It fascinates, and frightens me as to how small the world is really getting!  Everyone seems to be talking about or addicted to using the new internet based company “Twitter”. For those that haven’t heard about Twitter, don’t worry you are not alone. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that I have 3 daughters that are all part of the Millennial age group, I would have learnt of it either.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s  profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known  as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by  default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via  the Twitter website, short message service (SMS) or external applications. The  service is free to use over the Internet, but using SMS may incur phone service  provider fees.

With this type of technology at my finger tips, I now have the ability to access and communicate with many wine drinkers simultaneously via their computers and / or a hand held communication device.  As such, I have decided to start a monthly interactive  wine tasting program.  Dates and times will be posted 2 weeks before the tasting  and I will provide you with the locations of retailers and restaurants where you can purchase the wines in order to participate in the tasting.  As well, at select retailers around the country, complimentary tasting will be offered of these wines and in addition, free Internet access will be provided at these location so that you can share your thoughts about the wines as you taste them.

 Interested?  Your first step is to register on Twitter at http://twitter.com .  After you  are registered, add Stags Hollow Winery as a follower to your profile and become one of our followers.  It is a simple as that!  We can then talk about the wines that we are drinking together and exchange our thoughts about them.  

Our first tasting date is tentively planned for the end of June.  Time, date, and location information will be posted on the blog and Twitter as soon as confirmed.

“Wine in itself is an excellent thing.”
Pope Pius XII Airen

Dwight

Yet another Spring Wine Festival has wrapped up and our SHV Assemblage event was a big success.  All participants commented on how much they enjoyed the event and many felt as though they were leaving the event with a more complete understanding of the blending process.  

During the planning the event, I had thought that it may have been more appropriate to have used the components of  a Meritage blend (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc) to demonstrate the assemblage blending process but now that the event has passed I am so glad that we used only the components of our Renaissance Merlot.  The reason being is that you would expect the pieces of a Meritage blend to be different, after all they are all made from different grapes, but by only using Merlot the participants were forced to hone in their senses and they were able to recognize for themselves the differences that can exist between different lots of a single grape varietal.

Based on the success of the event and your feed back, we plan to do it again next Spring.  I hope to see you there.  Enjoy the collage of photos from the weekend.

“Penicillin cures, but wine makes people happy.” — Alexander Fleming (1881-1955),

the Scottish bacteriologist credited with discovering Penicillin in 1928.

Dwight