Live Blogging the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference

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So I’m going to do the full Wine Bloggers Conference experience here with a live blogging of some White and Rose Wines.

We’re getting an update on the weekend’s schedule. I should be getting started in a moment…

First up is Andy Hicks from CalNaturale with an interesting wine in a tetrapack.

So I’ve actually decided to log the wines instead of writing in the blog. I’ll paste a wine list short code here, which should update with the wines as I taste them. Refresh every 5-10 minutes if you’re reading this in real time.

The Wineries of Master Chef’s Joe Bastianich

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tritonoKim and I are catching up on back episodes of Master Chef. One of the judges, Joe Bastianich, remarks in the opening about his 24 restaurants and 3 Italian wineries. I decided to try to figure out what and where those wineries were and if any of the wine is available online.

The Wineries

The first was pretty easy to find. A quick Google search brings up Bastianich Winery,a 70 acre winery in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. (Joe’s mug is on the “People” page.) They make a 100% Friulano white wine and 7 other wines. The Friulano varietal, named for the region, is one I had never heard of. The Bastianich site says:

Friulano is the most typical white wine in Friuli, the northeastern region of Italy. it is an indigenous grape variety grown in Friuli for hundreds of years. Our Friulano is produced in the Colli Orientali area of Friuli, an area known for its unique terroir and where world-class white wines of Italy are produced.

So to find the other “two” wineries, I checked Wikipedia, which says “Bastianich has established three wineries: Azienda Agricola Bastianich in Friuli; La Mozza s.r.l. in Maremma, Tuscany; and in Tritono Mendoza, Argentina.”

That first winery listed seems to be a longer name for Bastianich Winery. Must be an Italian thing.

La Mozza s.r.l. in Maremma, Tuscany, has their own website as well. The same picture of Joe is on the “People” page of this site… along with Mario Batali. Celebrity wineries! (Lidia Bastanich, a celebrity in her own right, is also listed on the La Mozza and Bastanich Winery sites.)

La Mozza has a red and a white wine listed on the site. Aragone is a red blend (40% Sangiovese, 25% Alicante, 25% Syrah, 10% Carignan). Perazzi is a Morellino (85% Morellino [the local name for Sangiovese in Maremma], 5% Syrah, 5% Alicante, 2% Colorino, 3% Ciliegiolo).

Tritono, the last winery, is in Mendoza, Argentina. Tritono makes a Malbec with a kick ass label (to the right). From the site:

In the glass, the intriguing dark scarlet hues foretell of depth and character Cinnamon and allspice dominate the nose with hints of plum skin and succulent prune. A first sip reveals a mélange of plum, prune, black cherry and hints of orange zest. Underlying flavors of fresh straw and wild mushrooms mingle with earthy, mineral nuances, nicely complementing the intense cherry and plum finish.

Get me a glass!

The Wines

To find the wines, I used what else but Super Wine Search to see if any of these were available online. And they are! Follow the links below to find some merchants offering Bastianich wines.

The Future

Wikipedia also says that Joe has “recently acquired the Brandini Estate in La Morra, Piedmont, Italy.” You can find some wine available under that brand/region. We’ll see what Joe does with it. In the meantime, we’ll be watching Joe school some noobs on Master Chef.

Let me know if you’ve tried any of these. Find them on WineLog and log them. Cheers!

Great Wines at BacchusSelections.com

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I wanted to give an update on Bacchus Selections, which is offering some great wines right now… at crazy low prices.

First up is the 2003 Chateau Moulinet Lasserre Cabernet Franc, which is selling for $29.99/bottle. DrXeNo gives it 4 stars and says…

Color: Medium to dark garnet with brick tones in the core, more brick garnet, medium dark edges.

Nose: Big red cherry note shere, but also some more dried cherry tobacco with a bit of earth and driest coffee, followed by drier leather.

Palate: Medium full, with an extremely smooth and sensual mouthfeel. Great balanced acidity that adds a touch of brightness to the cherry tobacco and dried cherry fruit, along with some definite flint in the mid-palate out to the cool finish, that touches on some more earth, leather and dried cassis. Very good, older style with this hint of age now: OldWorldWK.

I give it 5 stars. Probably because I haven’t been able to drink much wine lately, and this was a fine fine specimen. It’s the kind of wine you can really go to school on trying to figure out the complexity. Pick up a bottle now.Buy 3 and get free shipping.

Next up is the 2008 Chateau Pontet-Caillou Pessac-Leognan. This one is just $19.99 (about 37% off retail) and represents a good value. Ward says give it some time to age. So if you have fridge/cellar space. Pick up some of this. 4 bottles to get free shipping.

DrXeNo gives it 4 stars, and says

Color: Medium ruby, lighter ruby edges.

Nose: Toast and light Brett, breadiness to the toast, drier black fruit and black cherry, followed by a nice, flinty minerality.

