What I learned in Walla Walla

The Wine Blogger’s Conference 2010 was a whirlwind. A delightful, delicious whirlwind of wine, people, laptops, twittering, clicking cameras, great food, networking, and more. I learned a lot, probably even more than I know, and had a ridiculously good time. I’d say the only thing that was missing was time to exhale. I say that as I’m sitting in my motel room in Richland, WA with a door to a small balcony opened wide yielding views of the Yakima River, sounds of boats and me exhaling.

To give you a taste of what it was like to be here, and what I learned, here’s a few things that pop to mind:

1. 300: As in 300 wine bloggers in one place is quite the experience. The uniqueness we each brought combined with the passion that lives in all of us. Holy schmolly!

2. Jackpot Bus: To those in the know, it’s actually #jackpotbus, which is a Twitter hashtag and a way that folks can find each other on Twitter. Saturday morning was outing time. Each of 300 got on a bus not knowing where they were going except that it was to 3 wineries over 5 hours and included a vineyard tour (and wine tasting), a panel at a winery with 3 wineries present (and wine tasting), and a winery visit with lunch (and wine tasting). Our first stop was Figgins Vineyard as in Leonetti. Yes we were visiting, walking around and tasting Leonetti with one of the Washington State wine pioneers Gary Figgins and his son Chris. To say we felt blessed would be an understatement. All this excitement led to feeling lucky and the creating of group talk on Twitter in the form of #jackpotbus. After arrival back at the hotel, it led to a short group walk to a nearby market for purchase of … lottery tickets! We didn’t win, but the feeling lucky part lives on.

3. Chef Jeff: Presentations throughout the weekend covered writing, video, how to blog, wine & food, … Chef Jeffrey Saad presented on wine & food combining and rocked it. Animated, running around, passionately ranting delicious ideas of pairing wine and food kept the room zoomed in. In the name of pairing possibilities, a wine & food tasting of a dozen delightful pairings followed the talk . Jeffrey was the runner-up on last year’s The Next Food Network Star. I like his energy, style, ideas, and of course his first name.

Speed Tasting, being interviewed by Luke from WineCountryBC (posted in the not too distant), and meeting Lynette from probable ConsciousWinery to be Solena were amongst highlights of an action packed weekend.

The 2011 Wine Blogger’s Conference will be in Charlottesville, VA and I’m already looking forward to reconnecting with so many new friends. Cheers!