bit as well.

What's different? Well, first off, your comment is amazingly important, so you can write that first. URLs in your comment will be automatically hyperlinked as well. Once you get your thoughts down, then you can enter in all the fun information like your name, email (not displayed), and your own URL. As usual, you'll still have to enter a CAPTCHA code to post (anti-spam mechanism), but you will get a chance to preview before posting.

Finally, you can optionally sign up for a free Typepad Profile that will show your photo and previous comments as part of your post. It's pretty cool, albeit not required.

Now, if I could just find a graphic designer willing to donate their mad designing skills to improving the look and feel around here, we'd be set!

Wine-Girl.net's Virtual Thanksgiving Dinner: Local Blogger Edition

Kevin and I are having a virtual (er, imaginary) Thanksgiving dinner with some of our wine friends. Yesterday, our retailer buddies arrived first, with some amazing wine favorites in tow. In this edition, our local wine blogger friends make a big entrance, and they've brought some big wine with them. 

I asked each of them to "bring" their favorites for Thanksgiving dinner. You'll see that their tastes vary a lot, proving that there is no right or wrong. Drink what you like, just like your local wine bloggers.

We've invited Tim Lemke from CheapWineRatings.com, Mike Rosenberg from The Naked Vine, and Jonathan Seeds from BestDrinkEver.net.

Tomorrow, you'll get favorites from your host and hostess here at Wine-Girl.net, just in case you're curious as to what we'd offer our guests.

After the jump, find the outstanding blogger choices.

Welcome & Thanks!

I wanted to say thank you  - both to Liquor Direct and to my readers. Everyone made this weekend's tastings a rousing success!  It was great to meet many of you! I had such a blast. I wish I do that all the time. I'd give up my "real" job in a heartbeat.

I also wanted to say Welcome! to anyone who is dropping by to read the blog because they discovered it at this weekend's tastings. It's good to have you! I don't post everyday, but I try to post fairly often. I also don't always review wine, but sometimes offer reviews of local restaurants, as well as news about local wineries and restaurants. Always think local and eat local!  You can learn more about me and my husband Kevin here. Thanks for dropping by!

Blog Synchronicity

It's odd when you can have two unrelated posts that go together very well in hindsight. The example of this would be the "Game On" and "Restaurant Not Required" posts from yesterday. Looking a little deeper, it looks like the intent of the Wine Spectator snafu was to add publicity for an upcoming book and had slightly more to the story than had been previously mentioned.

Wine Spectator added their side of the story to their forum here and it turns out that Goldstein fulfilled all the requirements that Spectator checks to confirm the existence of the restaurant: website, Chowhound, phone number. A little more work than just submitting the forms as he implied on his blog. Also it looks like the 15 wines he highlighted were just part of the 256 wines submitted of which 53 were rated higher than 90 points on their archaic numerical scale. Full Disclaimer: I still prefer our pictorial approach here at My Wine Education.

So good news for everyone. People who dislike "The Speculator" get ammo as there was a miss by the magazine in presenting the award, Goldstein gets extra publicity for his book, the blog-o-sphere gets all wound up over half a story, and Wine Spectator lovers get to point out how no one gives the magazine any love by going off half-cocked with only half the story. I guess it's all part of the marketing/publicity game and I don't have to like it, especially when no value has been added to my life. I will still read WS, but then again I'm a sucker for pretty pictures.

Well played, Internet. Game on.

More can be found with Mark at Uncorked or Alder at Vinography

Wine Festival Post Recap: Festival Years Past

To help you prepare and get into the spirit, here are some of our posts from the Wine Festival in years past:

• 2007 Int'l Wine Festival
• 2007 Quick Review
• 2006 Int'l Wine Festival
• 2005 Int'l Wine Festival

Bloggies Awards

It's like the Oscars for blogs, and the certificates are handed out at the remarkable SxSW Festival in Austin in March.  I don't believe I have a chance in hell, but go ahead and nominate me if you feel so inclined. I know that I could stand a nomination in any (or all) of the following categories: Best Kept Secret, Best Food Blog, and Best Topical Blog.

http://2008.bloggies.com/

The blogs with the most nominations get submitted to several panels of judges who then select their favorites. Once those are narrowed down to 5 per category, then open voting begins again to select each category winner.

While you're nominating, don't forget to nominate some of your other favorite blogs as well. For instance, for Best Written Blog, I didn't hesitate to nominate Alder of Vinography. Cincinnati needs some great representation in there too, so don't forget all our local bloggers of all topics.

Cheers!

Upcoming!

All sorts of happenings in the next two weeks!

Tomorrow I hope to get you a post on Bouquet, a new wine bar in Covington. Next week, I hope to get you information on 20 Brix, which is a new wine bar in Milford. I'm excited about both locations. Sometime in there, I still owe you information on our Arizona winery visits, as well as next Wednesday's Wine Blogging Wednesday tasting.

UPDATE: View our post on Bouquet Wine Bar & Restaurant.