Grape Encounters Wine Radio

Total Wine & More

This week's edition of Grape Encounters Radio begins with an important announcement that we couldn't be more pleased to tell you about.  Total Wine & More, America's leading wine retailer, has joined the Grape Encounters Bandwagon as our lead sponsor. The sponsorship extends through the end of the year and gives us the opportunity to vastly expand our reach.

On this week show, we talk to the Lodi Winegrape Commission’s Executive Director, Stuart Spencer. If there was ever a wine region that should be on everyone's radar but isn't, it's Lodi. Lodi is a massive region providing grapes to winemakers in many other regions. Even though you may not know it, there's a better than good chance that you have enjoyed Lodi wines without knowing it, for a very long time. What's this about?  Next, we move on to the region of Clarksburg, California, and joining us is the Executive Director of the Clarksburg Wine Growers and Vintners Association, Tom Merwin.

This is a truly awesome region that is nestled in the Sacramento River Delta, where you can spend days, if not weeks, if not months, roaming around the area by house boat without ever seeing much of any sign of civilization  What you can do is park alongside a levy, climb up the embankment and visit a wide variety of amazing wineries that are definitely off your radar, but incredibly wonderful.

Finally, on today's show, Tony Corrallo of Trium Wines tells us how he went from becoming a wine club member to the winery owner. Also joining Tony is Jacob Colmenero of the Asante Foundation. He's the Development Officer of this organization, which puts on one of the finest wine events in America; The Oregon Wine Experience. Grape Encounters will be at the Oregon Wine Experience in late August, and you should join us there!  Learn more about this amazing event and the incredible good that it does for children with health issues in their part of the country. They are not the only ones that use wine as a way to benefit people in need, but this is certainly one of the great events that shows just how much good can be done with a bottle of wine.

This week's edition of Grape Encounters Radio is brought to you by Total Wine & More.

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A Landmark Wine Decision in the Supreme Court; Tennessee Wine vs Thomas

Our guest today is Tom Wark, President of Wark Communications and author of the Fermentations Blog. The Supreme Court just handed down a landmark decision when it comes to changes in wine retail laws and wine shipping. It's all great news for wine consumers, but it's also very complicated and Tom does a great job of making the information more understandable to the general public.

The conversation moves on to what wine consumers really want. Tom has got some incredible insights into this particular topic and you won't want to miss what he has to say.

The conversation ends with a very important discussion on millennials.  For a long time now, the wine industry has seen this demographic group as the most important area of focus when it comes to marketing, but is that really true?  In reality, we're beginning to learn that other demographic groups are being neglected at the expense of millennials who are not quite convinced as of yet that wine is their thing.  Hear Tom's insights into this subject and more on this week's edition of Grape Encounters Radio.

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David talks with Allan Green, Director of the International Canned Wine Competition... Allan has been in the wine business for more than 45 years. His experience includes directing and organizing the Mendocino County Fair Wine Competition, which he helped start in 1979, for most of the last thirty years. He also created and hosted the California Wine Tasting Championships from 1983 through 2012. During his more than 35 years as a winemaker and grape grower he became interested in canned wine, and since 1980 has assembled a collection of more than 1,100 different wine cans.

In segment four, David talks about latest packaging trends in wine, the most popular varietals which remain, no surprise, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, though other varietals are creeping up... Listen to find out more!

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Wine hangovers, grape skin and sulfite allergies. There are perhaps fewer people who dislike wine than people who say that wine dislikes them. Most would love to drink red wine especially, but don't because they think they're suffering from some sort of allergy. Today’s episode of Grape Encounters is a great opportunity for you to wrap your arms around what's really going on with these wine ailments because you may be abstaining and you may not need to do that.

David’s guest on this week’s show is Dr. Felicia Stoler. Dr. Stoler has a Master of Science degree and a Double Masters in Nutrition and Exercise Science. She’s a registered dietician, nutritionist and exercise physiologist. She’s also a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, a fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and is Board Certified in Lifestyle Medicine from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. And for our purposes, she’s a leading expert of the subjects of wine hangovers, wine-related allergies and, what may be the biggest culprit, histamine intolerance.

