In 2008, Jeff Siegel, founder of the popular Web site The Wine Curmudgeon, and Dave McIntyre, wine writer for The Washington Post, founded DrinkLocalWine.com as a way to focus more attention on the other 47 states that make wine (i.e. not the COW states: California, Oregon and Washington). Since then, the duo has hosted conferences in Virginia and Texas, educating Americans on wines from these regions. And come the first weekend of April, they’ll be at the Doubletree Westport in St. Louis to tout vino from grapes grown on vineyards here in Missouri.
The Drink Local Wine Conference will feature a slew of intriguing sessions Saturday, April 2, such as the creatively titled, We don’t need no stinkin’ vinifera. Other sessions include: Creating a buzz: How regional wine can grab the public’s attention and Does Locavore = Locapour, featuring our own Glenn Bardgett of Annie Gunn’s; Ann Pollack of St. Louis Eats and Drinks; Debra Grace, owner of Grace Manor; and Todd Kliman, author of The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of American Wine.
Also on Saturday, conference goers can join in on a Twitter Taste-Off, featuring 24 Missouri wineries. Yours truly will be tweeting from the taste-off (@saucemagazine using conference hashtag: #dlwmo) as I try to identify a California wine among the group of Missouri wines in a blind tasting. Those successful in ferreting out the West Coast interloper will have their taste-off fee refunded. Then, on Sunday, experience Missouri wines and terroir firsthand with a winery tour hosted by St. Louis Eats and Drinks’ Joe and Ann Pollack.
“The growth of the regional wine movement has been phenomenal,” said Siegel, who started his Wine Curmudgeon web column over a decade ago to shed the mystique shrouding wine. “Wine is made in all 50 states and the number of wineries in Missouri has almost doubled since 2005.” But what about all that prejudice against local wine? ?”More people, and especially younger people who didn’t grow up with rules about what wines are OK to drink, appreciate regional wine and don’t see it as something to be avoided,” he noted.
There are several affordable ticket packages available for the conference, starting at $35. For more information and to register for the event, click here. Can’t make it? Follow me at the Twitter Taste-Off @saucemagazine using conference hashtag #dlwmo.
This article appears in March 2011.