All right gang, let’s go with October 11th. I will host the dinner in my dining room. Some things we need to nail down immediately.
Who is coming? I want to hold this to 9 people, plus your host. To make this fair, I’m not going to to control attendance, making this first come, first in, up to 9 people. No plus +1s, with my reasoning outlined previously on Page 1. I know we have Nor Cal folks interested, others in OC and LA. Someone is going to get shut out and I wish we could go bigger but to have a discussion and size mix that works, we need to maintain a smaller group. I apologize now to anyone who may get shut out, truly.
Food? I’d like to bring a chef in so we don’t have to fart with the food. We can explore this further once the attendance is set.
Wines? I offered a suggested theme on the bottom of Page 1, and it would seem Option A, which is less aggressive works best for everyone. I would recommend we limit this to 12 wines, 14 max. We can decide which and vet my suggested line-up once we get attendance set.
That’s it. I know we’re way out but I plan ahead, let’s get things going on.
I am in. How about Chards at 5PM and spacing out the tasting to give us some time to relax between flights?
Happy to help with whatever is needed to get ready.
Frank - would love to attend, but too far out to confirm. Please put me in the first wait list spot and perhaps I can jump in if someone has to drop later.
Guys, my table will hold 12 people pretty well and that amount is still conducive to the tasting having the right portion of wine for each pour. Let’s move to 12 total, which brings Ramon and Tom into the party, and a full table.
Steve, we’ll wait list you for now and then you contact me when you know your schedule for 10/11.
As for the dinner, we have lots of time between now and October, obviously. As time permits for the 11 of you that will be coming over, let’s start having some discussion about how we want the flights to go, the amount of wines we want to flight, how we think about the balance of chard, syrah and pinot, and then of course start time and how we want to array food, whether it’s with a chef or we bring in. Based on the excellent work I believe Tom’s chef did at the recent chardonnay dinner, we could have that option, or we can assess the new chef I will be using for a different event that is coming up on 8/16. Plenty of choice.
Glad we’re off and running, let’s have a great event.
Regarding the event, starting with Frank’s initial suggestion: Chardonnay: 4 wines…2 years each of Alpine and 'Shoe.
Pinot Noir: 8 wines…2 each of Skyline, Swan Terrace, Alpine and 'Shoe
Syrah: 2 wines…pick a vintage and let’s do one each of Skyline and 'Shoe
Do we focus on a single vintage? Or a short vertical with one bottle from each of two vintages? (Small pours)
Would it be better to focus on a single variety (Pinot or Syrah) rather than taking both on? Might allow a more in-depth exploration?
Just thinking out loud (always dangerous). I guess I’m just wondering how focused or broad everyone would like the tasting to be. Looking forward to this!