Palate: Very smooth and chalky mouth, with fine, but still quite structured and slightly bitter tannins, but they add savory herbs to the mid-palate. Slight Brett also adds just a bit of interest to the all black, brighter fruit, alongside low level toast and charred tobacco with anise. Needs some time to continue to integrate, has good aging potential.

I haven’t had a chance to open my bottle yet, but am looking forward to it. I’ll follow up with my impressions once I get a taste.

Please take a look at Bacchus Selections. Sign up for the their free mailing list to be notified of future offers. I know that their wine selectors are top notch and prepped to find some nice deals in this market.

For disclosure purposes, you should know that Bill Loftus, CEO of WineLog is the primary owner of Bacchus Selections. And Stranger Studios, the developer behind WineLog, is the main developer of Bacchus Selections as well. We’re running ads for Bacchus Selections on the site. And we got these samples for free. DrXeNo and I are as unbiased as always, but take this all into consideration.

Rewards for Logging Wines. Friends of Rutherford Hill.

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Friends of Rutherford HillHow do you like the sexy badges awarded on the site when you log wines? Did you know that they aren’t just eye candy? Many of the badges come with rewards.

Many badges will reward you with free shipping at the winery website or 10-30% off your order. Others will link to downloadable ringtones or tickets to wine events.

Log and wishlist some Rutherford Hill wines to earn the Friends of Rutherford Hills badge.

I’m Speaking at WordCamp Columbus, June 18th at 11:30am

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I’m excited to say that I’ve been accepted as a speaker at WordCamp Columbus this coming Saturday. I was a last minute addition… so thanks to the WCC folks for working that out. (Shout out to Angie Meeker: @angiemeeker / blog)

My talk is on “Licensing and Business Models for Premium Plugins”, which is a fancy way of saying “How I plan to make money with Paid Memberships Pro“. Sadly, the event is all sold out, but if you are going or able to squeeze in somehow, I look forward to seeing you there.

More info on the schedule: http://wordcampcolumbus.com/schedule/

Thanks WordCamp Columbus Sponsors: http://wordcampcolumbus.com/sponsors/

VinPass Has Launched

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VinPass

If you use this site at all, you’ve noticed the VinPass badges that are awarded to you when you rate or log certain wines. This feature has been in beta for a few months now, but is finally officially “launched”.

To view all the VinPass badges in play at WineLog, visit the badges page.

VinPass is a cross-site platform, working with the Drync and Hello Vino apps/sites. The launch has gotten some good press on ReadWriteWeb, 1WineDude, and other blogs.

We’re proud to be in such good company, and we look forward to what the future holds for this platform.

Let me know what you think of the feature. If you have suggestions. Which badges are you most excited about? (Some offer prizes)

Fix for WP Page Tree Plugin in WP 3+

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The WP Page Tree plugin is a nice plugin. It shows a tree view of pages in your WP site… but it’s been broken since about version 3 or so.

I’m sure there are other tree view plugins that work well, but I liked that one. And it is actually an easy fix to get it working in WordPress versions 3+.

The issue was that the links generated in the tree view pointed to the old admin URLs for editing pages (page.php?action=edit&post=#). The new more generalized URLs for editing pages is (post.php?post=#&action=edit).

So, what you want to do is find line 404 in wppagetree.php (of version 2.8 of the plugin) and change page.php to post.php. That’s it. The whole block of code around there should look like:

if ($public) {
	// Create our own link to edit page for this ID
	$out .= "<a class=\"$pageStatus\" href=\"$pageURL\">" . $pageTitle . "</a>";
}
else {
	$out .= "<a class=\"$pageStatus\" href=\"" . get_bloginfo('wpurl') . "/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=$pageID\">" . $pageTitle . "</a> <a style=\"font-size: 10px;\" class=\"$pageStatus\" href=\"$pageURL\">#</a>";
}

Or download this zip here which has version 2.8 of the plugin plus that one fix. I may upload it to the WP directory sometime, but then I’d have to maintain. Feel free to do it for me. ;)

Download: page-tree-fixed.zip

Disable the WordPress Admin Bar for Non-Admins Only

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Here is a variation of some code I found on Yoast.com to disable the WP admin bar for non-admins only.

function yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings() 
{
?>
	<style type="text/css">
		.show-admin-bar {
			display: none;
		}
	</style>
<?php
}
function yoast_disable_admin_bar() 
{
	if(!current_user_can('administrator'))
	{
		add_filter( 'show_admin_bar', '__return_false' );
		add_action( 'admin_print_scripts-profile.php', 'yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings' );
	}
}
add_action('init', 'yoast_disable_admin_bar', 9);

Just copy and paste this code into your functions.php or another plugin/theme file that can add hooks. Save/upload and watch it work.

Let me know if you have any trouble using this.