I’m upgrading my hosting account this afternoon so the site might be out of commission for a time. Faster load times and better performance will be on the other side…

My last post started a great discussion about disclosure and transparency, so it is in that spirit I will write a bit about my background as a wine writer.

In short, I have no credentials. Although I have a B.A. in communications, I didn’t take any journalism classes. My MBA did nothing for my love of wine but perhaps provide a bit more income when I was in the corporate world. Nor have I ever taken a formal wine education course; not even those $25 ones offered by good wine stores. All of my knowledge about wine has come from tasting different wines over the past 25 years. I’ve also read quite a few wine books. I should also point out that my quest began with jug wines and I progressed to “fighting varietals” and it was only in the past decade that I really broadened my wine horizons and developed my palate.

From the beginning, however, I preferred New World wines for their pure fruit. My love for Zinfandel came within my first year as a wine newbie where Sebastiani Zinfandel was my main choice for $2.50 a bottle. This was back when Sam Sebastiani was still the winemaker for the eponymous family winery and this wine was a simple, but true version of the variety. For special occasions I splurged on bottles from Lytton Springs Vineyard and Ridge Geyserville. I also tried the odd bottle of Bordeaux which seemed thin and disappointing when compared to Napa Valley Cab.

Years past and my income increased to a point where I was able to enjoy better and more expensive wines. This is really where I really took a turn into wine geekdom and set the table for starting this blog and podcast in December 2004.

My tasting process for bottles reviewed normally is held in my home over a 2 or 3 day period. I use the same Riedel stemware for each wine tasted and try each wine with and without food. My notes are a composite over this period. When I taste at wineries or large tasting events, I only try the wine once. Each of these reviews should be judged as first impressions for the wines in question.

No matter the venue for tasting, all reviews presented here should be taken as just my opinion and not replace your own experience with the same wines.

A couple weeks ago I posted a poll to determine the best day to record a special listener questions edition of the podcast and tonight was the most popular choice. Since I didn’t post earlier, I have pushed out the recording two weeks in order to line up a few guests and give listeners a chance to think of a few wine-related questions.

So hold the date of April 18th at 9:00 pm EDT/6:00 pm PDT. You can join by either calling +1 724-444-7444 or downloading the TalkShoe software on your computer. The Talkcast ID is 23964. Hope to have many of you join me live and I’ll also release a higher quality recording after the event.

I’m in Napa Valley this week on business and will start to catch up on a ton of blogging here shortly. Starting tomorrow my wine Twitter feed will be very active with notes on wines tasted. I’ll also post some fresh content here.

One tip that I will pass along now is that Gaia Napa Valley is the best value in hotels I’ve seen here. Perhaps it’s the pre-opening shakedown rate this week but I’m really pleased with what I’ve experienced here so far. I’ll post a full review later in the week.

Too tired to properly blog right now… much more in a few hours.

My apologies to everyone who have posted comments recently that have been held in my moderation queue. I’ll be working on getting that sorted out this week. Until then, your comment might not be posted immediately.

Thanks!

I get a few questions each week from listeners and I do my best to answer them so I thought it would be fun to do another “listener questions” edition of Winecast. This time I’m not going to ask you to email me questions but to join me live to ask your question. I’ll arrange for a time available on TalkShoe and all you will need is a phone or to download some software on your computer. I’ll also arrange for other wine bloggers and podcasters to join me on the show so if you stump me perhaps someone else will have an answer for you.

The poll below has some days and times to pick from and I will keep this posted for a couple weeks before choosing the final day and time for the recording. Whatever wine question you have is fair game and I’ll be prepared to answer whatever is on your mind.

I’ve updated my “About” page with a “Code of Ethics” statement. This was inspired by Alder’s post on Vinography last summer and I wrote 80% of this at that time and then filed it away for later.

The impetus to finish this today was because I am opening Winecast up for sponsorship. Longtime readers will remember I signed up with Backbeat Media for podcast sponsorship early last year, but after only one sponsor in a year, Backbeat and I have come to the conclusion that we should come at this differently and part ways. Best wishes to Dave and all the folks at Backbeat who have been great to work with… if I was a tech podcaster, I’d still be with them.

So this is the soft launch of my new sponsorship program as I finish my media kit. Anyone who is interested can email me for more details at sponsor (at) winecast (dot) net. This step is a necessary one for me to create some additional income from what I do here but I don’t take this lightly as you can see in my ethics statements.

I’m working on a couple of other things to enhance this site and podcast. Stay tuned.

Last year I hosted a wine dinner with wines contributed by Stormhoek and was just offered a similar opportunty from the folks at Twisted Oak. You may remember them from Unfiltered 1 when we spoke with owner El Jefe. He’s sending his sales guy, appropriately known as “Pimp Daddy”, out here to the Twin Cities in a little over a week and was looking to get together with some locals for a dinner and wine tasting. Like the last time, Twisted Oak will bring the wine (and pay corkage) and individuals will be responsible for their food. We’ll probably be back at Zander Cafe in St. Paul, or some other wine friendly place in The Cities, and start at 6-ish.

I’ve done a bit of work on the site that I wanted to highlight. On the right sidebar are two sections with podcast and blog subscription buttons. Without getting too much into RSS, I just wanted to point out that these buttons will allow you to subscribe to this blog and my podcast using free software. The “subscription” is also free so there is no reason not to check it out.

So now the geeky background that might be useful at your next cocktail party, gallery opening or wine tasting. RSS is short for, “Really Simple Syndication.” What RSS feeds allow is for content producers like myself to make it easy for you to read or listen to what I post here.

If you want to read all my blog posts (which include all my podcasts) just use a feed reader such as Bloglines or Google Reader. If you just want my podcasts, use the iTunes, Odeo, Podcast Ready or mobilize buttons. All these services and software are free and work on both Mac’s and Windows PC’s. The best part is the software keeps up with the posts and/or podcasts for you and they are just ready for you when you want to read or listen to them.

For those who want an even easier way to read Winecast, I also offer email subscription via FeedBlitz and on your mobile phone via plusmo. There is also the old school RSS icon for advanced users.

Whatever method you choose will ensure you can read or listen to my efforts whenever you want for free without ever having to visit this site.

For the past several weeks my blog theme has not displayed correctly in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or 7. For some months there have been minor issues that have not been more than an annoyance but now the site is almost unreadable. I have decided to abandon my efforts at fixing my current theme after several hours of fiddling and switch to a completely new theme later tonight. There should be no display problems with this new theme on any web browser.

I apologize to readers who use IE to view the site. Firefox, Opera, Safari, Camino, Flock and SeaMonkey users are unaffected.

Update 2/1: It took a bit longer than expected but the theme is now in place and seems to display fine across all browsers and platforms. There is still a bit of tweaking to go and navigation to add, but enjoy.

Update 2: Safari on the Mac is not displaying correctly; I am working on it…