Not only will you learn what may be going on in terms of negative reactions to wine, you’ll also hear about an amazing supplement that can minimize or eliminate intolerance.

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David talks with  Scott Black, Brand Manager of Krug Winery, about Krug Sunset Cinema events.

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Catching Up on the Latest Wine News

There's been a lot to talk about in the news in the past couple of weeks and we need to get you caught up. Grape Encounters Announcer Brentanamo joins David in the studio to banter about some of the hottest topics of the day, including Vladimir Putin's wine estate in Spain and the storage of his massive wine collection in Moldovan Caves.

Next up is wine competitions and wine judging, including the important things that you really need to know.

Then, the wines served in first class and even economy on airlines. It's not all bad news and you shouldn't resist the temptation to purchase a bottle or two when you're heading from Point A to Point B.

Finally, the relationship between wine and personality, it's much more significant than you think, and you'll be very surprised to learn that your personality speaks volumes about your preferences in wine. Yeah.

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Tim Hanni, Master of Wine, Certified Wine Educator, Wine Industry Faculty, Sonoma State University

Why Wine Rules Were Meant to be Broken, Featuring the First US Master of Wine, Tim Hani

This is an encore presentation of a show that we ran a few months ago. We felt that it was important to rerun it because a number of people told us that they didn't get a chance to hear it, and Tim's comments on wine rules and how much we've got it wrong are epic. Please take a little while to listen to this show. It will change everything that you think about wine and wine pairing.

David is on with Tim Hanni, Master of Wine, someone who has been making headlines throughout his career and especially recently with his maverick ideas and opinions on wine and the industry's inherent fallacies about wine tastes and wine & food pairings. Tim has a great book out, Why You Like the Wines You Like: Changing the way the world thinks about wine. Check out this great interview full of sensory enlightenment.

Tim is also a Wine Educator, and has a new course available about really understanding the wine business, check it out here.

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Nancy Light of the Wine Institute

David talks with Nancy Light of the Wine Institute about family-friendly wineries. Nancy Light is Vice President of Communications for the Wine Institute, the public policy association of 1,000 California wineries and affiliated businesses dedicated to enhancing the environment for the responsible consumption and enjoyment of wine.

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It’s never a dull moment when Wes Hagen, one of David’s best buddies in the wine business joins the conversation to talk about the real truths related to wine. In this episode, David and Wes, who is renowned in the wine business and also the winemaker for J. Wilkes in the Santa Ynez Valley of California’s Central Coast, address some of the major trends taking hold in the wine industry. Chances are, you’ll welcome the trends that are transforming the industry.

This is an eye-opening episode that you won’t want to miss. One of the trends that David and Wes address include the shattering of rules related to wine pairing. Even some of the world’s most renowned Somms are questioning conventional wisdom.

Also, there’s a growing affection toward Riesling that is really taking hold. When was the last time that you had one?  Another major trend is the migration of wine drinkers toward rosé wines. If you think they’re strictly sweet wines, you’ve been hanging around White Zinfandel too long. Other topics include Orange Wine, Cabernet Franc and much more!  This edition of Grape Encounters is brought to you by Total Wine and More.

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Pure Fun Plus Some Serious Ranting!

David’s announcer Brentanamo (a winemaker himself) joins in on the conversation as David vents his disgust for all of the crazy names that wine critics love to give themselves.  You know, there’s just a whole lot of people out there calling themselves the grand guru of all things wine and that’s just the beginning. On this show, David and his announcer make a plea to wine enthusiasts to just set aside the pretentiousness and simply have a good time.

What should those of us who are enthusiastic about wine call ourselves? David and Brentanamo explore some possibilities that might just help to bring things down to earth, one of which is simply having a great time in the tasting room without getting too hung up on those sometimes-annoying tasting notes.

This edition of Grape Encounters is brought to you by Total Wine and More.

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