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Joined: 3/16/2008
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 We went to Wine 2.0 Expo at the Crushpad in San Francisco the other night. Wine2.0 is part social network (Web 2.0) and part trade show, with the goal of bringing together people interested in wine for both business and social reasons. It is tough to estimate how many people attended last night. Hundreds certainly. Probably more than enough to violate fire codes. At times, it was difficult to navigate from one table/winery to the next. But everyone seemed to be having a good time, if not a great time.
 A number of the wineries that were pouring at the event make their wines at Crushpad. Lots of people make wine at Crushpad, as the picture doesn't even have half of the individual labels bottled there. Those wineries usually don’t have tasting rooms, selling only from their websites and through restaurants and retail outlets. Like my friend Bob Smith of Jazz Cellars.
There were also other wineries without tasting rooms. (Wineries big enough to have tasting rooms were the minority at the event.) My favorites from the event (some of these do have tasting rooms) included
Segue (I still can’t decide if I like Steve Yafa’s Anderson Valley or Russian River Valley Pinot Noir the best)
Round Pond (very nice Cab from the Rutherford AVA in Napa Valley)
Fantesca (where Heidi Barrett is now winemaker!)
Bink (Deb and Cindy make nice wines from their vineyard in the Yorkville Heights AVA, just southeast of the Anderson Valley)
Jazz Cellars (nice Zin and Syrah)
Midsummer Cellars (nice Cabernet from Rollie Heitz)
One other winery there intrigues me: Gundlach Bundschu. They're well established, but maybe feeling like the Establishment, not like a hot property any more. I know it's been over 10 years since I last visited the winery. Maybe they're trying to revitalize the name and image? Dir. of Marketing Susan Sueiro indicated that they've got some new marketing programs coming. We'll see. And by the way, I did enjoy their wines at the event.
 I tried wines from more than that. (Lori drove home!) Interesting event, and I’m curious how many people actually attended. And whether the wineries and other related businesses (such as Tcho chocolates, shown in the picture) found the event successful and will do it again. We had a very good time, and found some wineries we had never heard of before, with some pretty good wines. We’ll be back!
 Deb and Cindy of Bink Wines
 Tucker of Fantesca and Lori of ViciVino.com
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