Wine 2.0 Expo at Crush Pad, San Francisco
Boy did I pick the right profession or what? Finally, after working in many different careers since 1975 I have it right! Wine. Yes, my career is wine, food and travel! Jealous? You should be! This week was quite a week full with long, labored hours of absolute torture! It all started last Saturday. We spent 9 hours in Sonoma, going to three wineries, one restaurant and a walk to a chocolate shop. Three days later I had to force myself to go into San Francisco to go to a top-100 restaurant for a winemaker’s dinner they were hosting at Kuletos. You can’t even imagine how I had to force the food and wine down my throat, every-single-course! By the way, that was 5 food courses and 6 wines (if you were counting). A couple nights later, there we were back in S.F. to attend Wine 2.0 Expo sponsored by Crush Pad.
Crush Pad is a facility for those who want to make wine, but don’t have the facility or the know how. The Crush Pad offers everything from winemaking education, the grape resources, the facilities where the winemakers do everything from crush to bottling with as much or as little input from you. They even a graphic department to help you design your label. At the end (including storage time) you leave with a cases of your own wine.
I didn’t really know what to expect at this event since we didn’t go last year. Larry knows Bob Smith who is in the EDA industry and is the co-owner of Jazz Cellars, who uses Crush Pad to make his wine. Bob hooked us up with some discounted tickets for the event. Thanks Bob! There had to have been over 50 wineries represented there. Each winery had a small spot to pour their wines and to schmooze with their guests. Most of the wineries there were ones I had never heard of. Most of them make no more than 6,000 cases a year. It was a pretty localized group of wineries, most from San Francisco and north, with quite a few from Napa Valley.
The ticket (which was $45.00 for one and $70 for two in advance) included a (non-logo) glass to go and taste as much wine in a three-hour period as one could handle. There was a little bit of food such as sour dough rolls, cubed cheese, flat-rolled sandwiches and water. Larry and I were smart and ate a light dinner before leaving the house. I found a table showcasing chocolates! Yeah! It was the company Tcho, which is locally based in San Francisco. Well, let's just say that next to the wine, the chocolate was my second favorite thing of the evening. The crowd of nearly 1,000 was very lively. I would say the average age was about 30. Crush Pad had a few fun things going on such as- Twitter.live had a couple screens showing live feed of tweets. A lot of people there were tweeting! They had loud music, which just added more noise to the already noisy room, they had a raffle and offered picture taking in silly poses which they then posted onto the wall for all to see.
Being fairly new to this industry it was nice when we saw some familiar faces from people we met last October at the Wine Bloggers Conference. We especially enjoyed tasting and talking with Kaz from Kaz Vineyard and Winery in Kenwood who also happens to be the co-anchor with Randy (who was there too) on Wine Biz Radio, Thea from Vinquire in San Francisco, Susan & Katherine from Gundlach Bundschu Winery in Sonoma, Tucker from Fantesca Estate and Winery in St. Helena, Stephen from Segue Cellars in Mill Valley, Cooper-Garrod Vineyards in Saratoga, Fulton and Dink from David Fulton Winery and Vineyards in St. Helena, Khristopher at Round Pond Estate in Rutherford, Cindy and Deborah from Bink Wines in Yorkville Highlands, and Dave from Crush Pad in San Francisco.
We had a great evening, a little tiring on the feet, but I’m sure you don’t care about my feet! I feel that everyone in the room last night, for three hours, was feeling no financial or emotional pain. Wine cures all (at least temporarily)! And that is what every one hoped to achieve and I think did.
Crush Pad is a facility for those who want to make wine, but don’t have the facility or the know how. The Crush Pad offers everything from winemaking education, the grape resources, the facilities where the winemakers do everything from crush to bottling with as much or as little input from you. They even a graphic department to help you design your label. At the end (including storage time) you leave with a cases of your own wine.
I didn’t really know what to expect at this event since we didn’t go last year. Larry knows Bob Smith who is in the EDA industry and is the co-owner of Jazz Cellars, who uses Crush Pad to make his wine. Bob hooked us up with some discounted tickets for the event. Thanks Bob! There had to have been over 50 wineries represented there. Each winery had a small spot to pour their wines and to schmooze with their guests. Most of the wineries there were ones I had never heard of. Most of them make no more than 6,000 cases a year. It was a pretty localized group of wineries, most from San Francisco and north, with quite a few from Napa Valley.
The ticket (which was $45.00 for one and $70 for two in advance) included a (non-logo) glass to go and taste as much wine in a three-hour period as one could handle. There was a little bit of food such as sour dough rolls, cubed cheese, flat-rolled sandwiches and water. Larry and I were smart and ate a light dinner before leaving the house. I found a table showcasing chocolates! Yeah! It was the company Tcho, which is locally based in San Francisco. Well, let's just say that next to the wine, the chocolate was my second favorite thing of the evening. The crowd of nearly 1,000 was very lively. I would say the average age was about 30. Crush Pad had a few fun things going on such as- Twitter.live had a couple screens showing live feed of tweets. A lot of people there were tweeting! They had loud music, which just added more noise to the already noisy room, they had a raffle and offered picture taking in silly poses which they then posted onto the wall for all to see.
Being fairly new to this industry it was nice when we saw some familiar faces from people we met last October at the Wine Bloggers Conference. We especially enjoyed tasting and talking with Kaz from Kaz Vineyard and Winery in Kenwood who also happens to be the co-anchor with Randy (who was there too) on Wine Biz Radio, Thea from Vinquire in San Francisco, Susan & Katherine from Gundlach Bundschu Winery in Sonoma, Tucker from Fantesca Estate and Winery in St. Helena, Stephen from Segue Cellars in Mill Valley, Cooper-Garrod Vineyards in Saratoga, Fulton and Dink from David Fulton Winery and Vineyards in St. Helena, Khristopher at Round Pond Estate in Rutherford, Cindy and Deborah from Bink Wines in Yorkville Highlands, and Dave from Crush Pad in San Francisco.
We had a great evening, a little tiring on the feet, but I’m sure you don’t care about my feet! I feel that everyone in the room last night, for three hours, was feeling no financial or emotional pain. Wine cures all (at least temporarily)! And that is what every one hoped to achieve and I think did.
Posted by Wine Travels With Lori at 4/3/2009 9:12 PM 
Categories: wine, conference, san francisco
Tags: sonoma cheese chocolate napa california conference wineries san francisco wine
Categories: wine, conference, san francisco
Tags: sonoma cheese chocolate napa california conference wineries san francisco wine
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