Author: Josh

DipWSET, Certified Sommelier, garbage person.
Tasting

Verdicchi-oh no she betta don’t

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Two of my goals for this week were to type up the following tasting notes on the Lugana DOC tasting from the 2017 Wine Bloggers Conference and to also prepare for the first portion of the Italian Wine Scholar course next week. It’s dawned on me that the first month of 2018 hasn’t even ended yet and I’ve become that cliché of a bright-eyed person entering the New Year, biting off more than he could chew. Bitch, or not: I’ve got a bottle of wine and an empty Sunday. Let’s do this.

I’m still going solidly on my book-reading goals for this year though, and for some reason I decided book #3 was literally going to be a fucking textbook on whisky.… read more

Tasting

An Albarin-ho tastes Albariño

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The new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3 means that me and my friend from Barcelona are starting up our weekly podcast again, y’all. He’s originally from Northwest Spain, so when I’m drunk and drinking Rías Baixas – made from the Albariño grape – I always send him a message that I’m drinking juice from his birthplace, even though I sense his mild exasperation when he reminds me he’s not exactly from the region the grape is grown.

My excitement for this Wine Bloggers Conference seminar very much stems from the fact that my access to any extensive selections on these wines was cork-blocked back in Canada, where vintages were not fresh, options were few, and prices were inflated. … read more

Tasting

Swiping left and right on flavour profiles, 2017 edition

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Fourth year at the Wine Bloggers Conference and I still haven’t tapped out of the speed blogging portion, you guys! The chaos was unbeknownst to me during my first year in 2014 and I was confused why people chose to skip the session and eat fries at the neighbouring restaurant instead.

The rules to this WBC mainstay are simple: the wine representative has five minutes to pour you wine and talk about it. At the same time – and if you’re playing the game to its fullest – one takes notes, snaps photos, and maybe thinks of something witty about the wine to tweet in that moment. There are ten rounds in total. Speed dating! If this is Tinder for wines, is there a Grindr for wines?… read more

Tasting

Santa Barbara, Santa Claus, and the CWAS Exam

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I feel like I’ve gone full circle: the first vineyard I’ve ever been to was in Santa Barbara. Here I am with the last class of the California Wine Appellation Specialist program studying the same sub-region, along with the weird loose ends like wines from Los Angeles county, whose appellations all seem to have “Malibu” tacked somewhere in their place names.

It’s odd that I consider the end of a course dramatic enough to something that completes a full circle, but I said it once and I’ll say it again: school is bae. Already looking into more courses, you guys. God damn, tuition. What the fuck is a savings account? If the gayest wines are rosés and Champagnes, it follows that I should probably sign up for the master-level Provence or Champagne courses with the Wine Scholar Guild.… read more

Tasting

Gay wine culture: the uncontrollable urge to pair Arroyo Grande wines with Ariana Grande

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The stroke of December leads to the dawn of pregnant holiday plans which I’ve decided to not spend in Vancouver for the first time. Christmas, the first of my big two, has passed – and I planned for the Eve to be a quiet one, and it was legitimately fantastic. Why don’t I roast vegetables more often, while listening to Ariana Grande’s Christmas music, and then watch episodes of Grand Hotel while sipping Crémant? I spent the 25th at a friend’s, a polar opposite yang to the previous night’s yin. Ever watch someone combine your Premier Cru Champagne with Korbel, but then have your cringe melt into a shrug because it’s Christmas? Yeah.

And then the other holiday evenings. Y’all. One night involved all of attending the opening of a new exhibit at the GLBT Museum, attending a fantastic art exhibit at Strut, and then drunken shenanigans for a friend’s birthday.… read more

Tasting

Putting the Rain in Monterey’s Thermal Rainbow

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It’s a partial shame that I was in the USA for Canadian Thanksgiving and in Canada for American Thanksgiving. I didn’t get my fill of holiday food – and I’m not headed back to Canada for the big holiday extravaganza (much to the discontent of my colleagues and family) – so I’ll have to make do, and I’m not mad at that. Huzzah! Maybe my mind will change (it won’t), but nothing sounds better than eating take-out, drinking an entire bottle of Champagne, and binge-watching feel-good movies.

But yes, Canada: I’m perpetually unafraid of rocking my combination of short overalls and thick plaid jacket, but I was greeted with all of Vancouver’s rain: I realized my mistake during my ride-share to the San Francisco airport.… read more

Tasting

Bay/Bae Wines for Bay/Bae Moments

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This city is doing things to me. I willingly and happily went to a networking event, you guys! I mean, it was themed which made it as enticing as free booze at straight equivalents of such events: it was hosted at Oasis by Out in Tech, a company which focusses on LGBTQ+ folks in the tech world. I’ve attended the venue before, in the form of drag shows and fuzzy evenings, but upon a night of networking, it got packed real quickly, the drink lines as straight as the room’s sexualities.

I’m exclaiming my excitement for a queer tech networking event, yet weeks later I’m stoked about a regular one. 20-year-old me is grimacing at 25-year-old me. Also, you know you’ve reached peak queer tech when someone’s name tag says that they work at “U-bear”.… read more

Tasting

On Sonoma and my 4th Wine Bloggers Conference

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I vigorously decided not to attend the Wine Bloggers Conference this year (in Santa Rosa) until the very last minute. Why not go? I live in San Francisco, and the theme for the previous Tuesday’s California Wine Appellation Specialist class was, well, Sonoma. A sign. Even though I missed all the early bird discounts, I decided that I would be absolutely insane not to attend. After some nudges from fellow wine attendees and comforting caresses to my bank account, I clutched the part of my chest that encased my liver and headed up.

I can’t believe it’s already been my fourth year! I still remember my first, which brought me to the relatively nearby Santa Barbara region after I earned a scholarship to attend.… read more

Tasting

My Chablis drag name is Kimmeridgian Kardashian

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The last memorable time I had Chablis was a premier cru during a first date at an oyster bar. The lusher version of the wine seemed right for what I remember was slightly chilly weather, and what tensity that remained in the wine matched the nervousness of said date. To skip to the last chapter: the same day I received a text from him wanting to end things was the same day I found out I had an opportunity to move out of the city. I’ll save the gritty middle details for never, but maybe I’ll reveal them one day in that pipe dream of a book involving people I’ve dated and the wines that accompanied said adventures.

Anyway, that’s one of my Chablis stories.… read more

Tasting

Napa’s 2017

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Napa. Its seemingly daunting wine is made up of relatively simply shaped sub-regions. The clean-cut sixteen seem well-fit into a geographical puzzle compared to the overlapping Russian nesting doll appellations of every other region in California, and I am 100% here for that.

I finally ended last week’s mental tug-of-war on whether or not to attend the Wine Bloggers Conference in neighbouring Santa Rosa, and I’ve decided to go but with as much cost-cutting as possible. Though it was super fun, one of the most interesting sessions was the discussion on the recent wine country fires: the panel included George Rose, photographer; Patsy McGaughy, of Napa Valley Vintners; and Pierre Bierbent, winemaker of Signorello Estates.

The descriptions and statistics of the damage were heartbreaking, including 75,000 total acres burned and 652 homes lost. … read more